Scared of going to hell

Nobody is going to hell for being gay, and if I do I do, it dosent bother me in the slightest. We get one life and I spent yrs in the closet but since age 42 that all changed. I'm now happy for the first time at 43.

 

It sounds like you are going through a really hard time right now. I was raised with very strict ideas about what was right and wrong and I know that is still sometimes really hard for me to deal with.

It may be hard to believe right now, but you are going to be ok. You are alive and the sun comes up every morning and life goes on.

Something that has helped me a lot is to remember that all of the ideas of heaven and hell and sin are human interpretations. All human beings are imperfect and nobody knows everything. Many religious groups believe they have the one "correct" knowledge of God and the universe and they all believe equally strongly in conflicting things. To me this says that probably nobody is totally "right." No human being has ultimate truth. We are all beautiful, limited beings doing our best with the information and resources available to us.

In my experience fear and judgement create nothing good. It can be so hard to let go of those things but it is a worthwhile thing to do. As human beings we are always learning new things and growing, both as individuals and as a species. We create good and bad things, there is light and darkness. Everyone has failed and messed up and thought the wrong thing, that is part of what makes us all human. If a greater power in the universe is going to condemn us for our human qualities it will have to condemn every single one of us. I don't know the future, but I just don't see that happening.

If we were created deliberately by a higher power, then we are as we were intended to be. Fear is a hard thing to unlearn, but it can be unlearned one little bit at a time and it is so worth it to do so. Keep living life the best way you know how, admit it when you make mistakes and learn from them, then go back to focusing on the good things. That is the most any of us can do.

 

If you believe God created you, then the biggest thing you need to come to terms with is He created you, just the way you are. God is infallible right? So it’s not a mistake. I was a youth pastor for 3 years in a church that was very much against LGBT and a member of that community for a very long time. I struggled with this for a very very long time. One day, a feeling just kind of washed over me. That It was ok to be me and God still loved me. Been mostly out of the closet for a year now and I haven’t felt better. While I no longer attend church I still have a relationship with God. You have to remember that the Bible was oral history for decades before it was written, then it’s ben translated hundreds of times over millennia. I am sure some phrases were altered, but people twist words: example sodom was not destroyed because of people’s sexuality. It was destroyed because the people were unwilling to accept travelers and wanted to sexually assault people passing through. Little things like that get turned around by people using those words for their own agenda. I don’t believe anyone is going to hell for any loving relationship they have.

 

Go to YouTube and search for “Matthew Vines” or go to Amazon and look for the book “God and the Gay Christian”. He walks through the scriptures that talk about homosexuality. The modern interpretation of them are questionable (remember you’re reading an English translation from the lense of a modern American when the Bible was originally written in Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic thousands of years ago in significantly different cultures).

Just for a teaser....homosexuality wasn’t really a concept n the ancient world. The didn’t think about it that way back then. Also, the word “homosexual” wasn’t in the Bible until the 1940’s. Nearby in Leviticus where it condemns men sleeping with men, it also tells you to not eat shrimp and makes wearing polyester a sin...stuff few Christians follow anymore. Stuff like that.

 

My parents are just like that. We are religious and believe in god but do support lgbtq. I know you wont go to hell.
The reason I know this is because the people who wrote the bible are pastures. They believe god hates gays. Really what is true is that god doesn't care who you love. In the bible (which the pastures wrote) its states that god loves you for who you are. Also if being gay is a sin, Jesus died on a cross to forgive all past and future sins so everyone can go to heaven. So no, you will not go to hell. And if you do, you have all the lgbtq community with you helping you along the way.

 

Bisexual Catholic chiming in. In my personal opinion, we are not going to hell. You have to remember that the Bible has been mistranslated and misinterpreted over the centuries.

It's been one of the biggest struggles I've gone through, reconciling my faith and my sexuality. I'm at a place where I believe that I can be both Catholic and bisexual. I still have days where I question if it can work, but for the most part, I think I'll be okay in the afterlife. If I do go to hell, it will be for something else other than my bisexuality.

Like others have said, God created us in his image. He doesn't make mistakes, so He made us just the way we are and He loves us. And if it turns out we are sinning, guess what? Jesus died on the cross to save mankind. He can intervene for us. He can gelp us get into heaven. That's the beauty of his death.

 

John 3-16 For God loved this world so he gave his only son and if you believe in him you will have eternal life. Don't listen to what the haters say. God made us exactly the way he wanted, for he is perfect. For what reason he made us different? I don't know. Sometimes it sure isn't easy but I have come to feel that not being true to yourself, his perfect creation, is the greatest sin of all.

