Does the thought of Hell ever scare an atheist?

[Splendour]

Drag: You basically saying that god couldn't write his message better. I am being infinitely less intlegent than him can think of a dozen ways to do it, and he couldn't. That's strange...

For example, write a version for each time. Like after the year 1500, humans will be able to understand more of my word and should take a new version of the bible. After the year 1854 the dinosaurus bones should be considered differently, etc. And that's just one way of making such a job.

He could send new prophets with the new versions after each majour change in human culture, or even better before it.

Why such a cryptic way?

May be because, people who heard voices in their head just simply heard their own voices and wrote their own thoughts. This way the story becomes much more logical and consistent.


Well you're trying to make God fit or do what you want him to do.

Quote: "I am being infinitely less intlegent than him can think of a dozen ways to do it, and he couldn't. That's strange..."

Who are we to question God's ways? He has a deeper insight and higher purposes than we do. We exist inside his realm of control. He doesn't exist inside our realm of control. God gives free will to make us free beings. Its funny that people turn out to be the control freaks.

[madnak]

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Why would you interpret this literally?

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I interpret it as fiction. But many Christians interpret it literally. And many Christians are gleeful at the notion of people being tortured forever.

[Splendour]

One of the messages of the bible is that temptation is through the flesh. That is why there are these flamboyant ideas of plucking eyes out rather than giving offense. It is a poetic device to exaggerate to get across the idea that some temptations are evil. Maybe this is why scientists find the bible so irrational. Scientists as a group understand the purpose of inspired language less than other groups of people.

[kurto]

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Well you're trying to make God fit or do what you want him to do.


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He's trying to make God fit remotely with the way he's described. Only true believers have no problem with the fact that the infinitely intelligent God they believe in is grossly incompetent. It doesn't take make for anyone with a lick of sense to conceive of a God smarter and more competent then the Biblical one.

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Who are we to question God's ways?

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If there was a God, and he granted people with brains, he would want people to use them. Its only rational. Its really hard to consider a God so incompetent that he would design humans to be intelligent and questioning but NOT want them to question the fact that he makes no sense.

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He has a deeper insight and higher purposes than we do.

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If he had deeper insight then he would be more competent. You have too make up ridiculous excuses for him to justify the fact that he's not that deep at all.

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Its funny that people turn out to be the control freaks.

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I wonder if this even makes sense to you? Or if you just type random things and don't concern yourself with sense.

[twonine29]

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Why would you interpret this literally?

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I interpret it as fiction. But many Christians interpret it literally. And many Christians are gleeful at the notion of people being tortured forever.

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I think a lot of Christians truly believe in Hell and hate the thought of it...which is why there's some Christians who spend their lives trying to "save" others, because they are sickened by the punishment, but believe it to be true.

I hope Hell doesn't exist. I hope we are supposed to read the parts in the Bible describing Hell allegorically and not literally. And that there will be no literal place of eternal torment. I can't even fathom how Heaven would be so perfect if one had the knowledge of others suffering in Hell.

But again...God makes the rules. If God exists and is in control, than all we can do is pray for His mercy.

[Lestat]

Simple question:

Do you believe that the god you worship sends people to a place where they are to suffer for eternity, or not?

[twonine29]

kurto...read u're reply.

then looked at u're post count, 666(4). loc: in your heart.

coming from someone who did a lot of psychedelics, i see less coincidences and more meanings.

[tame_deuces]

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Not in the slightest bit. Even if God existed, he should be more clever than intellegent humans. For intellegent humans bible and christanity is such a non-sense, so it should be the same for him/her.

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tame_deuces : Heaven is an appealing idea. As long as it is different than those green meadows and uncanny smiling people all over the place as often depicted in christian pamphlets.


I've got to wonder if you guys have totally missed the point. When I compare these 2 statements to the purpose of the bible I really suspect you two missed something. If God's purpose is to transcend time he still has to first frame the language of the bible in terms that are relevant to the people of the day in which it is introduced, but at the same time be able to carry over for thousands of years through a huge diversity of cultures and people.

The lives and concerns of the very first Christians were similar to ours in the general sense but extremely different in the particulars of their work and lifestyles.

So God has to put everything in some form that transmits over generations, but at the same time our intellects being human and fallible have trouble in correcting for every difference between those earlier lifestyles and our current modern one.

Thats why people work to understand religious texts today. It has relevance to our lives but we have to pick out the passage and understand the whole context of the passage. We can't take passages out of context as alot of people do when arguing against Christians.

So much has been obscured by time and our current culture is so less receptive to religion that there are several passages in the New Testament that say that later generations who can get the bible are more blessed than earlier ones. God had already anticipated that we would have more challenges to our understanding and more temptations then earlier people did.

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I know the bible exceptionally well, thank you very much. And I am well versed in its context, passages, meaning and problems of historical/linguistic/cultural context and about its different versions. Much more so than the the majority of theists I have ever met. My mother's family were devout Christians, my father was an author, linguist and culture historian; suffice to say whatever bible studies I did (voluntary) were of pretty damn good quality.

I have also studied a wide variety of subjects in my life (maths, physics, computer science, sociology and a degree in org. psychology) and have personal interest in the fields of linguistics, history and cultural studies.

I can with unbridled arrogance assure you I didn't miss much.

Seriously, if the description of Christian hell is properly translated is even debatable, much points to it not being so and that the accounts of hell in the Christian bible are way off compared to how they should be.

[vhawk01]

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Naw, I worry about how to live my life instead

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eternity is a long time compared to one's life on Earth.

you may just cease to exist when u die...or u may live on for eternity...really could be either one...

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Wow, flip a coin huh?

[vhawk01]

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Not in the slightest bit. Even if God existed, he should be more clever than intellegent humans. For intellegent humans bible and christanity is such a non-sense, so it should be the same for him/her.

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Do you not think it's possible that God can see meaning where you can't? That he can understand things you can't?

The concept of "being intelligent" is meaningless when it comes to God, by the way. It's incredible how little able some "intelligent" people are to conceive, even dimly, of what a transcendent being with infinite qualities would be like.

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As opposed to your second-level complete, 100% incapability to imagine what that would be like.