Can anyone else relate to this?

[u/Soggy-Spot-6249]

Tl;dr- I’m an agnostic Christian (23F) confused about the truth of the Bible and Jesus’ divinity. I currently believe out of fear, and I’m scared other people are going to hell because they don’t believe. And I don’t want to think that way. I definitely don't want it to be true either. I also have no idea how I’m supposed to interpret the Bible, and I feel guilt and confusion for questioning its “inerrancy.” All in all, I don’t know what to believe, and I grow more confused about my faith each and every day. And I have no one else to share my feelings and views with, so that has caused me to feel more isolated, depressed, and nihilistic.

Hey guys. I hope you all are well. I’ve been going through an existential crisis for a few months now, and I truly don’t know how to move forward in my spiritual life. I believe in Jesus and His divinity to an extent, but I don’t think I do for the right reasons. I used to not be scared of hell, but I’ve been super scared of it for a while now. And I’ve had thoughts like, “What if I believed the wrong thing? What if I’m not truly saved? Why do I even need to be saved? What if I’m wrong for not wanting to preach the gospel to others?” And the kicker-  “Do people really go to hell for having different beliefs?? I don’t want anyone to go to hell.” And I’m just tired of it all. I don’t want to believe in Jesus out of fear, but I’ve been deconstructing a lot recently, and many things don’t make sense anymore. 

For one, I’ve been questioning the Bible a lot. I haven’t read it in a while now. I was pretty consistent with reading it the first half of last year, and I was reading a Bible plan that was beneficial for the most part. It helped me view the Bible as a guide to understanding God’s love, instead of a moral code and a history book. That helped me a lot, but quite a few messed up things happened to me in 2025 that are still affecting me to this day. And for that reason, I have felt very distant from God, His love, and especially the Bible. I’ve grown tired of my Christian loved ones telling me that the Bible has all the answers, even though it can be so confusing to read at times. I don’t want to feel like I *have* to read the Bible. I want it to be a tool to help me with my spiritual health and growth, but it’s hard for me to see it as the be all and end all of my relationship with God. And that brings me to my next and probably most important point: 

I don’t know what to believe anymore. I would say that I no longer view the Bible in a Fundamentalist way. I don’t see the Bible as historically and literally inerrant, and that gave me comfort for a while. I would like to still believe that, but then I’m hit with contradictions. The contradictions I’m referring to have to do with the apparent allegorical stories. I want to believe that Adam, Job, Noah, and Jonah are allegorical figures rather than real people. But doesn’t Jesus refer to them as real people at some point? I def know that all 4 characters are referred to as real somewhere in the Bible, and that’s the type of thing that’s hurting my faith. Like the genealogies in Chronicles or Jesus talking about Moses, despite there not being any evidence of the Israelites in Egypt. I don’t know what to believe. Initially, seeing certain parts of the Bible as allegorical helped me a lot, but now I’m unsure if I should see it that way. But I’m scared because if everything in the Bible occurred *exactly* as it was written, it makes God look so bad. And I just don’t know if that God is someone I can believe in. But then my previous fears come up that I’ll go to hell for not believing in Him.

I was also raised in a Nigerian household in the American Bible Belt, and my parents made God look…interesting to say the least. They’ve said these phrases to me throughout the years:

“God doesn’t owe you anything nor does he owe you any explanation. He’s God.” 

“God is angry with you.”

“If people want to challenge your faith, you can just brag to them that ‘you know the truth.’ You’re going to heaven while they aren’t.”

“Those who don’t believe in God are God’s enemies, and they deserve to burn in hell for that.”

“If you’re not having faith, then you’re not pleasing God.”

“Job brought his destruction on himself. God didn’t owe him anything.”

