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So for a while I was one of those annoying atheists/secularists/skeptics who just couldn’t stay away from arguing with fundamentalist, evangelical Christians. What did I take away from that, apart from “This is not the Christianity I grew up with”?

Thought 1: The Christianity that was presented to me addresses our naturally flawed human natures by forcing us to come to terms with them, by making it punishable to be anything other than perfect. It does not merely propose a valid-for-all objective Überstandard, it also ties that standard up with the notion of an all-powerful, judging God who will punish us not even though but because we, “fallen” critters that we are, are inherently incapable of living up to it. Once you believe this, you can’t just hope to make the threat go away by ignoring it or by telling yourself you’re a Good Person. There’s no such thing as a Good Person.

Thought 2: Even “Jesus died for our sins” can’t possibly change us if we don’t believe it to be a meaningful statement. How many people would want to return to a punishing God if they didn't believe it at all possible they’d be welcomed back? Belief in unearned forgiveness is the terrified, imperfect human being’s Peace-with-Perfection-maker. It is not about bribing our way into heaven.

Thought 3: Perhaps belief is not actually about the beyond, either. Even the beyond doesn’t often seem to be about the beyond. It’s really about the here and now. Oh, sure: Unlike the here and now, it never, ever ends, or changes, or offers opportunities for reform, rehabilitation, reconciliation, reincarnation, restoration, revolution. Why’s that? Because it’s a single moment of “too late”, only rolled out like unimaginably much cookie dough. Whatever state we die in, we'll find ourselves in an eternity to match.

So belief is about making you well until then, reconciled with the inevitable. Some come to love it and some, I suspect, come to hate themselves enough not to sinfully take their own sides in their not-love of it.

Thought 4: And none of that has anything to do with God demanding bloody “payment”. That's just what worked for the people at the time. And then it coalesced into the Bible and now we’re not allowed to override it with our own ideas even though we wouldn’t usually think executing an innocent could do something to break the power of sin. But that's a different thread of woolly a-theology.