You don't have to believe.

One of the things that has bugged me for a long time and has been a driving force personally in my very vague career direction is people tacking things on to Christianity and forcing people to accept a whole bunch of stuff that is not, in fact, universal to Christianity. 

As far as I'm concerned, the Nicene Creed pretty much sums it up.* 

There are a whole bunch of things that people of all stripes add on that drive people away from Jesus.  So I'm going to list some of the things here that piss me off.

You do not have to believe:

1.  The earth is 6,000, or 10,000 or whatever years old.

2.  Evolution doesn't happen.

3.  God meticulously controls everything.

4.  God created evil.  Also under this heading: God planned the Holocaust, God plans for children to die, God plans serial killers, God endorses war.

5.  God likes or endorses patriarchy.

6.  Only certain special people control access to God.

7.  The Bible is an instruction book.

8.  God is obsessed with what you do with your genitals.

9.  The best Christian is an unthinking, blindly believing Christian.

10.  One slip-up in activity dooms you for life and/or eternity.

11.  Christianity is just a series of guidelines invented over the years to help people live better.

All of these things are things you can believe if you want.  I would argues that all of them are wrong, actually, but I don't condemn anyone for believing them.  But absolutely none of them are essential to being a Christian.

*Normally, I would have linked here to Wikipedia or whatever, but I'm actually working on my own translation of the Nicene Creed.  I'll probably unveil it some day.  In the meantime, GIYF.