Hello.
I will do my best to make this brief. Essentially, I was born into a Muslim family and followed the faith blindly in my youth. Beginning in my teenage years, my doubts in religion increased to the point now where I consider myself agnostic at the age of 21. When it comes to spiritual matters, I find myself drawn to Buddhist beliefs more than anything. But that being said, I live in constant dread and depression, due mainly to the cruelty I see so much of in this world, a fear of death (and potential punishment in an afterlife according to Islam), existential terror, fear of losing loved ones, etc etc.
I wish I was religious because I think believing in a religion like Islam would help a lot with my mental state. But my understanding is that faith and belief is integral to being a Muslim. Even if I perform the prayers, and abstain from whats haram, if I don't actually believe then I'm not a Muslim right?
How am I supposed to force myself to believe in things that I don't have any belief in? I am open to being religious, but I just can't believe in so many of its claims. None of them have any actual evidence behind them. I don't think its likely that judgement day will come. I have never seen an angel nor have I seen anything that suggests they exist at all. I also don't believe the Quran is the legitimate word of God, I don't even know if God exists in the first place. I spend a lot of time reading about the Quran and the Prophet, but nothing comes close to convincing me of the truth of their claims.
My understanding is that Qadr means that God knew everything I would think and do before I ever did it. Does this mean that he intends me to live as a disbeliever and to die as one? Am I fated to enter hell? I heard that even with Qadr, I am still a person with free-will and so I have the choice to live as Muslim or as a sinner, but it really doesn't feel like I have any choice at all. What I believe is not a decision I make, it is just what my mind thinks given the sum of my experiences and knowledge. I could perhaps convince myself of a belief in God, as in a deity, but the specifics of Islam I just don't believe in right now.
So what exactly is someone like me supposed to do? Am I just condemned to hell?
That is one last thing. The punishments in Islam sound wildly cruel. It seems like most people on this planet are going to hell for eternity. How can God be considered all-merciful if he is going to send so many billions of his creations to hell for following the faith of their ancestors? Or for living with doubts in a world so filled with cruelty, uncertainty, and suffering?
It doesn't even matter if they were good people. I know a lot of people who are not Muslim and they are good people in their hearts. But simply because they aren't Muslim, they will be condemned to eternity in hellfire? Does that sound like a merciful God to you?
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