How exactly do people "believe" in Hell?

[EdwardTheGreat]

Nice strawman. Also, nice attempt at shifting the burden of proof. Do you have any evidence for your assertions or not? If not I'm just going to assume this is all wishful thinking.

How much proof do you need? Have you not read the bible? It is full of proof.

Just like Christmas...look at how many people sing jingle bells and put lights on their houses. If Santa wasn't real, why would there be so much proof of his existence?

[TrettinR]

Nobody is telling you what to do man. That's free will.

There's more to free will than just that.

Did you just ask dude to prove to you that hell exists?

No.

How much proof do you need? Have you not read the bible? It is full of proof.

Just like Christmas...look at how many people sing jingle bells and put lights on there houses. If Santa wasn't real, why would there be so much proof of his existence?

I'm convinced!

[blackbull2k13]

I don't think 99.9% of people go to hell, even if you didn't accept Christ, assuming that he was really God and all that. What about the really bad folks, though? You can't just let them into heaven or heaven wouldn't be heaven anymore.

Hitler, Himmler, Dahmer, Gacy, etc. These people killed for fun. I do believe God is merciful though, he may just decide to erase your memory from existence instead of eternal torture. Why couldn't he? He is God. He won't hand out any punishment that isn't fit.

DO YOU HONESTLY BELIEVE ANY OF THIS

So now in your heaven you have some person who was murdered by Dahmer looking at his killer and not even getting the satisfaction of confronting him. Every day for billions of years they knows the guy who ripped their life from their body is now a blank slate enjoying the freedoms of heaven.

or does everyone get their mind erased?

[NewDayHappy]

DO YOU HONESTLY BELIEVE ANY OF THIS

So now in your heaven you have some person who was murdered by Dahmer looking at his killer and not even getting the satisfaction of confronting him. Every day for billions of years they knows the guy who ripped their life from their body is now a blank slate enjoying the freedoms of heaven.

or does everyone get their mind erased?

You misunderstood me, I meant, God may erase you from existence. No consciousness of reality, nothingness.

[Canadian2point0]

Infinite punishment for finite sins......thank you god.

All these gory descriptions of the suffering of the damned lead to an obvious question: Why would God ever create such a place? What purpose does it serve? How can Hell possibly be compatible with God�s attributes, which all the major monotheistic religions insist on, of benevolence, justice and mercy?

Religious officials could not possibly of used this kind of fear to get their people line.........could they?

[TheJimmyRustler]

Infinite punishment for finite sins......thank you god.

All these gory descriptions of the suffering of the damned lead to an obvious question: Why would God ever create such a place? What purpose does it serve? How can Hell possibly be compatible with God’s attributes, which all the major monotheistic religions insist on, of benevolence, justice and mercy?

Religious officials could not possibly of used this kind of fear to get their people line.........could they?

Well you see you're a reprehensible being just by virtue of existing, and aren't worthy of God's presence, but instead are fated for eternal punishment unless you say that you're sorry for being born and being a worthless human POS that breathes and that you'd like to be let into the cool kid's party.

And all this because some woman ate an apple.

[xKheer]

pretty sure i need like, you know food...and...rent.

I was really getting at excessive consumerism aimed at helping you feel less 'empty'. Until you feel empty again, and then go buy more stuff. Sure its not the real of fire but its still hell.

Also, a lot of these religions that advocate hells and such are really just trying to shape a society.The primal motivator being fear. Whether or not thats a good thing is questionable in itself.

Infinite punishment for finite sins......thank you god.

All these gory descriptions of the suffering of the damned lead to an obvious question: Why would God ever create such a place? What purpose does it serve? How can Hell possibly be compatible with God’s attributes, which all the major monotheistic religions insist on, of benevolence, justice and mercy?

Religious officials could not possibly of used this kind of fear to get their people line.........could they?

dingdingding winner! I always thought of it like people from the arabian peninsula for example had to be taught that the world belonged to them and that if they didnt do jihad on those who it didnt belong to then they would go to hell. Meanwhile in real life, if they didnt invade and conquer others then they wouldnt have enough resources to flourish as well as they otherwise have.

brbthisiswhatgoddecrees
brbnootherreligioniscorrect
brbpraytome5timesaday brbnomoralcodeapplieswhenservinggod brbrapeisrapebutnotwhenonthebattlefield brbskewdefinitionofbattlefieldtoincludewholeworld
brbmanmadereligion
brbbrb

manmade religions gonna manmade.

