Atheists go to hell even if they are good!?

[b&wpac7]

This is the most fitting analogy I've seen in a while - pass the popcorn

Except, of course, those like me that would continue to save the house. I see no benefit to allowing it to be destroyed, especially if I really want to live there.

 

[m9lc]

You either accept or reject. You either enjoy G-d's Presence and seek it, or the opposite. Ultimately there is no middle ground. Currently there all all sorts of shades of grey, which confuses the issue(s).

The issue is that I don't seek God's presence or seek to get away from God's presence - I just seek the truth. I've looked at the evidence, and I found it cognitively impossible to be a Christian. Trust me, I tried for a long time to be a Christian in spite of the glaring flaws that I saw in my beliefs, but in the end, I couldn't honestly believe in religion anymore.

So no, my goal in not following Christianity has nothing to do with me "rejecting God." It has everything to do with looking at evidence. I would say that I "decided" to be an atheist after looking at the evidence, but that's not really accurate - becoming an atheist was really more of a compulsion to me. Trust me, my deconversion was extremely reluctant at first.

 

[selfinflikted]

Except, of course, those like me that would continue to save the house. I see no benefit to allowing it to be destroyed, especially if I really want to live there.

Precisely. Would a god, who is good and loving, decide to not save the house anyway? I sure wouldn't.

 

[razeontherock]

If He says you have to come to Him and seek forgiveness, that's the way it is.

Zaac, there's a fine point of language where Freodin has a valid point. Consider the thief on the Cross. He never asked for forgiveness. Jesus came out with "Father forgive them," not in response to anyone asking. Yet what Freodin is missing, is that both confession and repentance are required. Apparently he'd prefer to gloss over all that.

Anyway the point is still reconciliation, which is a two way street. Semantics change nothing.

 

[CaliforniaSun]

You either accept or reject. You either enjoy G-d's Presence and seek it, or the opposite. Ultimately there is no middle ground. Currently there all all sorts of shades of grey, which confuses the issue(s).

As an atheist, it is not a position of acceptance or rejection for me. It is an intellectual postion of unbelief. Much in the same way a person does not believe in bigfoot, Santa Claus, Thor or Allah. It really is that unemotional. I know it's hard for Christians to understand this, but I feel about all gods, including the god of the Bible, as an adult does about the existence of Santa Claus and all of the claims made regarding Santa's powers. What a theist must understand, is that I don't believe there is anything there to "accept or reject." It's not as if I believe as you do, but I am just "choosing" to "reject." Once a theist can get past this false dichotomy, she can begin to understand where I, and most atheists are coming from. You have to be willing to accept that an atheist simply does not believe religious/supernatural claims. And our non-belief comes just as easy as your non-belief does for every other faith you don't believe in.
Savvy?

 

[razeontherock]

Excellent analogy.

God’s forgiveness/eternal life is the same sort of gift our lives are – the sort that is granted us independent of our consent. Christians tend to put the gift of salvation in the same category as gifts one would get on Christmas-morning, which can be returned or refused, but salvation is not that sort of gift, imo.

So you're saved whether you like it or not? G-d drags you kicking and screaming into His Presence? Please illustrate how this is loving in any sense of the word.

 

[ToddNotTodd]

Apparently he does, and sacrifice, and he's also given to human emotions like jealousy and anger.

it's amazing that the similarities between the nature of the Christian god and that of Greek and Roman gods aren't even noticed by most Christians.

 

[razeontherock]

And yet the majority of those who believe this still think that – in spite of all Jesus supposedly went through to acquire man’s salvation – His efforts will result in only a small fraction of all mankind getting saved. All that work He put into it, being tortured and killed, and yet at the end of the day the success lies with the sinner's ability to make the Correct Choice. If human ego isn't behind that I don't know what is. I swear I had to have been brainwashed to believe such a thing back when I did.

There are lots of theological terms to point out the falsehood of this belief, that is not Christianity at all but heresy. I prefer to skip the gobbledygook and just point out it's wrong, so good on you for rejecting it!

