Struggling with faith

I don’t expect anyone to find this post, so this will be posted on a brand new account and probably end up as a jumbled mess of different things I just want to put into words. I’m also sure the subject has been posted a million times before, but I still just want to write my thoughts down without much effort put in.

Recently, I’ve been struggling with a lot of different things, and I just think this was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Most of it is school, what I’ll do after, or what my goal in life even is. Recently, I saw a post on TikTok that was pretty much calling the idea of religion as a whole stupid and pointless. And though the post didn’t specify any religion, everyone in the comments was quick to mention the Abrahamic religions: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. I tried searching up things like “why does nobody respect religion anymore,” but all I got was videos disrespecting Christianity specifically. Not Judaism, not Paganism, not Hinduism, and not religion as a concept; Christianity and Catholicism specifically, not that I think other religions deserve disrespect. I always try to remember John 15:18 when I see stuff like this, but I don’t think it’s helping as much this time. Almost all of the posts were calling **Christians** unintelligent, ignorant, and stupid. I’m also a firm believer in Annihilationism, just because I don’t see eternal torture as a fitting punishment from an all-loving god who uses words like “perish” (John 3:16) or “destroy” (Matthew 10:28) to describe Hell, though a lot of Orthodox Christians and Catholics heavily disagree with me and take Scripture literally. Along with that and having scientific beliefs like Earth being 4.5 billion years old, the universe being 13.8 billion years old, dinosaurs going extinct 66 million years ago, etc., I’m viewed as a heretic by other Christians and an idiot by atheists. Sometimes, I just try to distract myself with things like video games, movies, working on my novel for my creative writing class, or spending time with my girlfriend. And at this point, I can’t even sleep because of it. I lay in bed for a few hours, listening to ABBA until I burst into tears because My Love, My Life came on in autoplay. On top of everything I mentioned before, I just don’t know how my scientific and religious beliefs are compatible. I tell myself the “days” in Genesis come from “yom,” which can refer to a period in time, that the seven days are symbolic ways to refer to different stages of the universe, that evolution is a tool for God to help His creations adjust over the millennia, that the Fall was a metaphor for humans gaining free will beyond being instinctual some 300,000 years ago, and that “let there be light” was when God caused particles to decouple and for the universe to become transparent for the first time, 380,000 years after the Big Bang. But I still ask myself, am I really believing, or is this just a compromise between modern science and my beliefs? Do I really believe, or am I just afraid of Hell? And when I’m sitting alone in my room at night thinking about this, I can’t help but wish I had the conviction of Saint Peter or Joan of Arc, who still prayed to Jesus and looked at the crucifix being held by a priest as she was being burned alive. And then I think about things in the Bible like the Flood or the bears in 2 Kings. How could God, who is all-loving, send a flood to nearly kill an entire species or bears to maul 42 people to death? But then I remember how violent ancient societies were, how believers were treated then, and how God’s morality is above that of humanity’s morality, and I just sort of have to accept it. Another thing that has always bothered me is belief itself. I saw someone say that if she and 50 other people got together to write about how an asteroid hit Earth, then people 2,000 years in the future will believe it, so how am I supposed to believe something written 2,000 years ago just because a few dozen people claimed to witness it? Everywhere I go, I see people, not just Christians, being insulted for their beliefs. Christians are called idiots, Jews are called greedy, Muslims are called barbaric, and Pagans are called tree huggers, among many of the other insults people throw at others for their beliefs. Without getting too deep into politics, I see myself as left-leaning, and I do have a lot of leftist beliefs. But then I see leftists saying that leftism is incompatible with religion, Karl Marx saying eliminating religion was secondary to overcoming the systems that caused human suffering (though I don’t agree with Marx on a lot of things), and many leftists online being atheist, agnostic, or against religion entirely. Another common thing I see people say is that leaving behind religion made them feel free and that they think religious people are delusional and only want something to comfort them, which I can’t help but think of myself as. Speaking of heresy, I had another similar situation when I watched Heretic; Mr. Reed (Hugh Grant) talks to Sister Barnes (Sophie Thatcher) and Sister Paxton (Chloe East) about how other religions that predate Christianity have similar figures to Jesus, like a carpenter that was born to a virgin mother, or Horus having 12 harpooners. Barnes shuts him down by pointing out that he didn’t talk about any of the glaring differences, like Horus having a bird head as an example. My main point is, I feel like I’m bound to be a heretic, an idiot, or a heretical idiot that isn’t accepted by people he shares political beliefs with, nor the people he worships the same god as. To avoid repeating myself and seeming more melodramatic than this already is, I’ll just end it here so you don’t have to force yourself to read through my teenage angst rant about how I’m afraid I’ll waste 77 years of my life on nothing while being viewed as an idiot by the people around me.

Here’s to hoping this doesn’t get denied, and God bless you all.