Does the thought of Hell ever scare an atheist?

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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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Surely he could.
I try to make a point, that if we tried to write a new bible nowadays we could make a much better and convincing book. I highly doubt that a being more intellegent than me would make such a bad job 2000 years ago.

If you are trying to argue that there is a deeper meaning in the bible that I can't see. Well, it could be true but I hoghly doubt it. Not on the basis of just that book, though, one needs to take into account other sources.

[MidGe]

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Does the thought of Hell ever worry you?


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ROFL! [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[evank15]

It worries me not one iota.

I would wager my life this second the Christian "god" does not exist. -EV you say? I suppose, but not really when you invoke the limit concept. This box of kleenex in front of me could be "god" and it could have its own version of hell. I would bet my life it is not "god" either. This wager is -EV in the same sense.

[Case Closed]

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I am confused about this hell. I have a bible with me, direct me to the passage that describes hell. Thanks.

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Any help here? You all seem to have intimate knowledge of this hell place. There must be some interesting passages in the bible that go into depth about this place.

[Splendour]

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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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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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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.

[madnak]

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I am confused about this hell. I have a bible with me, direct me to the passage that describes hell. Thanks.

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Any help here? You all seem to have intimate knowledge of this hell place. There must be some interesting passages in the bible that go into depth about this place.

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Nothing in-depth. Just eternal fire.

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,

9:44 where THEIR WORM DOES NOT DIE, AND THE FIRE IS NOT QUENCHED.

Matthew 25:41 Then He will also say to those on His left, 'Depart from Me, accursed ones, into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels;'

Revelation 20:14 Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire This is the second death, the lake of fire.

20:15 And if anyone's name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.

[Lestat]

No offense, but it's a silly question. If someone can't get themselves to believe there's a god, they're certainly not going to believe there's a hell. Why should it be of any concern whatsoever?

[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

[twonine29]

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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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And if you don't potentially exist for eternity, then this attitude is a colossal waste. Seriously, this debate was played out like a century ago.

But good luck in your evangelism. I hear that convincing others of the righteousness of your actions makes you get more virgins in heaven. Someday everyone will act exactly as you want them to!!

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No evangelism...just asking an honest human question: if one's fears an eternal afterlife, even in the slightest. I agree, I'm scared about the simple idea of living for eternity w/no end, never being able to cease to exist. But if that's the way it is...I'd be even more worried of eternity in hell.