My religion ocd is so terrifying. I’m Catholic, and I get thoughts that I’m going to hell constantly It’s so exhausting and it scares me so much when my brain tells me I’m going straight to hell and that I’m a horrible person, and it makes me believe it

Remember we’re all horrible people apart from Jesus’ sacrifice for our sins. We aren’t one bit righteous apart from Him.

ERP for ya: “Well, maybe I’m going to hell, but I’m still going to live my life serving Jesus, because I love Him.”

I used to deal with a lot of religious OCD as a kid, since I’m also Catholic, and of course, being lgbt doesn’t help with that kind of OCD either (even if I don’t believe homosexuality is wrong in any way, it still kinda gets to you after hearing it from others). I promise it’ll get better. God loves and forgives, and as long as you go through life doing your best to be a good person, I’m sure you’ll get to Heaven. ❤️❤️

Salvation is not earned by being a good person. It comes only through a commitment by faith to trust in Jesus, and to have a relationship with Him. To try to earn our way to salvation is an exercise in futility, and it would render the His death on the Christ null and void. However the results of a relationship with the Lord are good works, but it isn’t to earn salvation.

Thanks.

I had a very intense fear of hell. I had to do a lot of searching. You are in your own hell right now. God doesn’t want his children in pain. You should feel love. Hell is a farce. That’s where I ended up. Maybe it’s not where you end up, but you should feel god’s love, not his anger at all times. That is not the point.

For a Christian, the truth of the gospel rests on the overwhelmingly evidential resurrection. If there is no hell, there was no reason for the crucifixion and resurrection, because what would be the point of salvation, if there is nothing from which to save us from (the ramifications of our unrepentant sins and eternity in hell from our unbelief in Jesus)? The Bible is the Christian’s source of truth, as it is God’s very word. You can’t be a Christian if you choose to believe there is no hell, no reason for redemption, etc.

I know this is an old thread but I have had terrible scrupulosity surrounding hell. I have been doing a lot of reassurance seeking (compulsive; bad, I know) and have learned a lot about the origins of the Christian doctrine of hell. This is not a forum for theological debate but I just wanted to note that actually @katiekat, many of the very early church fathers and mothers (ie, gregory of nyssa, Origen) did not believe in hell (or believed that even if souls were separated from God for a time, that God would reconcile them in the end) and they were very much Christians; in fact, they shaped the way we understand our faith now. So yes, one can be a Christian and believe there is no hell. @caitlin12, Father Richard Rohr’s work has been very very helpful to me. As long as you don’t seek it out for reassurance to assuage the obsessions, his “Hell, no!” lecture was life changing and life giving for me. You can find it on YouTube.