[Ahmed81]

The belief in God is FAITH. Faith (n) - strong belief in God or in the doctrines of a religion, based on spiritual apprehension rather than proof


As a human being, I can't rationalize God. Why would this forever merciful and all-knowing being throw me into a snow globe full of disease, famine, death and other atrocities? Why did he give me free will? Surely, as an omniscient being, he knew of the destruction that would ensue. Why am I even being tested to begin with? This being was just "there"...and then what happened? Did he get bored and just create us? As human beings, we can't rationalize any of that and we never will be able to.

I am a mere human being. Within my realm of my reality, I can't understand why God would do this. So, to an extent, I am blindly believing that I am part of a greater plan that I just can not rationalize. We haven't even discovered 60% of our own oceans, what leverage do we have in saying anything definitive about the vast and infinite dimensions of the universe? Why am I a Muslim? Because I believe the scripture of the Quran is what will lead me to the most righteous life, in accordance with what God expects of me.


Why do atheists get so rustled by religion? If a belief in a higher power helps an individual cope with all the turmoil in this world and allows that person to wake up everyday completely motivated (despite all the awful things going on), then what's the problem? As Jackal005 said: "In the grand scheme of things, everyone leads a meaningless life". That's the ideology of an atheist. You just live in a world where those that are above the law will never be brought to justice, prejudice is well saturated and children die everyday. It's a cycle of piss and crap that just keeps repeating itself. What an awful reality that is.

More so, why are you atheists "wasting" time talking to those that believe in "the imaginary man in the sky"? As an atheist you only have one life to live, shouldn't you be doing everything within your power to maximize every second of it? As a religious man, I believe I will live for eternity, past this life. I also believe I'll be rewarded for attempting to bring God to others; there's no better way I could be spending this Friday evening. I certainly can't rationalize the same for atheists. Time is much more valuable/limited in an atheist's reality, so why are any of you atheists "wasting" even one second arguing?

[dickdicky]

i think this wood help

[xKheer]

The belief in God is FAITH. Faith (n) - strong belief in God or in the doctrines of a religion, based on spiritual apprehension rather than proof


As a human being, I can't rationalize God. Why would this forever merciful and all-knowing being throw me into a snow globe full of disease, famine, death and other atrocities? Why did he give me free will? Surely, as an omniscient being, he knew of the destruction that would ensue. Why am I even being tested to begin with? This being was just "there"...and then what happened? Did he get bored and just create us? As human beings, we can't rationalize any of that and we never will be able to.

I am a mere human being. Within my realm of my reality, I can't understand why God would do this. So, to an extent, I am blindly believing that I am part of a greater plan that I just can not rationalize. We haven't even discovered 60% of our own oceans, what leverage do we have in saying anything definitive about the vast and infinite dimensions of the universe? Why am I a Muslim? Because I believe the scripture of the Quran is what will lead me to the most righteous life, in accordance with what God expects of me.


Why do atheists get so rustled by religion? If a belief in a higher power helps an individual cope with all the turmoil in this world and allows that person to wake up everyday completely motivated (despite all the awful things going on), then what's the problem? As Jackal005 said: "In the grand scheme of things, everyone leads a meaningless life". That's the ideology of an atheist. You just live in a world where those that are above the law will never be brought to justice, prejudice is well saturated and children die everyday. It's a cycle of piss and crap that just keeps repeating itself. What an awful reality that is.

More so, why are you atheists "wasting" time talking to those that believe in "the imaginary man in the sky"? As an atheist you only have one life to live, shouldn't you be doing everything within your power to maximize every second of it? As a religious man, I believe I will live for eternity, past this life. I also believe I'll be rewarded for attempting to bring God to others; there's no better way I could be spending this Friday evening. I certainly can't rationalize the same for atheists. Time is much more valuable/limited in an atheist's reality, so why are any of you atheists "wasting" even one second arguing?

well said (Y) but I would only find fault with belief in a higher power that motivates human beings to commit to turmoil either through motivation of reward or through the reassuring belief that their actions will be forgiven/understood/given penance at a later date and so they are justifiable because so-and-so is forgiving and merciful.

[Ahmed81]

well said (Y) but I would only find fault with belief in a higher power that motivates human beings to commit to turmoil either through motivation of reward or through the reassuring belief that their actions will be forgiven/understood/given penance at a later date and so they are justifiable because so-and-so is forgiving and merciful.

