A psychological approch to how religion works

[OnlyNatural]

1- Repentance to a higher power is not a replacement for personal accountability, it’s in addition to. I also thing you’re getting way too hung up on an overly misused connotation of the word sinner.

The word 'sinner' doesn't particularly bother me, it's just the idea behind it. Maybe you have a different definition of it than I do, 'one who sins or does wrong, transgresses (according to God), and has not repented yet.'

Let me give you my “inside perspective”.
My guilt = comes from something I’ve done or thought about doing
If the conviction of the guilt is strong enough it creates an emotional response that requires action for relief.
Reparations need to be made if there are outside parties that are affected.
Personal accountability or “owning up” to your part needs to be made (external and internal accountability)

Yep, pretty much what I said, that's the experience of most people when they feel guilty.

It just so happens we also believe that there is a further judge other than ourselves that will judge us eternally. It either exists or doesn’t (no one can really know, but for me it’s indicative and therefore likely. We (as an addendum) add another layer of repentance and accountability on top of the corporeal one. It does not detract from any of the previous steps.

Okay, so you add on an extra layer of accountability and repentance to a supreme being, for which there is no evidence (except for your own feelings, or that it makes sense to you personally). That just seems so unnecessary, to put your stock in something that may or may not exist, but we can never be sure. Might as well give your full attention to those other corporeal people around you who are most certainly affected by your actions.

No I don’t follow all of the laws prescribed to God ever recorded. I use my own personal morality, the urging of the Holy Spirit and Jesus’ teaching about the root or core of the laws of Moses.

Well, you'd really have to cherry-pick the Bible and the teachings of Jesus/Moses to find guidance for a good moral compass that's acceptable in today's world. If you say the Holy Spirit is guiding you to follow the right teachings, that may just be your conscience, your personal sense of morality, the voice in your head that all of us have. Assuming there's a God leads to mislabeling a normal human phenomenon.

The responsibility is all mine though. The teaching you’re referring to seem heavily influenced by Calvinism, which I believe is a minority view in Christendom at this juncture of history.

I would hope it's a minority view, but somehow I still think there are lots of evangelists and fundies out there preaching hellfire and damnation for the sinful.

it’s always good to questions your ideologies. I’d be careful not to reject part of ideology solely for presentations sake though, which admittedly quite a few atheists I’ve met have.

So you're saying it's good to question an ideology but be careful not to reject part of it? (or if you do, do it honestly)

Honestly questioning your ideologies often leads to rejecting parts of them or rejecting the entire belief outright. With unsupported beliefs, it's almost inevitable that scrutinizing them makes you realize that it doesn't all add up. It's just that certain beliefs (like 'God exists') are not questioned, because apparently they don't need evidence, they just need faith.