Similarly brought up in a religious environment. I struggled with all these paradoxes as a kid. The hardest one for me was this idea that being 'good' and 'Christian' meant I wouldn't go to hell - and yet this was meant to be an unselfish behaviour.

As I got older, my questions would have the usual retorts - that things are more complicated than my simplistic questions. Maybe if I studied it I would eventually understand. Also complicated rules and reasons to explain why we believed in some bits of the bible and not others.

It equated to a form of double-think, and I see it in my intelligent colleagues who are religious. They have distorted their understanding and reasoning so much to accommodate a belief in the ethical values of their religion.

I enjoy arguing about why homosexuality is wrong with a someone religious. The rational/ethical arguments given by someone religious are so weak that they eventually need to refer to the bible. It gets to the point where the final argument is 'my religion says it's wrong, that is my belief - I just believe it'. You would have thought that would prompt questions about how rational their belief is...