Condemned to Eternal Hellfire Date Thursday, April 18, 2024 - 11:38 AM PST Topic Religion I am 19 years old and I am in fear for my life. No, no one has set out to harm me nor do I have a terminal illness. I fear for my afterlife. I fear what is to come. I spent at least sixteen years of my life attending a Pentecostal church and growing up in a Christian family. Every summer since kindergarten I would attend church camp for a week and I loved every moment of it. Well, except for when I cried my first day there and the final two years of attending. The last two years I found the atheists, agnostics, and just your typical “goth” kids to hang out with. No, I wasn’t particularly fond of most of them, but they were there and so was I. We hung out away from the crowd and didn’t participate as much as everyone else did, but we sat through the sermons and joined in the games because we had to. This final year I went and discovered that many girls were discovering their sexuality at the same time as me. Many claimed to be bisexual, though as many discover when seeking out a mate amongst them, they were not really. I did sleep with a girl in my bed every night though. Rumors were started but luckily none ever got to my parents. None of the rumors were true of course. I would have been mortified at the time as I was still “closeted”. During the few years before I had fallen under the “holy ghost’s power” and “spoke in tongues”. These two things involve, for those of you who do not know, a passing out like state where you are still conscious of some sort of thought (at least I was) and strange ramblings flowing forth from your mouth while you think correctly. I even witnessed a boy from the church I went to possessed with demons. That is really an interesting thing to see. I still wonder to this day how that could be explained scientifically. This is where I should mention that I am no longer a Christian. I don’t go to church, I don’t pray, I am basically bisexual, and I have had premarital sex. I would be considered an extreme sinner by some. None of these things feel wrong to me though. I am very happy in the life I am in and I feel so alive and free. Yet, something still plagues me. I am haunted by the thoughts of “what happens after we die” and “will I ever see my friends and family again?” I see churches and signs for churches and I wonder “will I go to hell and never see my family again?” which really scares me. I love my family and friends and I look forward to seeing them and many other people in an after life. I am trying to discover who I am, what I believe, why I am here, and where my life is leading me. I keep getting thrown off by the thought of eternal hell fire and damnation. I am a good person and I don’t believe I have anything I should spend forever unhappy about, but I still wonder. I believe in a karmic like system but I don’t quite believe in a past life. I believe that some people might have had them or they truly believe they had them, so I will not deny them that, but I still haven’t had any hard evidence to show me. I think the only thing that could convince me is to have an experience that makes me see mine. I don’t like the idea of being tossed from body to body without knowing it and without knowing who I am. If an after life is real, then this me, the me who I am now, will never exist again and I will not know I am a whole new person. What I really believe the thing to do is to be a good person, be kind to others, and do good deeds out of the kindness of your entire being not because you fear what may come. I also believe I should be happy and that I should have a damn good time while I am here. There isn’t a full on point to this post, but if you see one then I am glad I could share something of meaning for you. I also figured that since many of you are good people with open minds, hearts, and ears/eyes I’d share what’s causing me grief today in hopes of receiving some good feed back and possibly some good advice. Thank you for reading. This article comes from Shmeng http://www.shmeng.com/ The URL for this story is: http://www.shmeng.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=748