Sheshbazzar

Half-Life, If it is "The God of Hell Fire" that you are living your life in terror of, perhaps you ought to consider whether any such a god is worthy of your love and devotion?
Only you can say when enough is enough of this line of terroristic abuse, and get up off of your knees, turn your back on it, and walk away.
No one else can do that for you, the best that we can do, if you will hear our voices, is to call out to you, and plead with you, Get up! and Get Away! from that false god who has held you in this thrall of fear.

Half-Life

Good points Sheshbazzar. Thank you.

However, some things are still bothering me. No matter how hard I think that I am just one random person in a world of 6 billion, there seems to be some type of "voice" in my head telling me not to deny it or else.

I have doubted Christianity before in the past, but came back to it after the fear of Hell got too great for me to put up with anymore.

it just seems there is the thought of, "You know it's true, you just want to deny it" in my head.

it doesn't make sense. not many people struggle with this stuff except for me.

I see other people in the world having fun almost as if there is no God around. Why then do I keep thinking to myself "These people are wrong! They need to read the bible every day and stop with this or else we will never get to peace."

And yet all these people go on with their lives as if they don't care about the afterlife and I am stuck in my own world with nothing on my mind except for Hell.

People have been asking me the past few days, "Why do you look so down?" and i just put on a smile and fake it. This fear has gotten to a point where I almost felt like I had to throw up a few hours ago and i was going to fall over and pass out.

I don't know what to do about this fear and it's killing me the past few days.

Half-Life

Believe me, I tried that. I just end up thinking, "Well God won't care that I thought he was a tyrant for doing this. he will throw me into Hell anyway."

Nothing seems to work for me no matter how hard I try.

I have met people who says things in person like "LOL! God, what a stupid crock and joke."

A part of my mind agrees with these people but a part of me makes me want to stand up and go "Don't you care about Hell?!?!?!?!"

although i never say that.

Bushman

Dude, hell doesn't exist. I wouldn't be to afraid of it.

Half-Life

But, we don't know that for sure. How do I know Satan isn't saying that through you and he's laughing that he has you fooled?

While part of me seriously doubts this is true, the OTHER part of me is saying "It's gotta be true. I better believe."

Sheshbazzar

Half-Life, we can see you have issues, and this "Hell" thing is just another one of those old "fear" things that have always been used as a form of mind control.
You need to do some careful investigations into the origins of these doctrines of "Hell". YOU need to debunk the myth of "hell" for yourself, you need to know that the popular "Christian" conceptions of "hell" did not at all originate in the Scriptures, but trace directly to the beliefs of Zorosterism, and to the Hellenic "pagan" mystery religions and mythologies, and that as such you need not have any more fear of "hell" than you would accord to a likelihood of ever having to face the Minotaur or Medusa. Understand, we sympathise with your plight, but it is you that has to gain the knowledge and the strength to resist every old fable and lie that is laid to trap and snare you into such abject and unhappy servitude to these stories ancient and lying religious propaganda.

cgordon

HL,

No heaven, no Hell, no God, no Devil. Just us. Here. Now.

We are responsible for our own lives. We have no recourse, because there is no afterlife, no second chance.

We live well and fully and live in such a way that our descendants will remember us fondly and honor that memory.

We are alive and thinking and loving and doing the best things we can do with the time we have allotted.

We seek and we learn and we strive and we grow.

That's what we do. We're human and we fail, but failure is only a learning experience.

We treat the people around us well because they treat us well in return. NOT because we are afraid of a divine carrot and stick, but because we LOVE them and CARE for them and want to make the people who love us happy and because we love humanity, in all its glorious weird, crazy, annoying, beautiful shades.

We are all we get, and now is all we have.

It's an amazing thing to look at the world through open eyes and start taking responsiblity for your life and start making people happy because it's the right thing to do, and NOT because we're afraid of burning in Hell.

Hang in there. Keep asking questions. Keep searching.

EVEN IF you go back to your birth faith, if you have questioned it and found it worthy of pursuit in the face of critical examination, the more power to you.

As for me, my life is all I got and I intend to make the best of it I can. I don't get a second chance, I don't get divine forgiveness, I don't get a shot at Heaven. I've got here and now.

Sheshbazzar

I am going to be so bold as to suggest that you need to become much more carefully selective in your choice of reference materials, and make a conscious effort to direct your future study of these subjects to as unbiased of reference materials as you can find.
Apologetics websites and books are by their very definition reflective of a predisposition to bias, and as you have been extremely susceptible to their indoctrination, it is only to your own advantage to be aware of that fact, and make a concentrated effort to avoid such blatantly biased sites and sources.
I am not asking that you seek out atheist sites either (though such would surely assist you if you are serious about "deconversion")
There are a great many "mainstream" Encyclopedia's that you can consult to gather the facts about these things. Even an old set of the Encyclopedia Britannica, will provide you with a far better balanced view than that provided by any apologetics website.
I'm practically getting writers cramp trying to help you here, You need to make an equal effort, and that will never happen by you simply returning to those biased apologetics websites and citing their various false claims over and over.

juergen

I sometimes still think about it, as fear was about the last thing that I could start to let go. But keep in mind the following: Out of all the religions that promise hell for non-believers, all of them already believe you are going to hell, except for one: yours.

Some thoughts that have added a perspective I didn't have at the time, when thinking about God punishing you with hell if you abandon him, are

(this is the longest run-on sentence in history)

'If I find myself unable to keep believing something that has stopped making sense to me over the period of just a few weeks, pretty much out of nowhere and really quickly, and God actually does not seem to step in, and no matter how much I pray for things to start making sense and for God giving me spiritual understanding, it actually makes less and less sense, and the other arguments more and more sense, how in the world could I just live pretending to be satisfied with answers that lead me into a direction opposite from God?'

One of the things most fascinating in the couple of weeks of praying for clarity was that some of the things that happened, in what certain people said, was following the EXACT SAME PROCESS as when I, at other times, pray for certain stuff, and then have non-related people give me certain "answer" to my problem and then thank God for mysteriously having led me. I mean, the exact same thing happening, right after prayer!

If I were to go down my normal mental process, taking as a standard what I've always thought in those situations, I'd conclude conclusively that God has actually helped me stop believing in him. I know how backwards and ridiculous that sounds, but it sure made me think.

I'm not advocating you stop believing, but I feel somehow identified with what you're going through, and these are just my personal thoughts on the issue.

Bushman

I hope you realize how ridiculous that is.

“I believe what I see, not what I want to see.” ~ Can’t remember who said it.