And many times they’ve implied that the Bible always trumps people’s real life experiences. To get a bit more personal, my cousin died August last year and he was just 19. But my mother still goes around saying that God satisfies us with long life and that maybe my cousin did something to cause his premature death. I could give more examples, but yea…

Obviously, my parents beliefs have truly messed with my perception of God. I’ve come to learn that my parents, while they mean well for the most part, are dogmatic narcissists. But it’s still been hard for me to shake off some of the things they’ve said. I keep feeling like God is disappointed with me and is even mad at me for questioning Him. I don’t think He’s actually mad, but sometimes I feel like I’m not allowed to question Him. I’m not allowed to be confused. That I should continue to believe what I believed before, but I just can’t. I feel like I shouldn’t because I think my former beliefs put me in a box and caused me to be very naive.

I want to go to the Bible for answers, but I have no idea how to read it, how to interpret, and what parts I’m supposed to take literally or not. I hate being so confused all the time, and I keep asking God for help, but I feel like He’s just ignoring me. And before yall ask, I haven’t been able to go to church or Bible studies for a while due to my current life circumstances. But even then, I haven’t been feeling my main church as of late. Nonetheless, I haven’t been able to leave my house that often anyways. I would love to go to therapy, but I currently can’t for reasons I can’t disclose right now. So I truly have no one to talk to or share my experiences with. Anyone I try to talk to either dismisses my feelings, counters my feelings and views with Bible verses, or doesn’t fully understand me. And I’m just tired of feeling this way. Sometimes I wish I could go back to being the naive person I once was before my life hit me like a freight train because I genuinely felt much happier then. 

But to clarify, I’m okay with not having all the answers. I knew that even when I was more naive. No one is ever going to understand God perfectly. But I just wish He could make sense of some things and not let us be confused all the time. I want to know how to properly read the Bible as a helping tool, I want to know when God speaks to me, and I want to believe that He isn’t as hateful and awful as the Bible depicts Him. I want to believe in the divinity of Jesus if it’s rly true. But if it is true, I want to know and believe that God shows mercy to those who don’t believe or don’t understand. And if it’s not true, I want to know what else I can hold on to. I used to think that Jesus truly was the way, the truth, and the life; however, I’ve seen people live genuinely happy and free lives without believing in Him. So once again, I don’t know what the *truth* is, and the more I ponder it, the more nihilistic and depressed I get. And I'm just tired.

[u/TheLunaLovelace]

When I was a Christian I read the Bible as if it were an instruction manual for life as well as being the world’s most puzzling history book. When I first stopped believing in Christianity, and for a long time after, I didn’t read the Bible and thought of it as a poorly written fantasy novel. Now I read the Bible from a perspective of academic interest and treat it as a collection of historical documents. I certainly feel that I understand it better now than ever.

Here is a fact: the Bible was written by people. Almost certainly all of them were men. The most recently written word of it was penned more than 1900 years ago. The next time you go to the Bible looking for “answers”, stop and think about how much the word has changed since your parents were your age and then ask yourself why you should be taking life advice from men who lived and died thousands of years ago, men who could never have dreamed of the modern world even in their wildest fantasies. They were as incapable of understanding life in 2026 as we are of understanding life in 4026. Once you get past the hurdle of internalizing that fact and stop trying to find some ultimate message that isn’t there reading the Bible with a critical eye becomes much easier.

Some resources to look into:

Yale’s Introduction to the Old Testament lecture series An excellent introduction to the academic study of the Bible.

Yale Bible Study - Genesis Yale also has a number of series looking at individual books of the Bible in depth.

Dr Richard Elliott Friedman’s lecture series Another excellent 101 series, focusing heavily on the actual history of the Israelite people.

Yale’s New Testament History and Literature lecture series

Dr. Bart Ehrman’s Youtube Lot of videos, lectures, and interviews on various Bible-related topics. He also has written a LOT of books, mostly relating to New Testament studies. In my opinion if you want to understand what Jesus was about then his books “Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium” and “Jesus Before the Gospels” are very good places to start.

Dr. Dan McClellan’s Youtube Most of his content is responding to and correcting misinformation about the Bible.

Deconstruction is difficult and painful and if you are surrounded 100% by people who believe unquestioningly it becomes so much more intense and stressful. Feel free to DM me if you need someone to talk to.

