Beyond Complaint and Some Other Thoughts

I have spent a lot of time on this blog being angry and complaining.  I spent (and may possibly spend more) time focusing on injustices (perceived?).  I have even deleted some entries because they were really really whiny and self-absorbed, much to my embarrassment.
I now spend time seeking understanding.  I want to move to a state of resolution and acceptance.  I am aiming high on that one.  I don't think it will ever be a completed action.  I think too damned much for that.
I have a couple of thoughts in rough draft right now.  I just have to polish them up and look up some references before I publish them.
The subject I will be covering is decision and knowledge based on human sources vs divine sources.  Are they at odds?  Why?
I came to this topic at my local game store.  I had previously bought a key chain with a miniature eight ball on it there.  My uncle admired it so I gave it to him.  My keys (all two of them..if keys signify importance in the world, I don't rate) are free floating on a flimsy little ring so I went in there to find another muddled symbol of my current viewpoint.  I found a poker chip key chain for three bucks.  Didn't want to put less than five dollars on my debit card (due to principles unknown even to me) so I was wandering around looking for something else that was small, cheap and entertaining.
I came across "gipsy fortune telling cards" (verbatim), brand name Piatnik and made in Austria.  (Later research says that they aren't tarot but rather tarock cards, whatever the hell that means and I don't really care)
Oooooo, says my feminine nature...knowledge!  Possibly forbidden!  I wandered around the store some more because I didn't want to get something that would displease a Christian God.  Then I bought them anyway.
I was laying in bed examining them this morning.  They are interesting.  Why these symbols?
**future research/post: card types-are they archetypes?**
I laid out the cards like the instruction manual (brief and vague) indicated.  There were some interesting ideas there.  Purely subjective.  Fascinating.
Part of the reason I am such a profoundly lousy Christian is that I would rather question things and come to my own conclusions than read the Bible and pray.  This stems from my basically rebellious nature which is pretty darned bad, according to the Bible.  I can plead that I am a victim of circumstance, stepped on and bullied by one particular screwed up grownup throughout childhood.  Push me too far, I am likely to push back rather than turn the other cheek.
Not that I am trying to upset any divine entity.  But you get the idea on my general nature..when I am not feeling indifferent, that is.  Balance this out with bouts of extreme guilt and that is what being bi-polar is, in part...to me.
I am just rambling here.  Next couple of posts will be more focused.  I know cos I already wrote them.  So all 1.5 of my readers have some more convoluted concepts to look forward to.

Hell. Again.

I have had a serious problem with the concept of hell.  I did gain a new insight last night, however.  I was chatting online with someone who is a new-age type of person.  He was berating the church for the concept of hell.  I was telling him that I have had this viewpoint too.  Then I had a thought that gave me pause. 
"What to do with someone like..oh..Hitler?"  Would Hitler be a good candidate for hell?  Hell is a place of punishment for those who need justice served to them.  So...should there be a hell to hold people like Hitler?  Should there be justice for those he committed heinous crimes against?
I asked my online acquaintance this question.  He did not seem to have an answer.  I don't know completely what I think about this either.  But there is definitely one viable candidate for a place like hell that I know of.  There is at least one human being in need of divine judgement. 

Deletes and Updates

When I used to religiously keep a written journal, I went through several books and many of them, I destroyed because I ended up hating what I wrote.  Flushed an entire journal down the toilet once.
So I did a virtual flush on here by deleting some of my more self-righteous or self-pitying posts.
The difference here is that I am sharing my thought with other people and opening myself to...?  Criticism?  Approval?
Been going to church regularly.  Terrible at reading the Bible.  Terrible.  And there is always a running dialogue on my head about everything regarding Christianity.  But I think I am at a turning point.  I have found some good ways to live and to think outside of the religion box.  But they are not the Best Way.  They are not the Highest Way.  So far, the best way seems to be Christianity.  I know this from trial and error.  I know this from throwing it all away and taking it all back.  I know this from asking every kind of tiresome, self righteous question, from every doubt, from every condemnation of whatever power is out there.  When I was a kid, I stuck my feet under the bed in my dark bedroom to see if there was a monster there.  Still doing that.new thought added on 5/5/12:  why does Christianity work for me?  How does it not work for me?  I feel so differently today than when I originally wrote this post.  Sigh