 

[The Beautiful Heresy]

Ok, thinking again. ( As usual) And just think, God thoughts so surpass mine so he must be thinking much better than even this.

This may be a run on sentence, so just work with me here.

God creates humans, he creates a literal burning chamber of fire that he will toss the humans in who do not agree with him, yet he gave them free will to make any decision they desire ( but sits back with his hands tied 'hoping' they make the right decision, because he can't interfere in the affairs of the men he created, he gave them free-will after all). Well, maybe if you pray the right prayer, oh but what is prayer for really in the end? Maybe prayer is what God uses to now force his hand to interfere in our free-will, oops..he can't interfere, then we would be robots.

The 'right' decision with this free-will is to choose to love God back or should I say 'agree' that Jesus is Lord and I need him, if I don't agree he is Lord and I need him then I made the wrong decision, so off to the burning chamber FOREVER AND EVER I go.

Looks like free-will is not that great after all, only if you use it wisely. So again, looks like God is really a nut with giving us free-will only to choose an outcome of eternal torment for us after he gave us 'choice'.

So much for free-will, I'd rather not have free-will then, I prefer to be a robot actually.

 

[Freodin]

Zaac, there's a fine point of language where Freodin has a valid point. Consider the thief on the Cross. He never asked for forgiveness. Jesus came out with "Father forgive them," not in response to anyone asking. Yet what Freodin is missing, is that both confession and repentance are required. Apparently he'd prefer to gloss over all that.

Anyway the point is still reconciliation, which is a two way street. Semantics change nothing.

You might want to use the whole quote here: "Father, forgive them,for they do not know what they are doing."

As the example of Zaac shows, it is unlikely that you will confess, repent or ask for forgiveness if you don't know that you are doing wrong.

And yet Jesus is asking God to forgive those who have wronged him... without them even showing a glimmer of repentence.

Is Jesus asking God for something impossible here? Do you think the quote should rather read "Father, forgive them... provided they repent and confess their sins!"?

This is the most fitting analogy I've seen in a while - pass the popcorn.

Read my response to Doveaman. Read my original analogy again. You should see the qualitative difference in them... and perhaps be willing to adress my original point instead of eating popcorn.

 

[CaliforniaSun]

So you're saved whether you like it or not? G-d drags you kicking and screaming into His Presence? Please illustrate how this is loving in any sense of the word.

I thought we were discussing how a loving father would eternally punish their children? Sticking with this analogy, it doesn't matter if my child is kicking or screaming, no matter how bad they want to stay on the RR track, I'm pulling them out of harms warm before the train hits them, assuming I had the power to do so.

 

[m9lc]

So you're saved whether you like it or not? G-d drags you kicking and screaming into His Presence? Please illustrate how this is loving in any sense of the word.

Are you arguing that anyone would honestly choose eternal torture over Heaven when given an obvious choice? (And no, before you say it, Christianity on Earth doesn't count as an "obvious choice." It is obfuscated by a lack of objective evidence and thousands of other religions to choose from.)

There are lots of theological terms to point out the falsehood of this belief, that is not Christianity at all but heresy. I prefer to skip the gobbledygook and just point out it's wrong, so good on you for rejecting it!

The falsehood of what belief? You really need to at least specifically point out what you disagree with.

 

[Zaac]

Jesus paid for something for us that we were never expected to pay for?

You didn't have to expect to pay for it. GOD, the One Who gets to decide these things, decided that there would be a cost for disobeying Him.

He came to serve but what does he do?

Read His word. From Genesis 1:1 to Revelation 22:21 there is an account of what Jesus did and how He has served mankind.

He came to save us from himself?

He came to save us from our OWN sin.

A god that can do anything cant forgive?

But who said He can't forgive? He forgives those who humbly recognize that they have wronged HIM and need His forgiveness.

God does that, not just anything, that is consistent with His character as He has displayed in the absolutely true word that He has given us.

