When I was a kid, I was brought to church nearly every Sunday and had the doctrine of Heaven and Hell pounded into me to the point of exhaustion by a certain preacher. This church also seemed to find every fiery evangelist they could find to lead mini-versions of the great awakening (I'm not sure if some of these people were awakened to anything positive, rather they were just scared out of Hell or had the hell scared out of them, for the x29392 time) .
The other basic doctrine I was "taught" (I'm not sure if you would call it teaching) was the doctrine of redemption through the blood of Jesus, the Son of God. While I'm still some form of a Christian, all of this punishment, persuasion, blood, and pain did not go over well with me as a kid and still doesn't.
Now, I believe in a different "doctrine," if you will, The Doctrine of Doubt. Doubt allowed me to escape the clutches of a church bent on everlasting damnation or salvation with a permantely crucified and bleeding savior as a way to a better afterlife. Doubt has allowed me to carve my own spiritual niche out of the Bible and other religions to find something that I will live and not just cower in front of. God is not in the business of damning everyone who doesn't say the right prayer or in condemning those who struggle, God is in the struggle with us. If I had to make sense from a human perspective about the crucifixion of Jesus, then it is a display of what happens when one stands up to the domination system of any culture, one gets killed by the system. However, from a divine (yet anthropomorphic) perspective, I believe God suffered in the crucifixion as well. However, I believe the majority of atonement theories are sure moot and made to damn people into doing what the church wants them to do and not is what healthy for the individual in any way.
The truth may set you free indeed, but you can never know what the truth is until you doubt and discover the "said" truth for yourself.
-The Christian Agnostic
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