To religious people. Will atheists go to hell or heaven?

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Religions are created to control masses.

I don't think they were necessarily created for that purpose. I think that in many cases, religions really are inspired by good intentions. Of course, we all know what the road to Hell is paved with.

I will agree that religions have historically been a favorite weapon for arrogant people to control the masses, and worse yet, to plot towards the corruption and destruction of the masses. I just don't concede that that was necessarily the intention at their origin.

The guy interviewed here has some interesting arguments that atheism is an honest and reasonable interpretation of the evidence available from a scientific study of the universe. He's written a book about it. If you are willing to put your conviction to the test, we can both get hold of a copy and discuss it. Let's say we start 15. July (plenty of time to get the book and you can search for counterarguments) and discuss one chapter per week. Then you can present all the evidence I have been begging you to tell me about. We'll set up clear terms of debate that favour a respectful discussion and staying on topic. We can invite anyone else who reads the book to join. What do you say?

I'm with you there. I deny that too.



Where do you get the idea that the Bible was heavily edited?



You are wrong about me yet again.



Fair enough, but I asked you a direct question: "Do you believe in the God of the Bible", and you did not answer. Rather, you answered exactly along the lines of your phrase which you complained I hand-picked, "If there is a God". Therefore, why do you pick on my use of that phrase of yours, if it really did mean, as I supposed, that you don't believe in God?

Is there a sort of "halfway-Heaven" for those who are never sure enough about God to believe in Him? No.
That's one thing the Bible makes very clear. There is Heaven, and there is Hell. There is Satan, and there is God.
There isn't a third path. Jesus is "the way, the truth, and the life", and "no man cometh unto the Father (God)" but by Him (John 14:6).



Truly questioning God's existence isn't wrong, but being satisfied to be in a state of perpetual questioning -- when there are answers all around you, both in nature and in any responsible, serious, open-minded study of His Word, seems like fence-straddling -- which is something that neither God nor His incarnate person Jesus accepts. God doesn't believe in agnosticism. Jesus said, in Matthew 10:32-33, "Whosoever therefore shall confess me before men, him will I confess also before my Father which is in heaven. But whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven."
So, if you are agnostic about Jesus before men, then He will probably be agnostic about you before God -- and Jesus' word-on-our-behalf is the only way any of us can get into Heaven.



Well, curiosity does what it will. People lose faith all the time, and it's not that those people simply aren't curious enough.
The will to believe or not believe is heavily involved toward the presence of one's faith.



Are you saying that doubt strengthens faith?
I believe in humility, but your causal phrasing is somewhat puzzling.



Please, please do!

Some are. Islam and Catholicism certainly were.

Both deliberately infused the state with the power to both shape the religion to its own ends and to force it upon the people --
creating an absolute authority, a moral-political monopoly of power that could not be challenged except on pain of death or imprisonment.

But we can see that Christianity was never meant to be used to rule over mankind: "Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel... But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the LORD, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people." (Jeremiah 31:31,33). The Messiah was to come and write the law in peoples' hearts. That means give them a strong, spiritual moral concience.

So, Christianity and tyranny are not coupleable. They are mutually exclusive, and anyone who tries to make Christ the law of the land is bastardizing Him into something else entirely.

Last edited by Ragtime on 02 Jun 2008, 4:15 pm, edited 4 times in total.

ragtime'll say anyone who does not adhere to the specific beliefs that he holds will go to hell. i'm not too sure about the others but the fundies here should have mostly similar responses.

the more tolerant will say if you live a good life with good intentions, you'll get in.

me? there is no such thing; make the most out of life and do as best you can for yourself and others because that's how to make the best life for yourself.

People who practice Satanism claim not to believe in Heaven or Hell since those are christian beliefs. I guess that makes them atheists, but if they're wrong and hell exists they're obviously going there.

Satanists aren't pro-satan. They're just against God and Christians.

Wrong ad absurdum. (Why can't you ever get anything right about me?)

I believe that those who reject Jesus Christ go to Hell, and so do most responsible interpreters of the Bible.



Wait...

What does tolerance have to do with truth?
What does Christians being tolerant have to do with how God said He will judge between Heaven-bound and Hell-bound?
Shouldn't we listen to what God said He would do in that regard, rather than attempt to re-write His policies?
We can't change God's policies; therefore, the kindest thing to do for those currently unwilling to believe in Him
is to explain what God said about His final judgments of all mankind.
That's what love is: speaking the truth, which will inform them, rather than speaking falsehoods, which will only momentarily comfort them and blind them to the damnation to come.
So, speaking soft, false words of comfort, about a false future, is the real cruelty!

Bogan wants to know from us Christians what we believe. We'll do him a great disservice if we sugar-coat it.




And... afterward? Tell him what he should do when God asks him why he didn't believe.

Last edited by Ragtime on 02 Jun 2008, 3:12 pm, edited 8 times in total.

...duplicate post...

Last edited by Ragtime on 02 Jun 2008, 3:03 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Your self-righteous arrogance is pathetic.

I don't know if a deity exists, but I'm sure that if it does it's nothing like the one the Abrahamic religions believe in.

You are a liar.

You are lying again, I see.

And why are you so sure of that? That wreaks of arrogance.

How else can they debunk even the mere credibility of the notion that the universe was intelligently designed?
Unnecessary beauty in nature is a chief pillar of any view that the world was created by a being with an artistic eye.

Last edited by Ragtime on 02 Jun 2008, 4:20 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I agree with what you've been saying in your last few posts, Ragtime. I love it when I can agree with someone wholeheartedly .

odin's wrong. you're not a liar. you're just plain old intellectually challenged.


"beauty" is a subjective term. this is obvious by how many different genres of music, how many different styles of movies and books....basically, it's apparent everywhere that "beauty" is subjective.

your argument has no substance to it but rather instead relies on the god of the gaps combined with trying to attach to someone's sentiment by saying "isn't that sunset beautiful? how could god NOT make that?"

i'd say get your head out of your ass but that'd most likely be an in-patient procedure with serious risks to life.