Ex-Christians: How do you lose your fear of hell?

[KiwiNFLFan]

Having been involved with various religions over the years, I left Catholicism earlier this year. I considered myself a traditional Catholic, attended the traditional Latin Mass and deplored the modern situation in the church. 

However, recently I've been gripped with an increasing fear of being punished in hell due to the fact that I have rejected the faith. Now while it's possible that the current pope doesn't believe in eternal torment in hell but rather that the wicked are annihilated, according to traditional Catholic teaching, the church has infallibly taught that outside the Catholic church there is no salvation. 

I have done extensive reading on criticisms of Christianity and do not think that a God who not only tortures people forever but creates people knowing that most of them will be tortured forever is good. I have read about the history of the Bible and have discovered that there is no historical evidence for the Exodus. 

What is the best way to convince oneself that the Christian faith is not true? Is it to read the history of the early Christian church and the historicity of Jesus? Read about the historical errors in the Bible? Read about the history of the church (the Catholic church claims to be the church started by Jesus and has continued without erring to this day)

I suspect that my current fear of hell may be due to my obsessive-compulsive disorder. I suspect it is this that has led me from religion to religion and caused me extreme scrupulosity in Catholicism (worrying whether certain actions are mortal sins).

How have those here who are ex-Christians (whether Catholic, Protestant or Orthodox) managed to deal with this problem?

[Aoi Magi]

Though I am not an ex-*, I'll throw in my two cents just in case. Fear of hell is an irrational fear just like any other common phobias, so it's very hard to get rid of it through rational justifications. I would really suggest finding some actual local atheist groups near you whom you can visit physically. That kind of community support can help a lot compared to online help.

As for understanding why christianity is false, you can start with genesis and it's infantile premise. Once you realize there is no possibility of original sin in our known reality, the rest of the belief system kind of crumbles away on it's own.

[Little lunch]

A certain amount of logic or rationality will help a little, but not much.
It's like being heartbroken, it takes a long time to get over it.

[The Grand Nudger]

I wouldn't worry about it.  By the time you die, the catholics will be letting everybody into heaven.  It's the only way they'll be able to keep asses in seats.

[Edwardo Piet]

Well atheists are just as likely to go to heaven as Christians are to hell so that should help.

If you're afraid of any sort of hell you may as well be afraid of an evil God that sends 100% of the population to hell regardless of their behavior.

[Joods]

I was raised by a mother who felt the need to indoctrinate me into whatever religion her "current" husband was into at the time. My birth father was a catholic. My first stepfather was a methodist. Second stepfather was catholic. The third one wasn't a practicing religious person so he just goes to midnight mass once a year with my mother, if she still bothers to go. I don't know because I haven't spoken to her for nearly 8 years.

That being said, the way I view hell is like this: I don't believe that any god or gods exist because I have seen zero physical evidence of such an entity. The place called "heaven" is non-existent and follows my lack of belief in a god. Hell is the same principle. To me, there is just no real reason to accept that a place filled with fire and brimstone could possibly exist, so it's not something I worry about.

The problem with the Abrahamic religions is that they teach the fear that if you don't love their father god, he will send you to hell. Now, I don't know about anyone else, but don't you think it falls along the lines of mental abuse to subject an individual to the belief that if they don't obey and give their loyalty and love to an entity they will never lay their eyes on, that they will end up burning forever in a place that's never been proven to exist? BUT, at the same time, GOD LOVES THEM.

[SteveII]

Having been involved with various religions over the years, I left Catholicism earlier this year. I considered myself a traditional Catholic, attended the traditional Latin Mass and deplored the modern situation in the church. 

However, recently I've been gripped with an increasing fear of being punished in hell due to the fact that I have rejected the faith. Now while it's possible that the current pope doesn't believe in eternal torment in hell but rather that the wicked are annihilated, according to traditional Catholic teaching, the church has infallibly taught that outside the Catholic church there is no salvation. 

I have done extensive reading on criticisms of Christianity and do not think that a God who not only tortures people forever but creates people knowing that most of them will be tortured forever is good. I have read about the history of the Bible and have discovered that there is no historical evidence for the Exodus. 

What is the best way to convince oneself that the Christian faith is not true? Is it to read the history of the early Christian church and the historicity of Jesus? Read about the historical errors in the Bible? Read about the history of the church (the Catholic church claims to be the church started by Jesus and has continued without erring to this day)

I suspect that my current fear of hell may be due to my obsessive-compulsive disorder. I suspect it is this that has led me from religion to religion and caused me extreme scrupulosity in Catholicism (worrying whether certain actions are mortal sins).

How have those here who are ex-Christians (whether Catholic, Protestant or Orthodox) managed to deal with this problem?

What you are describing is your quest to support your confirmation bias--not a quest to get to the truth. How about you read how Christianity answers the questions you pose? Christianity has been answering the very toughest questions for two thousand years by tens of thousands of people writing hundreds of thousands of books in hundreds of languages. It is important to realize, there are no new objections to Christianity that this generation stumbled upon.

You specifically mentioned the problem of evil. That has an answer. Broaden you scope beyond the Catholic Church--perhaps your objections to certain doctrines are answered by different thoughts on the matter.

[Aoi Magi]

What you are describing is your quest to support your confirmation bias--not a quest to get to the truth. How about you read how Christianity answers the questions you pose? Christianity has been answering the very toughest questions for two thousand years by tens of thousands of people writing hundreds of thousands of books in hundreds of languages. It is important to realize, there are no new objections to Christianity that this generation stumbled upon.

You specifically mentioned the problem of evil. That has an answer. Broaden you scope beyond the Catholic Church--perhaps your objections to certain doctrines are answered by different thoughts on the matter.

When your "quest for truth" begins and ends within the confines of the very book you are trying to test, it is the height of confirmation-bias

[SteveII]

What you are describing is your quest to support your confirmation bias--not a quest to get to the truth. How about you read how Christianity answers the questions you pose? Christianity has been answering the very toughest questions for two thousand years by tens of thousands of people writing hundreds of thousands of books in hundreds of languages. It is important to realize, there are no new objections to Christianity that this generation stumbled upon.

You specifically mentioned the problem of evil. That has an answer. Broaden you scope beyond the Catholic Church--perhaps your objections to certain doctrines are answered by different thoughts on the matter.

When your "quest for truth" begins and ends within the confines of the very book you are trying to test, it is the height of confirmation-bias

Well, no. Confirmation bias is interpreting things to agree with existing beliefs. His knowledge of the Bible and doctrines that would answer many of his questions is limited. Seeking knowledge (true or not) that you don't have is definitely not confirmation bias.

[Der/die AtheistIn]

My story is kind of complicated. My family members are moderates, they don't believe in Hell, they practice religion for comfort, but I was taught in school religion the fundamentalist way. I believed in Hell untill 7th grade, then I spoked once with a friend for my father and he told me that a loving God wouldn't torure you in Hell, no matter what you did. He also opened my eyes about many things which didn't make sense about the faith. He wasn't atheist, he was moderate, he told me that he believed in Jesus. I didn't became atheist at that time, I became moderate too. I accepted the idea of no Hell quite quick, I didn't fear that it might exist. What I had a problem with was that I was brainwashed for so many years and that my parents might've believed in Hell. I found out one year later that they don't believe in Hell either. As how I became an atheist, that is another story. A story linked to this, but still another story. As years passed I got more curious and found more and more things that make no sense about the faith, so I've finally left it.
The fact that I was brainwashed still bugs me from time to time, but what bugs me even more is that it happened right under my parents noses and they didn't seem socked when they found out about it. Not enough shocked at the very least.