People are evil, religion has nothing to do with it. It simply depends on what each individual is bringing to the table. We can't fault religion for how evil people twist and interpret the scripture to justify/rationalize their personal agendas.

inb4 verses from the Quran taken COMPLETELY out of context

[notorius1]

People are evil, religion has nothing to do with it. It simply depends on what each individual is bringing to the table. We can't fault religion for how evil people twist and interpret the scripture to justify/rationalize their personal agendas.

inb4 verses from the Quran taken COMPLETELY out of context

What if god is the evil one?

[Roke]

If God lied about Hell then that would imply he is cruel. And if he is cruel then he can conjure up something worse than Hell and use that to harm us instead.

[Ahmed81]

What if god is the evil one?

The vast and overwhelming majority of religious people (not just Muslims) are peaceful and compassionate. There are billions worldwide who believe in God. If God's teachings condoned and encouraged these acts of terror, there'd be mayhem every corner we turned.

[Weightaholic]

The very thought of an existence of an eternal torture pit, which awaits people for essentially vastly unclear and unpredictable reasons, is simply one of the most abominable concepts ever. On one end, it's absolutely disgusting for someone to threaten others that they would go to Hell, for not being religious or something no less , but then there is the overall act of being complicit in such a thing of evil.

If Christians or whoever actually believe Hell is real and they need to make sure we don't get sent to it, that is a abhorrently meaningless existence.

It's even sillier when you consider the single insurmountable logical failing of the Abrahamic religion is attributing choice to religious beliefs.

[Weightaholic]

More so, why are you atheists "wasting" time talking to those that believe in "the imaginary man in the sky"?

Probably because religious people insist on trying to inflict their asinine religious beliefs on others, in a very much uninvited fashion.

I also believe I'll be rewarded for attempting to bring God to others; there's no better way I could be spending this Friday evening.

See?

[Ahmed81]

Probably because religious people insist on trying to inflict their asinine religious beliefs on others, in a very much uninvited fashion.



See?

You must be trolling...you took that second line COMPLETELY out of context.



I didn't come here to shove my beliefs down anyone's throat. I provided a prospective of faith in religion from a unique stand point that I hadn't seen represented on this board. I essentially admitted that the idea of God can't be understood logically, and that I simply have FAITH in his existence. I would imagine that you atheists would appreciate that rather realistic approach, as opposed to: "God exists and you're stooooopid if you don't think so!!!"


You just proved that YOU can't be satisfied.

[Athanasius90]

So what else is new huh?

[notorius1]

The vast and overwhelming majority of religious people (not just Muslims) are peaceful and compassionate. There are billions worldwide who believe in God. If God's teachings condoned and encouraged these acts of terror, there'd be mayhem every corner we turned.

Im pretty sure you can find a terrorist in every religion. How do we know that the acts of mayhem that we do see isn't god putting his plan into action?

[Ahmed81]

Im pretty sure you can find an extremist who wants to commit evil and simply twists the scripture as a vessel to do such in every religion. How do we know that the acts of mayhem that we do see isn't god putting his plan into action?

Fixed. Religion is such an easy scapegoat for those people. Again, you can't fault the religion for that.

I see what you're asking though. Who knows? Maybe we're all part of some twisted reality TV show for someone's amusement. I can't DEFINITIVELY rule out that possibility, nobody can. It comes back to my OP, I have FAITH that God is truly righteous

[TheJimmyRustler]

Fixed. Religion is such an easy scapegoat for those people. Again, you can't fault the religion for that.

While this certainly can be true, ie motivated by X but claim Y as the reason for doing something, are you saying you don't think there are any extremists out there who are genuinely fuelled by religious zeal?

Hell has to be real.Otherwise guys like the co-pilot that killed 150 and Hitler just got away with a whole load of shiz.

"Hell has to exist because otherwise I get upset/uncomfortable"

Not how things work, breh

[Ahmed81]

While this certainly can be true, ie motivated by X but claim Y as the reason for doing something, are you saying you don't think there are any extremists out there who are genuinely fuelled by religious zeal?

There are extremists who are genuinely fueled by religious zeal... that's why they're called extremists. The latent reasoning could be anything (desire for attention, chemical imbalances, etc). The scripture was the tool that helped unearth these issues. It could even be as simple as a lack of reading comprehension, like taking things out of context. The fact remains that the vast and overwhelming majority interpreted the scripture as requiring them to do good.

