I would call myself an atheist right now, but I feel something within me that is religious. I don't know what I believe in but I want to study Christianity, but I have no idea where to start. I was born catholic but absolutely hated it, there was contradictions to its teachings at every turn, and there was constant cruelty and abuse. It felt like a place for rich middle class assholes to call themselves good people and justify their bigotry. For 5 years now, I've referred to myself as "atheist," but have always been very interested in concepts of Christianity and Gnosticism, as well as religion in general. However, every community -- both IRL and online -- of Christians has been ridiculously toxic and hateful, and as a bi (also confused about that too) man I have never felt safe at any of these places, even "inclusive" ones. But christian themes and ideas have always made me feel a way that is indescribable, and I want to reevaluate my faith.
Now, from the little I know about Christianity, Gnosticism seems to, at least from my view, reconcile the the things that gave me so much grief about the bible. The idea of the bible's YHVH as being an ignorant and malevolent being whose arrogance leads it to enslave humans and go against god's true ideals, and bringing suffering to its imperfect world. But, how would I reconcile this as a communist? If the "goal" of Gnosticism is to is to escape to the perfect, immaterial world, what would be the point of making our current one better?
I want to do more research, and try to find the answer to all of this but I just don't know where to start. I think I should read the bible, but I have so much shit going on, so I don't know whether or not I can commit to that. Already I have 8 hours of school, an hour of studying Chinese, an hour of working out, and still spending time with my friends and family, I don't know how I could commit more time to diligently and properly studying religion. Do any of you comrades have advice? Thank you for reading this, and I'm sorry it's been a stream of consciousness-type post.
I've never cover-to-cover read through the thing, but sometimes I'll pull up a few passages if they're referenced elsewhere. There are websites that let you pull up multiple translations and compare them side by side (usually go with Catholic, King James, and New International Version < and now that i'm thinking on it, Orthodox Christianity is a complete blindspot in my understanding... practically non of my history classes have ever touched it, beyond some vague allusions to 'leavened bread' >). It's interesting to see how the stories get changed to fit the context they've been translated for. That's admittedly a less spiritual approach; more historical. But I think the historical approach really helps. Spirituality, as a cultural and institutional thing, is just as much molded by the material context of history as anything else.
You might enjoy the story Small Gods by Terry Pratchett. It deals with a lot of cultural themes of growing up in Christianity, although remixed and fictionalized to fit a high-fantasy Tolken-like setting. If you have a lot going on, it's certainly less of a commitment than full on Biblical study.