Hostage to fear

[Spacetime]

I have been an atheist for two years now.  Prior to that I was agnostic while I was making my transition from christianity to atheism.  I struggled with the concept of hell for awhile while making my transition to atheism.  It is very hard to let go of that fear when you have been brainwashed for so long.  Elaine Pagels book, Origin of Satan, is a good place to start.  It is helpful to see where these myths came from and how they manifested into what they currently are re: hell and Satan.  I would also recommend Bart Ehrman's book The Bible: A Historical and Literary Introduction.  People from biblical times used to believe that the sun past through the underworld (i.e. hell).  This is the mindset of the people you are dealing with in terms of mythos.

Thanks for the recommendations. I'll check out Pagels book. I've got several of Ehrman's on the way too.

I think it was a video of the discussion between the "four horsemen of atheism" wherein they discussed the possibility that the human mind evolved with this innate need to project things on the unknown to find comfort. Either way, Christianity is so full of logical fallacy that the more I learned, the less I believed. I took the Apostles Creed and cut it down to what I could marginally believe as a statement of "faith"....

"I believe in the possibility of a God and all things measurable.
And in most of what Christ said.
He was crucified under Pontius Pilate,
and suffered and was buried."

That pretty much does it. Now I can't even say the profession of faith, which is irony because I spent months reading about the filioque. I don't like to look at it as time wasted, but if you added up all the hours... /hand to head/ I just estimated a low ball estimate on my phone's calculator. Never mind, it was a total waste.

Thanks for your encouragement though!