Real quick ....I'm gonna respond to all that but I wanted to address one thing you said because I feel like this is such a popular misconception and I really dobsee how it's made so often so I want to address it.
Fear driven belief isnt real belief. People who are trying to believe in Christ based on fear of hell are hostages....not really believers. The thinking that "I better do this or I'll go to hell or I could go to hell" does not bring redeeming faith - it brings empty and corrupt religion.
For a minute let's divorce religion from Jesus(God really).
If you are married.....do you seek to please your spouse out of fear of divorce? Or do you seek to please your spouse because you love and value them? It's like the difference between being married just because you dont want to be alone and being married because you love the one you are married to.
Trying to follow and please God just out of fear of hell is hollow and meaningless. Chasing God for the sake God....because God Himself is the prize, is real faith and belief.
Think about it. If you believe there is this vast Being that is the source of all life, the force of life itself.... that created the universe, that is perfect and holy beyond anything our minds could image.....wouldnt you be more genuinely excited about THAT than simply thinking "yeah...hell is pretty scary, so I gotta try to behave"?
Those in the Lord have no fear of hell. We all know we deserve it, too. We dont even fear death. One of the marks of true belief is a total absence of fear of hell and death.
You cant inspire the faith that drove the early church with a fear of hell. That was passion for Christ. The Roman's were turning these people into street lamps and they never defected.
"6 Therefore I remind you to stir up the gift of God which is in you through the laying on of my hands. 7 For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.
8 Therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me His prisoner, but share with me in the sufferings for the gospel according to the power of God, 9 who has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace which was given to us in Christ Jesus before time began, 10 but has now been revealed by the appearing of our Savior Jesus Christ, who has abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel" 2nd Timothy 1
Western civilization was built upon the principles of rights and liberties, freedom and equality that are taken from Christianity. I would NOT say that western civilization is Christian.....I'm saying the principles its built on are.
That being said, the western church is a sad sight. There are a lot of weird false teachings that are very modern and very western....like the idea of a rapture, waiting for "revelation to happen" when it mostly already has, making America central to scripture. The idea that you can say a "sinners prayer" and ask Jesus into your heart and boom....you're redeemed. That's all false. All of it.
I was raised in a Pentecostal/charismatic environment and forced to attend a private pentecostal school. And I was told so many times Jesus died for my sins and I even said that sinners prayer and pretended I believed this....pretty much i was expected to. And i hid my non belief and thought there was just something wrong with me.
The thought of Jesus personally dying for MY sins rang completely hollow. It wasnt personal to me at all. But hell sounded terrifying so I did try to force myself into belief.
As I got older obviously some fear of hell wasnt enough and I started just pushing that away and reasoning "look....I dont believe this part, so why am I afraid of the other part?". I started reading and lightly studying other religions. I wasnt prepared to be some full blown atheist. I was agnostic. We cant logically claim there is no God at all.
One thing that always stuck out to me was the way Jehovah is described is beyond our understanding. The triune nature of Gods being. Its weird. No one can adequately explain it and we are left to just kind of accept it. One God that exists in 3 persons. He isnt 3 persons in 1 God. He is 1 God in 3 persons. Jesus walked the earth NOT as half God half human....but fully God and fully human. Every other belief system or god I read about has really good human level explanations. Even human characteristics. Not Yahweh though......Yahweh is terrifying, overwhelming and beyond us. We cannot explain Him(He isnt even really a "him" or "her" either though both masculine and feminine are expressions of His image)
I'm one of those who prayed a challenging prayer like "If this is real God, show me". And when I got answer I got an answer and it was like a switch flipped. I had prayed that before and the difference was i was really broken down. I'd been detoxing from heroin, my whole life was a mess, I was a mess, and I told God all of this. I was absolutely ready to repent of it all if I only KNEW it was real. And then suddenly it was. I cant really explain what happened.
And then i was obsessed with learning. I went from half hearted reading of random scriptures in a book i had no real interest in to getting lexicons and several translations lol.
I'm not afraid of hell, but I am fascinated and drawn to God Himself. Clearly I still sin. But it's not fear of hell that keeps me perusing God. Its God that keeps me perusing God.
When I teach my Squish the faith, i dont focus much on sin and hell and all that quite yet. I want to instill in her more of a passion to know the Lord for just the Lords sake. In the way we dont seek riches just out of fear of poverty. We want that treasure because it's a treasure. Jesus IS that treasure.
Anyone trying to follow the Lord just out of fear of hell is missing out on so much. You gotta follow the Lord because you want God. You dont peruse a crush because you dont want to be single (not ideally but you get my point). Just a tiny taste of the peace and love of God goes way beyond even the best heroin high.
That leads into another big criticism of Catholics. They are always working for salvation. Always guilty. It's impossible to do. They almost grieve God, its grievous and tedious and empty. They even still have Jesus on the cross. Where is the joy of the Lord? The peace and assurance? They have none of that. They are all working out of fear of hell.....not out of passion for God.
I used to argue a lot with anti theists (a step past atheist into people who dont believe in God and HATE God on top of it). I mean people who claim to be satanists are not anywhere near as angry and hateful towards Christians as these anti theists are.....they get pretty unhinged lol. At this point if I do decide to engage with an anti theist or atheist who is bringing some arguments, I always ask them who and want they think God is. When they say "God" what do they mean....and it's never the same thing I mean when I say "God"....so right there the whole discussion is lost.
Because it's useless arguing with someone who isnt even arguing what you actually believe. Like no one is worshiping a sky wizard, or magic fairy, or.....a "dead jew". I never engage at that point because they are not thinking rationally or even big enough to challenge what I actually believe. Unless someone is open to discussing who and what God is.....its always a pointless discussion. And it's hard separating that from this idea of "religion" that we must follow these rules or burn in hell - which really is NOT true religion at all.
Okay I'm totally gonna respond to the rest of what you said. I gotta get some more coffee and it might take a minute because I'm homeschooling right now lol. I have Squish playing a few rounds of a math game :D
Oh and if I'm right and we are still sucking air when Jesus returns - you dont have to be judged before the Almighty. Everyone who cries to God for mercy will have it. There will be people so reprobate they will still reject God even seeing Jesus Himself coming on the clouds - dont be that person....its a no win endeavor lol.
I think people who manage to stay rational as the world goes crazy are blessed and belong to the Lord and dont know it yet. People like you and Freud who are not really rejecting or hating God .....just rather you dont claim to know for sure. I definatrly pray for you both to be brought to a knowledge of Christ. Being crushed under the weight of ones own sin and knowing it was taken care of is liberating and abolishes fear and guilt. The pressure is gone. The job was done. "It is finished" you could say.
Nothing can touch you. Not even death.
I'm a "Calvinist" .....so....yeah lol.