Fear of hell

[Tartarus Sauce]

Because right now it dominates my life.

I think it dominates your life because you really don't believe in god. You go through each day trying to convince yourself that it's true but deep down you know it's really bullshit. The fear keeps you stuck in your cognitive dissonance.

If you really were a good Christian you wouldn't fear it because you would feel saved. You need to let go of the delusion. You will feel a little bad at first because you will realize that you won't live forever. Once you get past that it is a non issue and you can live your life the way you want with no fear.

Besides, do you really want to kiss gods ass for eternity?

No, this is the wrong response to give someone in the middle of a breakdown.

You are right that the fear is fueling his cognitive dissonance, but you are presenting him a false dichotomy based on the assumption that he deep down KNOWS it isn't true. Maybe that is the case, but you don't actually know that, so giving him the option for being either a hell-fearing Christian or an atheist is in fact NOT the proper response and may back him further into a corner he doesn't want to be in.

The point I was making is that he doesn't have to let fear be the guiding force in his beliefs. I made the point that there are some Christians who loyally standby their label while still rejecting the concept of hell. From what I have observed from him, he appears to come from the hellfire and brimstone type of fundamentalism found in the likes of Souther Baptism (not sure if that is his actual denomination), and these types tend to hold the least knowledge of the book they claim to hold so dear.

So the best advice for Jesuslover is this: Stop letting everything that has been spoonfed to you by your pastors, parents, and other authority figures in your life be accepted without question. Come to your own conclusions about your faith and what you do and don't believe in through your own research.

Whether that leads him to atheism or not is not for us to decide.

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To the OP: Do you know there are some people that identify as Christians that flat out reject the concept of hell as valid and consider it a fabrication on the part of translators?

The more you know.

Not to mention that all the images that most people have of hell are from Dante's 'Inferno' and John Milton's 'Paradise Lost'. Both written long after (1300 and 1600 years) the Bible.

All the images the OP probably has of hell are completely non-Biblical.

Another valid point, if he really does hold the bible to be true, he can allay his fears by discovering just how few of his notions of hell are actually biblically supported.