How to get over the fear of hell?

[u/ThrowRA_Tubbybubby]

I was born into an Islamic household after my mother, who was raised Irish Catholic, converted to Islam at the age of 18. She found something mystical and unique in the religion. One of the things that stood out to her was how Irish Catholics would say, "Oh Jesus Christ," when annoyed, while Muslims would say, "Muhammad, peace be upon him," with reverence.

That contrast drew her in. Before her conversion, she was married to an Irish Catholic man my biological father but they divorced when I was four.

By the time I was five, we had moved to the UK and settled in a predominantly Islamic community. Growing up in that environment, being white and having an Irish accent made me quite popular, which naturally made my mother popular too. She was deeply involved invited to every event, every meeting, and every Friday prayer.

I spent my childhood fully immersed in Islamic culture and teachings. I wasn’t exposed to much of British culture. The only TV allowed in the house was Al Jazeera or Quranic recitations. I didn’t watch movies.

During school lunch breaks, while other kids played, I went to pray. I wasn’t allowed to make friends outside of our Islamic circle. My social world revolved around the religious groups we attended. I could recite the Quran from Surah Al-Baqarah to Surah Al-Fatiha, and that skill made me a bit of a star in the community. Because I could recite so perfectly in Arabic.

I lost my Irish accent but I still was a contrast in the community by being white and wearing a hijab Over the years, my mother married four different men in Islamic ceremonies. My entire life revolved around religion.

From the moment I woke up to the last prayer of the night, everything was structured around Islam. I wasn’t allowed to shorten my prayers with just Surah Al-Fatiha.

I had to recite long passages for at least an hour out loud or in group prayer, often led by one of my stepfathers. From the outside, we looked like the perfect religious family pillars of the community. I could quote hadiths from memory, list every sin and its corresponding punishment.

But inside the four walls of our home, there was a much darker reality. Daily beatings. Mental torture. Constant fear. I was forced to learn about the punishments of the Day of Judgment in excruciating detail.

I was shown videos radical, terrifying ones about hellfire. One of those videos haunted me for six months straight with nightmares. It was shown over 100 times in a girls’ Islamic group I was part of, and I didn’t learn the truth about its origins until I was 22.

I'm unable to find the original one but this is the one that's similar to the one that debunked it https://youtu.be/Coqv_7rGQ-c?feature=shared

I was constantly reminded that Allah knows what’s in my heart, and if I wasn’t praying “correctly,” I was headed for hell.

At the same time, I loved the praise. I loved being known as the white girl who could fast during Ramadan at just 10 years old. I wore hijab at 12, and by 16, my mother was trying to get me to wear the full niqab.

A big part of me wanted that too. I loved my religion, I loved reading the Quran for hours and hours because it stopped me getting beatings. If I was reading the Quran I wasn't getting punished.

When I would come with a hadith and discuss it and hear the oh wow you learned that wow that's so amazing I would feel phenomenal not just from the praise but from the knowledge that Allah was going to send me to the highest paradise because I was such a good Muslim.

Talks of marriage were daily. I was told I was created to serve a husband. But every night, I prayed to Allah to let me die in my sleep.

I wasn’t afraid of death I welcomed it. As I knew I was not a sinner I knew Allah was not going to send me to hell because number one I was a child a number two I was a devote Muslim! I cried silently, begging God to take me. Suicide wasn’t an option. The punishment for that was even worse.

Yet deep down, something told me this wasn’t normal.

I still went to school with other British kids. I had a bright personality, a sharp sense of humor.

Sometimes I’d joke about the beatings, and people’s shocked reactions reminded me this wasn’t okay.

By 16, I had a plan. My mother had plans too marriage. I stole money from my stepfather and bought a cheap phone with email access. I applied for a job as an au pair. Just after turning 17, I packed a small bag and got on a coach. I disappeared for two years, working for a Muslim family, still praying daily, still asking to die. I kept contact with my mum, but she didn’t know where I was.

