In my religious background, there is huge emphasis on fearing God, fearing His wrath, and hell. Hell is very graphical. Here are some verses showing how graphical it is:
“And if ye do it not - and ye can never do it - then guard yourselves against the Fire prepared for disbelievers, whose fuel is of men and stones.” (Q 2:24) “Lo! Those who disbelieve Our revelations, We shall expose them to the Fire. As often as their skins are consumed We shall exchange them for fresh skins that they may taste the torment. Lo! Allah is ever Mighty, Wise.” (Q 4:56) “For such, their habitation will be hell, and they will find no refuge therefrom” (Q 4:121) “Lo! the hypocrites (will be) in the lowest deep of the Fire, and thou wilt find no helper for them;” (Q 4:145) “Lo! those who disbelieve and deal in wrong, Allah will never forgive them, neither will He guide them unto a road, Except the road of hell, wherein they will abide for ever. And that is ever easy for Allah.” (Q 4:168-169) “They will wish to come forth from the Fire, but they will not come forth from it. Theirs will be a lasting doom.” (Q 5:37) “Theirs will be a bed of hell, and over them coverings (of hell). Thus do We requite wrong-doers.” (Q 7:41) “O ye who believe! Lo! many of the (Jewish) rabbis and the (Christian) monks devour the wealth of mankind wantonly and debar (men) from the way of Allah. They who hoard up gold and silver and spend it not in the way of Allah, unto them give tidings (O Muhammad) of a painful doom, On the day when it will (all) be heated in the fire of hell, and their foreheads and their flanks and their backs will be branded therewith (and it will be said unto them): Here is that which ye hoarded for yourselves. Now taste of what ye used to hoard.” (Q 9:35) “Know they not that whoso opposeth Allah and His messenger, his verily is fire of hell, to abide therein ? That is the extreme abasement.” (Q 9:63) “Hell is before him, and he is made to drink a festering water, Which he sippeth but can hardly swallow, and death cometh unto him from every side while yet he cannot die, and before him is a harsh doom.” (Q 14:16-17)
Even though I have left this religion but I get this nightmare that I am getting punishment for leaving the religion. I feel scared that what if I am wrong and end up burning in hellfire.
How to get rid of this fear so that I can live my life freely?
Look at this this way: burning in hell might be uncomfortable for a little while, but after a year or so it would probably start to get boring. After a thousand years you could presume that you might actually enjoy it. After a million years of being burned you wouldnt even notice it and would probably miss it.
In my religion, it is that the pain will only increase. Hadith literature regarding hell is more graphic than I showed here.
major spoiler for The Good Place
This is one of the things in The Good Place, but from a perspective of heaven. If you could do everything you ever dreamed of without a care of ever dying or being hurt, how long would it take you to be bored? You really going to be entertained watching your favorite movie for literally the ten billionth time?
And after having a pitch fork poked in your ass for the billionth time you just be like whatever bro
That’s what religious people don’t understand: pleasure and pain are temporal concepts. Anything done to you long enough just becomes common reality . You can’t be “tortured “ for eternity because after a long enough time, it’s no longer torture just reality
Yup, that’s the idea.