Ever had a proper Existential crisis?

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I never understood the meaning of the phrase until I had one a few months ago. I was living in Jerusalem, and had moved out of my house into a hostel. I was surrounded by very devout and very intelligent Christians.
One evening I was sitting out on the balcony with a fashionably Atheistic Frenchman. We were talking about God and existence when one of the Christians overheard us and decided to join in.
In the beginning, I thought the French man was arrogant. He told me the concept of god was most likely stupid, as if he had calculated the probabilities. He said that on the chance that god exists, he would be granted entry into heaven because he was a “good man”

This was where Christian interjected. He was a simple man from Georgia USA. He made an analogy comparing heaven to a passport control booth at an airport. You can get on a plane to Israel, be as good as a white, non terrorist person can be, but unless you have a passport, they won’t let you in.
He said Heaven was the same deal with heaven. Unless you have the passport, you don’t get in. According to his reading of the bible, the passport is complete submission of your will to Jesus.

This scared me. Apart from the arrogance, I thought very similar to the Frenchman. I don’t know if God exists, cares or intervenes, but I hope that he does. I don’t follow the bible, but I try to follow my conscience and would hope that should heaven exist, then I’ll be granted entry. But according to the Georgian man’s criteria, I won’t be.
Now, I can’t know if heaven exists, so to give up my autonomy in this life on the condition that I might get something great in the next, is a big leap of faith to take. But maybe that’s what God wants – only the people who are prepared to take that leap of faith – maybe not even the ones who were born into it.

IT’S IMPOSSIBLE TO KNOW. My entire existence might be leading me to an eternal lake of fire, just like the fools at school who had so much fun kicking frogs and not doing homework are now working in s**t jobs.
Whatever belief system I choose, it requires a judgement that I can only guess at. That’s the definition of torture.
I spent three days in a serious state of worry and confusion, but resolved to defer the decision for a while. I’m not constantly worried at the moment, but I see no way out of this paradox...

If it's any consolation, the thief who was strung up with Jesus on the right was repentant and truly resolved before the end of his life, and allowed entrance into heaven. He had no prior religious experience before that. I'm sure this is no more than a ploy of religious servitude on behalf of the American you've seen, they always do that and selectively forget certain biblical stories to contradict themselves. This parable isn't a reason to live a life of wickedness, either.

I think the Georgian man had (perhaps accidentally) left out part of the story, that it is possible to get in, though not by the means you perhaps expected. The way it works, Christ has not required you to be perfect, as He knows you never will be. In a sense, all He's looking for is the admittance to the fact that you've done wrong and need His help, and that's when He gives you the passport, so to speak.

I would go and do some research, particularly on Christianity, and see whether or not it's true. You'll be particularly surprised at what you find. If anything, you'll relieve yourself of the idea that it's impossible to know.

I've heard quite a few Christian's who'd debate that being a morally well-grounded person means more than the technicality of 'did you believe in Jesus in your life?'. The argument they bring up is that when Jesus said that no one could go to the father aside from through himself, it was never stated that the people had to make the declaration, more that Jesus saved all with his crucifixion - assuming he only saved Christian's per say may be a bit of a leap.

Figure on this though, in this life you have your set of circumstances, your own struggles, and yes at a certain point you will inherently want to give back to the world around you as best you can as a means of fulfillment. In truth we're all really agnostic - no one really knows, or at least a very small few who'll constantly tell you that they wish they didn't because it comes too easy to them at that point (which I don't know, that's like saying "Geez, I wish I didn't have so much money" - leaving salvation to serendipity is one of the creepy things about religion that still really bothers me). At that rate though, you're best off just being the best person you can be, if you feel like you have it in you to be a good Christian, Jew, Muslim, etc. then do so, overall though I think the balance is struck when you get to the point where you're at your best and can really say "At this point I'm just as happy going to heaven or hell - this is me and there's nothing I'm ashamed of, if God accepts me great, if he doesn't he's likely not my kind of guy anyway".

Of course, the foregoing presumes the existance of Heaven, Jesus, God, and all the rest.

why would you want to spend eternity with a God who wants millions of good souls to burn forever, only because they had the guts to think rationally and not follow the herd?

I'd give that God the finger...

I think I've suffered some.

One of them was about the pervasiveness of moral judgment, and the inability to infallibly find morality, and included questions on how this thing could even emerge. So, I was trapped without good or evil to refer to, but still a strong sense that I needed those concepts to function.

Another was after something terrible happened to me. I felt like I needed to address it like something in my being would break if I did not, but I felt as if God and goodness itself opposed me(to me was a rather big thing that happened). I chose my own path, despite the feeling of massive repercussions, and in doing so rejected the concept of good for nothing other than my will.

I might be the kind of person who will tend to suffer existential crises, as I think I started having issues with these problems since middle school. In any case, I don't feel like talking any more on these feelings.