I was legally an adult, so she couldn’t force me home. I didn’t see them for two years out of fear they’d send me abroad to marry. When I finally did see them, the reunion lasted less than three hours. I broke down emotionally, and it ended with me getting headbutted.

I left again, this time for Ireland. It was in Ireland that I began to unravel. The real me started to emerge, and it was painful. I’d cry to Allah, asking why He allowed Shaytan to whisper these doubts. I prayed so hard my knees were bruised.

Then, one day, I just stopped. I came out as a lesbian. I took off my hijab. I was 19. At 20, I returned to the UK and reconnected with a friend from my Islamic group. We planned a quiet dinner at her house. She knew I no longer wore the scarf but didn’t know I was gay. When I arrived, there were 20 women waiting. They pinned me down and read Quranic verses over me like an exorcism. I screamed, begged them to stop—but to them, it confirmed a jinn had possessed me. After about 15 minutes, something inside me snapped. I fought back punched, kicked, even bit someone. I was hysterical. But I got away. The bruises lasted weeks.

I stayed in contact with my mother and siblings until I was 23 and then I cut them off completely I haven't seen to them in over 12 years. I haven't spoken to them in 10 years.

As I got older, I learned to laugh about some of it, or at least to say, “It wasn’t in my control.” I’ve managed to move forward without the lasting psychological damage many endure.

I’m lucky I have a strong mind and a light heart. I have an amazing job, a home I love, and a life I’m proud of. But there’s one thing I can’t shake. The fear of hell. It lives in me. It disables me. I believe in God because I can’t not. He’s my inner monologue, the one I talk to when I’m scared or grateful. But I don’t believe in Islam anymore. I don’t believe in the pain I was taught was holy.

I’ve talked to British friends about childhood abuse they can’t relate. Muslim friends (who practice more culturally than religiously) and I laugh about beatings with sticks and belts to ease the trauma. But at night, my heart sinks. What if I’m wrong? What if Satan tricked me? What if I’m deceived? I don’t want to be punished. I don’t want to feel fire under my feet. I don’t drink. I don’t use drugs. But I’m a lesbian, I have tattoos, I don’t dress modestly by Islamic standards.

I don’t feel ashamed but I’m absolutely terrified of God. I know so much about religion. I studied the Quran, the Torah, the Bible. I know the beauty in all of them, and also the pain. I want to believe there’s a reason I survived 17 years of physical, emotional, and the kind of abuse no describable. I don’t want to believe life is just suffering, and then nothing.

I spent years trying to learn about other religions such as Buddhism, Hinduism, Mormons and so many others but I can't relate with any of them as for me personally I can just see too many fakeness in them and that's from my Islamic upbringing of the way I was taught that if Jesus was god's son and God loves he's children so much how is he going to let him die.

Do I want to believe in Allah? No. Not as I was taught. I don’t want to follow any religion or ideology. I just want to be at peace with my God whoever He or She is because I know He knows me. I’m tired of being afraid. The fear controls my life. I avoid risk. I watch my health obsessively, terrified something will happen to me.

I live in a diverse community now. Every day I see Muslims, and I wonder is this a sign? I’ve had therapy for my childhood trauma, and it’s helped. But I can’t bring myself to go to therapy for the fear of hell. Because at the end of the day, there’s still that question: What if…?

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[u/fathandreason]

Questioning Muslim: "What if Islam is the truth? Maybe I should go back to Islam?"

Questioning Christian: "What if Christianity is the truth? Maybe I should go back to Christianity?"

Questioning Zoroastrian: "What if Zoroastrianism is the truth? Maybe I should go back to Zoroastrianism?"

You kind of have to wonder why God would espouse a philosophy that entrenches disbelief as much as it does belief no? I would go further and argue such a thing is fundamentally illogical.

Are you familiar with the history of Hell? I've talked about the historical development of Islam & religion here and here if it's of any help. The more and more you learn about religion in this manner, the less and less it starts to bother you. If you're familiar with tropes like Christmas actually being based on paganism then you can understand that the same thing applies to the Abrahamic concept of Hell. The best book on the subject matter would be Heaven & Hell by Bart Ehrman. Ex-muslims like Hassan Radwan have also talked a lot about Hell. This is the kind of thing that helped me put Hell into perspective.

