Amidst the years at college and the pursuit of truth and meaning of existence, I've come to the following conclusions:

• There is clearly a higher being - a diety - a God - who designed and orchestrated this universe into its current stable state. Anyone who knows two cents about dynamic systems knows how difficult it is to construct them. Entropy states that all of those that we see about us will eventually diverge to non-existence. We have observed that about us through the short period in human history for which we have been documenting history unfolding about us. Despite this, we still see amazing feats of technological, algorithmic, and artistic intelligence in nature about us. Heck, the latest trend is to rip off nature for designs' sake, because humans aren't smart enough to think up these things on their own. Guess where the invention of the zipper came from. Guess why ant-movement-simulations applied to internet packet sending algorithms outperform current implementations. Are you willing to believe that pure randomness outperforms human will? Randomness subject to entropy at that? I believe all this is evidence to conclude that there is an Author of it all. I believe this God designed such a perfect reality to share and express God's very own perfection.
• Along with setting all things into a perfect state, this Creator designed us for the purpose of enjoying and maintaining that perfect state. I believe this God designed us at the pinnacle of His creation. In terms of complexity of behavior we are definately up there. Last I checked we were the only species on the planet who is constantly transcending their defined niche in nature. I believe God designed us to be loving (i.e. via charity, empathy, etc - not solely romance, as love's popular definition is. Remember, the root of the word friend is old-Germanic for love) to one another, in accordance with maintaining the state of perfection for which God designed reality.
• I believe we've all fallen short of that. I've had my moments. I believe most people have had theirs too. We have the choice pressed to our hearts - our own imbued sense of advocating or abandoning Love - and we tend to take the wrong direction. As a result of not operating correctly amidst the precisely orchestrated play, we are the primary cause of why this machine of reality is slowly winding down and decaying about us - in both observable and unobservable ways. We are just as well the primary causes of our own demise. I believe result of our own ill choices is that, having chosen imperfection, we are no longer able to become reunited with a perfect God. As being perfect, God must do away with us to maintain perfection.
• I believe that perfection embodies both justice and mercy. I believe God, as a perfectly loving and intelligent diety, saw our self-orchestrated demise coming and prepared a way out for us. I believe God, rather than taking out on us the punishment due to us, sent His only begotten Son to walk among us, to set us back on the right road (the Straight Street if you will), and ultimately to die for us: to take on that due punishment in our place. I believe His name is Jesus Christ.
  Jesus shared how there was no greater demonstration of love than to lay your life down for another. He shared how that was His very purpose: to take the hit for the team, to carry the weight that all of you and I have gathered upon ourselves through our faults. He had come, to die, for you and me. The only thing left for us to do is simply confess He is who He is and He did what He did for us, and apologize for those faults we have committed.

If you take Jesus at His word, you'll see He left no room for anyone else. Jesus states that He is the only way back to God, the Father. Jesus states that no one who came before Him were not who they claimed to be. In the end of every gospel, Jesus explains to His followers that many will come after Him claiming to be Him, and will decieve many. For these reasons, ecumenical spiritual movements to unify all faiths are nothing more than self-gratification. If you accept other gods and 'accept' Jesus Christ then you sure aren't taking Jesus at His Word. In fact, last I checked, this is what the devil offered to do for Jesus: to unify all the people under Him. Jesus later made it clear to us that His purpose was not for bringing everyone together, but rather to initiate the conflict between good and evil, and to thus separate those who are willing to live lives loving, forgiving, merciful, and humble, from those who would rather do their own thing apart from God.

Here are some non-Christian writers of the first century who acknowledge Jesus:

• Tacitus, born 52-54 AD, one of the greater Roman historians of his day, wrote in 112 AD recollections of Jesus' death in Judaea at the hands of Pontius Pilate. He cited how belief in Jesus' words spread not only from there but also to Rome soon after.
• Josephus, a Jewish historian, born in 37 AD, recorded death of James, the brother of Jesus. How James and several others were stoned to death after testifying to be followers of Jesus.
• Pliny the Younger, a friend of Tacitus and Governor of Bithynia in Asia Minor was aware of the following of Jesus during his time as well. He observed in them reverence to Jesus Christ as if He were God, and a mutual dedication amongst all believers of Jesus to do no wicked deeds or false words.
• Suetonius also records how Christians were punished by Nero and expelled from Rome.

Here are the historical comparisons between historical documents of Jesus, and those of other commonly known sources:

• Homer's Iliad was created near 900 BC. The 643 ancient texts that have since been recovered have been dated within a range of 500 years from that original text.
• Sophocles' writings are dated back to just after 500 BC. The 193 original texts that have been found are dated over a range of 1400 years from the original.
• Plato's texts are said to have originated just before 400 BC. Only 7 copies were found, with dates ranging over the next 1200 years.
• Caesar's work was originally composed near 100 BC. Ten copies were discovered with dates ranging over the next 1000 years.
• The New Testament documents, the recordings of Jesus, and the letters thereafter stored in the Bible, are originally dated to near the 100 AD. Around 24,000 copies have been found, all dated to within 50 years of one another.
• Not only is the number of documents vast in comparison (24,000 compared to 600, 200, or 10) but also the range in the time which the documents are historically dated (50 years' span, compared to 500, 1000, or 1400)