Can anyone else relate to this?
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.