Not meaning to be a pain but I just cant understand this at all.

You're not being a pain. You want some answers and there is nothing wrong with that.

Speaking as a one who was raised more or less Buddhist and as an atheist-agnostic i can tell you this is completely false. it is a weird and rather insulting falsehood at that.

Then forgive me because it was not my intent to insult you. So what is the god of the Buddhist?

 

[Freodin]

So you're saved whether you like it or not? G-d drags you kicking and screaming into His Presence? Please illustrate how this is loving in any sense of the word.

So you are damned whether you like it or not? God throws you kicking and screaming into Hell?

This might be a point that escapes your notion completely, but it isn't that Atheists are deeply disgusted by the notion of being in the presence of God... they simply don't believe there is a God.

In the meteor analogy... you haven't even noticed that there was a giant rock about to slam into you. You don't notice any change when the meteor is destroyed. You live on and whistle a little tune.

Now in the view of (some) Christians, there are only these two options: have me sitting in your house and playing the boss, or being smashed to pieces (again and again and again, I must add). There is no option of me simply letting you live your life as you did before.

But I wonder why... God seems perfectly capable of doing that.... here and now!

 

[razeontherock]

To someone who comes into contact with Christianity as an exotic and rather strange religion, there are some concepts that are really hard to work with.

The same holds true for those born into it. While I was not raised in the religion of my bloodline the Vikings, Asatru still makes WAY more sense to me. I can easily see many of the same Truths expressed within that system, but they just don't have as much Truth.

Like, god sets the rules, and expects 'payment' for breaking them. Punishment vastly dispropotionate to the "crime".

Orthodox Christianity says payment is not to G-d, but to satan. This concept is still odd to me, but it makes vastly more sense. We are not given enough info to see the 'proportion' of either the crime nor the punishment. This is again another aspect of the very first story in the Bible. You might find it helpful to recognize that Judaism taught (at least at one time) that any given passage has 70 meanings. (I hold this to be figurative)

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But to help out, he splits himself into two parts, and then tortures one of them to death as a way to pay himself. Then he comes back to life.

I cant grasp the sense of it.

This is honesty! This is humility! This is what G-d can work with, and a very large part of what the Bible is written to produce in us. The sense is that Christ conquered death. And that death is merely the consequence of sin, so therefore Christ conquered sin. So therefore Christianity includes conquering sin but this is the unseen element, much like the foundation of a house. The other parts are much more interesting, but the foundation needs to be secure ...

so if i cant grasp the sense and dont even believe it, i am to be punished far far beyond what was 'payment' for everyone elses sins?

is that how it is supposed to work?

This is a legitimate question that I see no no direct answer for. The "correct" response is compassion, bearing fruit, ultimately leading to your Salvation. This is one primary aspect of a Christian being a "co-laborer together with G-d." No easy task, as you surely notice?

 

[razeontherock]

Which leaves two options; Either he didn't do enough, or he is incapable of saving everybody from a hell he created.

False dichotomy; you fail to account for free will. (Or whatever you might prefer to call our ability to make choices)

 

[razeontherock]

Well... that's certainly weird...

I'm pretty sure I wouldn't allow any war in my heaven.

Then you'd have to keep certain people out.

 

[razeontherock]

We believe that it was only a small fraction of Jews that have remained loyal to God and His covenant all these years as the prophets foretold. Interesting how those ideas are similar.

Yup, Christianity has Judaism as it's foundation. (Of course this is poorly phrased; bypassing Christ is not implied)

 

[b&wpac7]

Yup, Christianity has Judaism as it's foundation. (Of course this is poorly phrased; bypassing Christ is not implied)

Well, the mechanic for forgiveness is basically the same. We turn to God, repent, and try to walk with Him.

 

[razeontherock]

As someone who doesn't believe in free will,

I find this fascinating. In your world, if I'm doing 65 down the highway and let go of the steering wheel, everything's ok. I don't have enough faith to put that one to the test!