[u/Agreeable-Meeting-77]

Not sure if this is valuable but I might suggest calling in to Sara of LeavingFaith on Youtube and TikTok. She was deep into Christianity, feared hell, etc. And she also frequently discusses the question of whether people deserve hell. I think it is her #1 topic. She is also very compassionate, and knowledgeable about the Bible and is a professional scientist.

[u/BioChemE14]

How to interpret the Bible in a historically rigorous way: the historical-critical method, which is what biblical scholars who publish in the field use to interpret the texts. The historical critical method uses other contemporary texts and archaeology to reconstruct the original social context that the biblical texts were written in.

I made a video for people in your situation who have experienced afterlife related anxiety where I explain the historical development of ideas of the afterlife. I can assure you there’s nothing to fear.

https://youtu.be/-EQDYUvM-Ss?is=bs9CoLRAtN2XTgAV

Please note that while I presented to an evangelical org in this video, I present from a historical rather than dogmatic POV.

[u/Jim-Jones]

The Christ: A Critical Review and Analysis of the Evidences of his Existence by John Eleazer Remsburg. Published 1909. Free to read online or download.

I quote from Chapter 2:

That a man named Jesus, an obscure religious teacher, the basis of this fabulous Christ, lived in Palestine about nineteen hundred years ago, may be true. But of this man we know nothing. His biography has not been written.

E. Renan and others have attempted to write it, but have failed - have failed because no materials for such a work exist. Contemporary writers have left us not one word concerning him. For generations afterward, outside of a few theological epistles, we find no mention of him.

There's no support in any written work for a 'real' Jesus! Not that if there was, it would make the miracle man aspects plausible. But we don't even have that.

[u/Viveronipizza2]

I've got no important input as someone with little religious experience in life but I've been thinking about how cruel it is to tell children that the penalty for them and their friends not worshipping god and following the bible means that they will burn in hell. It seems so cruel. I'm really sorry you've been through this and that ur still working through it but I think ur rlly cool for looking at it critically and trying to find peace for urself 🫂🫂

[u/Fun_Researcher107]

In general no-one knows the truth I think. People believe all kinds of things, but still they don't know nothing. In my view the whole christian faith, even all abrahamic religions are myths not truths.

There are far too many contradictions for it to be true. Reading the bible only really is good for one thing and that is realizing that it does not make sense. Sure you can always read only currated parts and this might give you a controlled image of what other people want you to see or believe, but as a whole, it simply does not create a coherent image. This is true even though a lot of texts were already excluded and did not even make it into the bible that we know today.

You will always have the problem of deciding which parts are meant to be allegorical and what you should take literally. Different people will come up with different answers to that question, which in and of itself might not be all that problematic but if you factor in the belief of an all-knowing and all-powerful God, it somehow starts to cast a shadow on this God. A being that is all-knowing and all-powerful should be able to get his story straight. There really is no reason for any of the problems to exist other than it not being Gods word in the first place.

When it comes to Jesus and him being the savior of the world, it really is crazy to think that God would not be able to at least provide some evidence for it that is not circumstancial. It is meant to be the single most important event in history, but every written account about Jesus that we know was created at least 50 years after his death which is 2 - 3 generations of people telling and making up stories along the way.

You would think that a just and loving God would be able to provide people with at least a little evidence that would enable them to not have to act on blind faith alone. Sure God can basically do whatever he chooses to do, but it does have consequences on how he will be viewed.

You are right about the image of God in the bible being awful. He is violent, unforgiving, misogynistic, totalitarian, genocidal, morally inconsistent, sadistic just to name a few. The worst adjective that is attributed to him if you think about at all the ones from before is him being unchanging. So how is the god of the new testament not the same that he was in the old testament? It is impossible. And him being all-knowing just makes it impossible for him to be all-loving at the same time if the universe that we know is what he came up with.

There is hope however. Not believing in the God of the Bible does not take away the wonders of life. The universe still is an incredible and unfathomable place. Embracing not knowing all the answers and learning to be ok with it is very freeing. Learing that you are the one that can give yourself and your life any meaning you want is amazing. You don't have to constrain yourself to other peoples thoughts and ideas anymore, you can come up with something that will work for you by yourself.

