I think I've mentioned to you before that your first few points about hell and eternal torture for most of humanity so consumed me as a child that I had difficulty sleeping at night for about a year. I believed it all implicitly, and my 10-year-old heart couldn't take it. I came to literally fear God (and not in that awe-inspiring way some Christians speak of) and even to, though I would not voice the words to myself, even to hate him. I could not bear the thought of the universe being ordered in the way I learned was true at church. All of this happened before I understood I was gay, by the way. That added another layer of fear/anger/hatred to my perception of the Christian God.

I could not understand when I was 10 years old why people could be sincerely joyful about being a member of a tiny minority of all humans who would be spared eternal agony. Relief, I could understand. Stockholm Syndrome, not that I knew the phrase then, I could understand. But joy and love and the sweet emotions in face of so much torture and agony? I could not comprehend that then and I can't today, perhaps even less so.