Long Time

So I haven't been on here in a long time.  A lot has gone on.  I returned to Christianity and now I find myself with doubts again.  I don't think I will return to the atheist viewpoint again though.  I did have a thought that regardless of whether I believe there is or isn't a God, there is or isn't a God.  It has nothing to do with my beliefs.  Either there is or there isn't.  In a backwards kind of way, this gives me some peace.  It is not up to me and my thoughts.  I need not prove or disprove anything because things are as they should be.
I did rebuild from atheism or the belief that there is no higher being to the belief that there is.  Where Jesus Christ fits in this precisely, I don't know.  It is my right as a human being to pursue these lines of thought and it is my right to change my mind on things as I grow as a person.  Mainly, I believe in love.  Everything else flows from there.

Some Problems

I have some issues with hell. God (if you believe in Christianity) created hell. I am often puzzled by popular portrayals of hell in which the devil is in charge. Hell is God's place. He conceived the idea.
The way I understand it is that a perfect and perfectly just God must judge the unrighteous and punish them. Hence hell.
According to the Bible, we are born sinners because of the fall of man thanks to Adam and Eve. That is one strike against us. Then we must believe in Jesus Christ as the Bible describes him and accept the Bible as truth, something that can be very very very difficult. Another strike against us.
Are we being judged fairly?
I'm not so sure.

Eternal Reward

I am feeling badly for myself today. I am having many difficulties in life. When I was a Christian, I had that hope of reward, the hope of the Celestial Parent giving me a hug and saying "Hey, sorry about all that. I'm here to make it better" at the end of my life.
What is it called? Validation. Yes, validation is what I'd hoped for in the afterlife. It was comforting.
Now I have no comfort. I haven't come up with a replacement security blanket. My life just seems pointless, the suffering I've endured, all the crazy shit that happens in the world. It doesn't have any rhyme or reason for me. I don't have a reference point.
One can learn from painful experiences but how many lessons are there? How much redundant crap does one have to go through? I don't buy that whole thing either.
I feel empty. I feel powerless.
Should I return to Christianity, to something I've always had a hard time with? To the fear of hell and the burden of heaven? Should I return to belief in a god who, at best, is somewhat impotent, and, at worst, willingly allows evil?
I've got nothin'.

Introduction and History

"The existence of a world without God seems to me less absurd than the presence of a God, existing in all his perfection, creating an imperfect man in order to make him run the risk of Hell." [Armand Salacrou, "Certitudes et incertitudes," 1943]

Hello, I am an atheist. I wasn't always an atheist. It was a long journey to arrive at this much-maligned belief (or lack of belief?). When I was a child, I was in a cult until I was 11 years old. Then my family turned to Catholicism, which I did not. I turned to alcohol.
At age 19, I got sober through a Twelve-Step organization. A month later, I became a "born-again" Christian.
It was easy to get involved in the church since I had a friend there who introduced me to others. I threw my whole heart into belief. As Carl Jung has described, I focused on the things that upheld my beliefs and ignored those that did not.
I sampled several types of Christianity-I've been involved with a fundamentalist church, I have cast out "demons", I have believed in prophesies, I studied the Bible and prayed earnestly, trusting (as a child would-that's the ideal, right?) that God was in control.
I discussed Christianity with my family and boyfriend (later to be my husband), wanting them to believe as I did, wanting them to go to heaven rather than hell.
Original sin made sense to me. Bad things that happened to me were God's will to discipline me or the fault of the devil.
This went on for twenty years.
Then I began to see things differently.