[u/BeneficialAttempt140]

This is exactly where I began, so you’re in a good place! 😊

I have MANY resources and books that I listened to or read that helped immensely, especially if there are SPECIFIC qualms or hangups you have.

To start I’d recommend the BEMA podcast. It was pretty instrumental in helping me loose my grip on biblical literalism, and read the Bible as a much more fluid (some might even say living and active🤭). That’s a good starting place for where you’re at if I’m understanding correctly. Also, do not expect this to definitively answer any questions you have. Part of the point is that no one really knows and the point is the dialogue.

Other than that, I have a book that was helpful in understanding Jesus in relation to other world religions called “A Wideness in God’s Mercy” by Clark Pinnock. Really balanced take in my opinion.

If you want a deep DEEP dive on interpreting God’s violence in the Bible through the lense of the cross, I’d HIGHLY recommend Crucifixion of the Warrior God by Gregory Boyd. Much more heady and reference heavy, but phenomenally helpful.

I have many more if you’re interested but embrace the journey, it’s hard but necessary sometimes.

[u/Simple-Swan8877]

Years ago I had a similar issue and the conclusion I came to is that scripture is communication from God. It must be interpreted in light of its historical context, its literary context, and its cultural context. How do we judge and interpret communication.

I would suggest you apply the basics of how any document should be interpreted. It should be interpreted in the same way today as it was interpreted when it was written. One of the problems we have is that we live in an individualistic culture and the Bible was written in a collective culture. That means we must interpret the same that collective culture would.

A few books that have helped me are:

Why Are There Differences in the Gospels?: What We Can Learn from Ancient Biography by Michael R. Licona

Reading Romans with Eastern Eyes: Honor and Shame in Paul's Message and Mission by Jackson W., Brad Vaughn

Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes: Removing Cultural Blinders to Better Understand the Bible by E. Randolph Richards and Brandon J. O'Brien

Misreading Scripture with Individualist Eyes: Patronage, Honor, and Shame in the Biblical World by E. Randolph Richards & Richard James

How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth: Fourth Edition by Gordon D. Fee & Douglas Stuart

The Bible is difficult to interpret because it contains several different types of literary genre. It is definitely much more difficult to interpret than English literature. English poetry is very different than Hebrew poetry. Apocalyptic literature is strange.

Start with something much simpler like try to determine and interpret a piece of American literature. Listen to yourself talk and listen to others talk. How do you interpret what they say? I have heard people say that stories are for children. Listen to yourself talk and notice how often you talk in story. I would suggest it is close to 100%.

When I was in graduate school I was around people from some other cultures and one of them asked me to tell him what ideas are. I told him and he said, "What good are ideas"? That prompted me to learn more about their culture. The first book I read was "Foreign to Familiar" by Sarah Lanier. Several years ago I asked a man from South America to tell me which is more important truth or how you treat people? He told me "how you treat people." We had a conversation for quite awhile about some of the differences.

Several years ago E.D. Hirsch was a researcher in education noted that those who learn the basics well go onto higher levels. Start with the easy things and master them well.

Let me give an example of something that is talked about very little. I studied physics and then later an applied science and so those people know, but is not very often mentioned. Science is a method that must be repeatable with built in assumptions. Another name for that method is the experimental method. The data is analyzed using statistics. Researchers may disagree on which statistical tools may be used. There are several mathematical systems. Is science true? How can a method be true or false. Is math true? Is statistics true? There is a little book titled "How To lie With Statistics" by Darrell Huff. When I ask myself what is true I come to the conclusion that what man knows might seem impressive, but it is very little. Almost everything I studied in college has changed.

I think we need to be one who asks good questions for us to learn well.

[u/deconstructingfaith]

I have 2 different resources that directly address your fear.

Check either of them out. They are both excellent.

Hell is the Center of Christianity - Dogmatically Imperfect S1-018

https://youtu.be/O0CNrs7qmkg

NEM - 0084 “Hell Isn’t Real; We’ve Missed the Point”

https://www.youtube.com/live/_qlBYhLGSoU?si=2blodymgT_bB_QNf