Spirituality and Belief crisis...help!

This will be cross-posted in the Spirituality Forum . :)

I was contemplating, today, about how God mentions in the Bible, of those who are casted down to Hell.

To calm myself down, I confided in a couple of friends. One friend, is agnostic. The other, is a follower of Buddha, the other, is a Menonite.

The Agnostic friend, disagreed with somethings and believed that the Bible is inaccurate - and everything in the universe balances itself out, but is unsure of any ultimate power.

The follower of Buddha said, forget the Gods! Just be Nova (me), and take each day as it comes.

The Menonite, on the other hand, communicated with me about the matter for a long time. He read Rudy's post, his response to littlewings, and told me it was wrong... because in Chapter 22, vs 6-8, it says "I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: If anyone adds anything to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book. And if anyone takes words away from this book of prophecy, God will take away from him his share in the tree of life and in the holy city which are described in this book. He who testifies to these things says, Amen. Come, Lord Jesus. The grace of the Lord Jesus by with God's people, Amen."
He told me, that if it were up to him, he would like to believe that everyone goes to Heaven too... but he says, that it is not that easy. He explains we must believe in God's word, which is the Bible, and be truly sorry for our sins, and ask God our forgiveness. Another thing he pointed out, is Chapter 21, vs 6-8
"He (God) said to me: 'It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To him who is thirsty I will give the spring of water of life. He who overcomes will inherit all this, and I will be his God and he will be my son. But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters, and all liars their place will be in the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the 2nd death." That seems quite frightening to me. Though I do not doubt that God said those things, I do ask why he would say those things, if Christ died for our sins. I've learned that God is merciful, wouldn't he have mercy on us? I'm pretty sure those verses were taken from Revelations....
But what happened to Christ dying for our sins? Another Christian friend answered that with "we have to ask for forgiveness before we can be saved, we were created to worship God.. but man chose sin in the beginning, that's why we live with flaws and sin and have to be forgiven".

But what about everything I've learned? For once in my life, I had beliefs that didn't frighten me, I had beliefs that God didn't have to be mean. But the Bible a lot of the time, makes me feel like I should be frightened, and that God is mean.

I live this life suffering from illness, money issues, loss... why would I want to die and burn in Hell for being confused?
My only intentions are good. I was even teaching my friend what I believed. I'm lost here... Tweet