Does the thought of Hell ever scare an atheist?

[Splendour]

Mark 9:43 If your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off; it is better for you to enter life crippled, than, having your two hands, to go into hell, into the unquenchable fire,


Why would you interpret this literally? Don't you see the poetic drama with a purpose in this language? It is meant to draw a mental picture. Have you taken these passages out of content? You usually can't examine a biblical message by a line or two.

This is inspired writing you are taking out of context.

An excerpt:

many Christians believe that inspiration should be described as thought-for-thought rather than word-for-word. The human writers provide God’s message in terms of their own personalities and historical circumstances, and yet they transmit the message fully and exactly as God desired. So we can call this view of inspiration “dynamic”, as well as “verbal” (extending to the very words of the writer) and “plenary” (meaning that the Bible is fully and totally inspired.)

There's a third view of inspiration, too. This view asserts that the writers of the Bible were indeed inspired, but so were many great artists, musicians, and authors. Some superhuman, transcendent, divine aura possessed them and they produced works of sheer genius.

Excerpt from: http://www.ibs.org/bibles/about/5.php