This is apparently a so very Christian a thing to say, but to me it as far apart from what a true Christian is, as the east is from the west.
But this is very typical of so-called Christians, namely, “I become a Christian, I chose Christ, etc because ‘I care about myself too much to want to be in misery’”. (And they also conveniently forgot that you dont and cannot choose God. God chose you.)
Indeed the “why” you are a Christian is the very mark that separates you from the world. For do not all the world love themselves and their happiness and well being? And they will worship anything that gives them these, be it money, or the devil, and maybe even bet on the Christian God.
There can be no reasons to be a Christian but one: that you love God, and God alone. To love yourself is idolatory!
If being happier and a ‘better person’ is what you seek, you had better see a psychologist then to seek the Christian God, for his call is one of trials and tribulations, and of rejection and pain, and not of ‘happiness’.
The reason Christianity have been so water-downed, so popularised, made to appeal to the base instincts, is to make the numbers grow. There is not a little truth in Futureman’s view that money is the driving force in today’s churches, their true god.