Dean

 

Not a great deal I can add to what @quebec posted above.

It's important to understand that the Bible is not a novel and it shouldn't be read like a novel. If we simply focus on the words, as written, we can miss a lot of important detail. If we fail to cross reference passages, delve into the original/historical context and really study the Bible our faith is hollow and can become a source of discomfort and distress in our coming out journey.

Just a quick example, concerning the story of the destruction of Sodom from chapter 19 of Genesis, because it's so often used against LGBT people:
It's claimed by fundamentalists that Sodom was destroyed because the men of the city were "homosexuals", but is that really correct? Is that really why God destroyed the city of Sodom? If we focus on chapter 19 only, it may appear so, but look at what it says in chapter 18 too. In chapter 18 Abraham pleads the case for Sodom and appears to enter into a bargain with God who had already decided that the city must be destroyed. The Angels (identified as male) are then sent ahead to visit Lot, to forewarn him of the impending destruction. A careful reading and study of Genesis should make it clear that God didn't destroy the city because the men were gay and wished to have sex with the visitors. God had already decided to destroy the city (in chapter 18) because the outcry was so bad and the unspecified sins were so grievous.

I could say a lot more about this passage and the other clobber passages that have been weaponised against LGBT people, but I merely offer this as an example. If we are basing the idea of going to hell on a misunderstanding or misreading of scripture, maybe we need to revisit what we have read and have a rethink.

 

Not only that, but Sodom and Gomorrah get talked about later in the Bible (in Ezekiel 10:49-50) and Jesus himself talked about it in Matthew 10 and Luke 10, and they said that the sin of Soddom was that they were unwelcoming to strangers and didn’t take care of the poor and downtrodden. Quite frankly, modern evangelicals who support or enable Donald Trump right now fit Jesus’ description of the sin of Sodom, not lgbt people.

 

I wish the like button was enabled on this. Well said.

 

You can't think like that. I have a hard time believing even if you did everything else "right", you'd be sentenced to suffer in hell for one sin (even then, its certain sex acts that are condemned, rather than something we have no control over, like orientation).

Its pretty hypocritical for some denominations to put so much emphasis on certain "sins" but not others. The most outspoken seem to be the ones most struggling with their own orientations.

The problem is acceptance. You're not evil, you're not flawed.

 

There's absolutely no evidence of hell. None. And even if you do take stock in the bible and believe that it's true, there are more verses in there that speak against left-handed people than there are that speak against LGBT people. Even if there was such a thing as hell, even if the religion was true, there are also bible verses that speak against eating shellfish, getting tattoos, wearing clothing of two fabrics, planting two different crops in the same field, getting a divorce... it goes on and on. And if nobody's going to hell for those things, nobody's going there for being LGBT. You'll be fine, man.

 

I went to Catholic school as a kid. I don't remember the lessons very much, but I do remember my first Confession, they practically had to drag the words out of me. I never got into it. I never really believed in anything. I think religion is a lot like being queer, you either have it or you don't. Granted, that can change over time with religion. I used to lie in Confession, say absurd things just so I had something to say. Anyway, decades later I learned that Moses isn't a historical figure-- he's a legendary character that was made up to boost morale. The exodus of the Hebrews out of Egypt never happened, either. There's no historical evidence for any of it. When I learned this, I was angry that I had been lied to for so long.

It's similar with the Christ myth. I think maybe a guy named Jesus existed who said some stuff that got passed down through oral tradition for awhile before being translated and put on paper but I don't think he "rose again" or anything. The same goes for Heaven and Hell. I'm a deist, now. I believe in some sort of force that governs the universe, but not much else. And I don't know if praying to it does anything except make me feel better. I don't really think there is a Hell, or even a Heaven for that matter. Death, as I understand it, is a permanent cessation of consciousness. Nothing more. If there IS an afterlife, I don't think it's like anything we can really comprehend, except maybe a vague, dreamlike state.

That's just my two cents. I wouldn't worry too much about going to Hell.

 

I have felt this way at times. I recommend the book God and the Gay Christian: The Biblical Case in Support of Same-Sex Relationships by Matthew Vines. Also some good websites that have helped me:
http://wouldjesusdiscriminate.org/
https://www.hrc.org/resources/what-does-the-bible-say-about-homosexuality
https://www.forgeonline.org/blog/20...YmWTSDHEIoWtWgq6h-rRKhOED3C2jBABzUSjlQfR1hr68

 

Also, forgot to add here's a good TED Talk on the topic.