God Yahweh Allah was a volcano.

[thesummerqueen]

Hannah -

You were sitting thinking in church and had a sudden thought and it made you doubt. That's to your credit - you should ask questions. However, instead of taking that question and parsing it out and doing as much research as possible and keeping an absolutely open mind, you did JUST ENOUGH research to validate your hypothesis (in your mind) and you're now excluding any other information. A Christian friend of mine calls this "The Sin of a Little Knowledge." You know just enough to be slightly dangerous.

It's not enough to find pieces of data that seem to fit what you're thinking - you have to lay that data out on a time line and come up with an acceptable conclusion that bears up under the scrutiny of your peers and your betters - something you seem to have a problem with. You don't trust expert opinion on the assumption that people can't change their ideas. You think you're so much better than most of humanity that it was easier for you to do this than anyone else?

I'm not against you delving into the psychology behind people coming up with the idea of a god. This sort of thing interests me too. However, I don't think you've displayed a deep enough knowledge about religion itself to be able to branch out into other areas looking for corroborating evidence. You've done this, but it feels scattered - not a tight hypothesis at all. Which is also fine - you're seeking knowledge but you become hostile when people correct you (even gently) because you're proud that you came up with something different from what all of the people at your church believed and it seems to me you don't want that taken away from you. It's okay. Really. You've said this is a work-in-progress, but you refuse any sort of help when it's actually offered simply because we're putting the wrong colored balls in your ball pit.

I hope you eventually make peace with whatever you find. Religion is far more interesting than relegating Yahweh to a volcano. Also, while I've been trying to skim through everything and catch all the points made, it's quite frankly been an extremely rough weekend on top of a rough week for me, so forgive me if someone's already suggested this: you should contact Dr. Bob Price. He's on Facebook under Robert M Price. He's written several books on Jesus, but his knowledge of theology and religion is breath-taking. He'll be able to give you some insights, and he's a very open and easy to reach man. He does a podcast as well where he answers questions from listeners. He's kind, and quite funny, and also an expert on HP Lovecraft, in case that sort of thing interests you. I can't recommend a better person for you to talk to about all your questions concerning the Judeo-Christian traditions. If he can't answer your questions, he can certainly put you in touch with people who can or give you reading suggestions. If you're open to learning and keeping your hypotheses flexible, of course.