Thanks for the welcome. I've lurked for a while, and to tell the truth, I kept trying to make accounts, but every name I came up with had been already taken. I lack originality, and out of that, my reddit life was born.

Well, I think I rushed through some of my wording, hoping to be concise (ha), but let's start with being saved. The term isn't biblical, and from everything I've learned the concept has been consistently tweaked, and probably born out of the bigtent-revivalist movement of mid to late 1800's America. I was raised by a moderate family in the Presbyterian church--a fairly liberal institution, attended a fairly evangelical non-denominational school from grade 6 until graduation. Growing up, we were consistently told we had to pray that Jesus would come stay in our heart, and that we had to pray him in; it had to be done on our own will. Biblically speaking nothing specifically implies this. The scriptures essentially speak to welcoming Christ into your lives, eg. Revelations 3:20, but I cannot recall a single verse that states you must pray Christ into your heart and then you're just cruising through life until your dead and heaven bound. I think my point is the verbiage and even concept of being saved is so American. From what I've read, I believe there can be a silent recognition of Jesus that would be much more profound than that of being saved and flaunting it in everyone's face. I truly believe Gandhi is probably kicking back in heaven, as he was vocal of his admiration for Christ, and lived a lifestyle far more reflective of his than the majority of mainstream American evangelicals who love to bash homosexuality, and pass judgment on everyone.

I wish I had more verses on hand, and wasn't too lazy to dig around a bit more. Jews didn't originally believe in heaven and hell; Sheol was the Jewish understanding of hell, and it simply referred to the pit, or grave--a place where all were cut off from God. According to wikipedia sources, Sheol was translated to Hades when things began being translated to Greek around 200 BC. My understanding of hell, is that much like Sheol, it would be a complete separation from God. Just emptiness, and through that theoretically it would be pain. I have issues with depression, and I can tell you feeling empty translates to a good amount of pain somedays. The devil with his pitchfork hanging out in fire is just a construct to scare people into believing, and is largely attributed to the popularity of Dante's works.

You make a good point about any single person's views juxtaposed with the grandeur of the Church's. I understand that the Bible is the ultimate authority on the doctrine, but we do have other corroborative historical references such as Josephus' writings and the dead sea scrolls that at least speak to the origins of the texts. Looking at the evolution of the scriptures through translation after translation you begin to see minor manipulations of words and phrases (eg. the verse in Deuteronomy that could be interpreted to support abortion but has been constantly tweaked to support a rightist agenda), and that only furthers my sentiments that popular mainstream aspects of American Christianity aren't entirely biblical.

I guess ultimately I'm a Christian agnostic. I really appreciate the liberal sects in existence, and cannot begin to relate to the extreme right and their constant hate. I struggle with the existence of such ignorant hate and have strived to distance myself from their hard hearts. They are truly the pharisees Jesus spoke of. As I said in the first post, I have had personal experiences that are too bizarre to simply explain, and because of this I believe in something greater than me, but I also recognize I am not capable of completely understanding or knowing what it is, and to insinuate I am seems to go against the doctrine I try to follow. Sure there are lots of holes, sure I have issues with people's interpretations, but when it comes down to it, I want to pursue a life reflective of the one Jesus led. It's as much a philosophical pursuit as it is a religious one.