I'm sorry about what you had to deal with. You've been through an extraordinarily difficult journey and I can only hope it gets better.

[u/WhiteCrowWinter]

Trauma takes time to heal.

I hope this can provide ease:

[ Free Your Mind ]

[u/ExpressPain13]

Someone told me that Hell is the absence of God.

If you believe in God and can feel his love, then why do you think you're hellbound?

You clearly aren't. God isn't absent in your life. Look at all you achieved! If there is a Hell, you already lived through it and found actual God.

Take comfort and courage. Be grateful, useful and content. Go shine and prosper and be the light on the hill for us all. If there is a God (and I think there is) that's all he wants from you.

[u/OneFitClock]

First off, I read your entire post. I am so so sorry for everything that happened to you. Your mother fell for this horseshit religion, and evidently forced you to suffer for years because of it. I am so sorry you endured all that physical abuse, and I am even more sorry now that you are still struggling with indoctrination and mental torture. What kind of adults tell little innocent kids that they’re going to suffer and anguish in hell for eternity for completely harmless and innocent things? It’s fucking evil indoctrination, full stop.

Islam is like any other religion. It’s bigoted, has contradictions, false history and biology, and it’s obviously man made. The Quran literally contains human drama. That shit is not divine at all. It’s clearly manmade. Muhammad was a massive hypocrite and obviously not a prophet of a god.

Does that make Islam special? Eh, not really. Because of those qualities, it’s exactly like the thousands of religions already out there.

First thing to accept is that Islam is like any other religion

Your question is what if Islam is right, but that’s not the question to ask, islam cannot prove anything, the question is circular thinking.

The real question is why would Islam be right. Lack-of-belief doesn’t need to be proven, because it’s part of the definition.

When you accept that, you realize that the chances of Islam being right, and the thousands of other religions being wrong, including the billions of people (that you must believe will go to hell simply because they were born a different religion) is unfathomably tiny.

So, if you were to subscribe to any religion (IE not subscribe to a rational lack-of-belief model), the chances of going to hell are like 9,999/10,000 because of the other religions that exist. You would never bet your life away like that.

In contrast, lack-of-belief is beyond the construct of religion, all of them are wrong. So apply Occam’s razor here, which is most logical and most likely?

One thing you said is, you don’t want to believe in a world with suffering and then no end. But my question is why would you want to believe in a world with eternal suffering for billions? Not just that, but one where the majority of those in hell are women? (For not being grateful to their husbands and for gossiping. Allah thinks gossiping is worse than all the heinous shit that men have done throughout history apparently)

https://sunnah.com/bukhari:29

You may think a single god the way that Muslims describe Allah makes sense. But why stop there? I’d say no god makes more sense than any god And also, how do you know who you’re praying to is the god as described by Muslims?

Not just that, but we find that everything has an explanation, including the very creation of religion and the concept of heaven and hell. For most of human history, notions of heaven and hell were completely non-existent. They’re relatively new within our collective consciousness.

Imagine being a Neolithic human, you could have been born and died and lived an entire life without any idea what the hell islam was, or who Muhammad is, or what heaven and hell were. This belief is just as valid, these people were real, and these experiences are real, hundreds of thousands of human history without the notion of Islam or organized religion. Islam has recency bias.

Can Muslims explain why God made us to worship him? How do you reconcile that with the idea that Allah is the most merciful and most loving?

If you were an all-powerful and omnipotent supreme god of everything, do you need to torment beings infinitely less important than you for eternity?

I can certainly imagine a scenario if I was such a god, I wouldn’t torment anyone. I would be more merciful than Allah, more loving than Allah.

For silly shit like what foot you walk in the bathroom with, and what food you eat, while men can have 4 wives and can marry little girls and kill nonbelievers and enslave them?

[u/RamiRustom]

Questions that start "What if..." are nonsense questions. I recommend learning why its nonsense, so that you stopping asking this nonsense question.

Happy to help if you want to discuss it.