[TheJimmyRustler]

There are extremists who are genuinely fueled by religious zeal... that's why they're called extremists. The latent reasoning could be anything (desire for attention, chemical imbalances, etc). The scripture was the tool that helped unearth these issues. It could even be as simple as a lack of reading comprehension, like taking things out of context. The fact remains that the vast and overwhelming majority interpreted the scripture as requiring them to do good.

Agreed. I'm just saying that there are men who are genuine kunts because of their faith, I thought you were trying to say that any bad acts done in God's name are actually being done for ulterior motives.

[Ahmed81]

Agreed. I'm just saying that there are men who are genuine kunts because of their faith, I thought you were trying to say that any bad acts done in God's name are actually being done for ulterior motives.

Yes, technically there's no ulterior motive. Their misinterpretation of the scripture led them to commit these acts of terror, in belief that they're "fulfilling God's plan". Their perception is their reality, I suppose. It's unfortunate that others have to suffer the consequences for the ignorance of those extremists. However, people seem to fault the scripture and religion as a whole for that. I'm not accusing you of such, but many people use that as the base to the straw man argument they construct against religion.

[TheJimmyRustler]

Yes, technically there's no ulterior motive. Their misinterpretation of the scripture led them to commit these acts of terror, in belief that they're "fulfilling God's plan". Their perception is their reality, I suppose. It's unfortunate that others have to suffer the consequences for the ignorance of those extremists. However, people seem to fault the scripture and religion as a whole for that. I'm not accusing you of such, but many people use that as the base to the straw man argument they construct against religion.

Not when I'm saying either, so I'm glad we're on the same page. I'll admit to knowing that there are verses in the Bible/Quran that do call for slaughtering one's enemy and all kinds of barbarity, but then, as far as I know, these all have a certain context (ie in times of war vs someone who won't make peace etc) so it's not as if anyone has a leg to stand on when they claim that their holy book tells them to walk into a peaceful marketplace and murder dozens or hundreds of innocent people. Das not it mane.

[Ahmed81]

Not when I'm saying either, so I'm glad we're on the same page. I'll admit to knowing that there are verses in the Bible/Quran that do call for slaughtering one's enemy and all kinds of barbarity, but then, as far as I know, these all have a certain context (ie in times of war vs someone who won't make peace etc) so it's not as if anyone has a leg to stand on when they claim that their holy book tells them to walk into a peaceful marketplace and murder dozens or hundreds of innocent people. Das not it mane.

Exactly. Those verses are in the context of war/self-defense. Otherwise, there'd be chaos EVERYWHERE


It lifts my spirit to break words with those who ignorance has neglected (srs). Have a good weekend

[BokaChele]

The intellectual side of you might laugh at the notion of Hell but the emotional part of you can't seem to shake that feeling of "What if......"



http://prafulla.net/wp-content/share...93137/hell.jpg

[BokaChele]

"The only exception was a positive and strict law against anyone who should sink so far below the dignity of human nature as to think that the soul perishes with the body, or that the universe is ruled by blind chance, not divine providence.

Thus, they (citizens of Utopia) believe that after this life vices will be punished and virtue rewarded. Anyone who denies this proposition they consider less than a man, since he has degraded the sublimity of his own soul to the base level of a beasts wretched body. Still less will they count him as one of their citizens, since he would openly despise all the laws and customs of society, if not prevented by fear.

Who can doubt that a man who has nothing to fear but the law, and no hope of life beyond the grave, will do anything he can to evade his country's laws by craft or to break them by violence, in order to gratify his own personal greed? Therefore a man who holds such views is offered no honors, entrusted with no offices, and given no public responsibility; he is universally regarded as a low and sordid fellow.

Yet they do not punish him, because they are persuaded that no man can choose to believe by a mere act of the will. They do not compel him by threats to dissemble his views, nor do they tolerate in the matter any deceit or lying, which they detest as next door to deliberate malice. The man may not argue with common people in behalf of his opinion; but in the presence of priests and other important persons, they not only permit but encourage it. For they are confident that in the end his madness will yield to reason."

Thomas More, Utopia

There are many atheists who live lives that are morally exemplary according to religious standards. This causes some atheists to claim that this exemplary behavior is evidence of atheist moral superiority, because the atheist is behaving in a moral manner of his own volition, not due to any fear of being eternally damned or zapped by a lightning bolt hurled by an offended sky deity. However, this is a logical error, because while motivation plays a role in how we judge immoral actions, there are no similar gradations of that which is morally correct. There are many evils, there is only one Good.

For example, the act of stealing a loaf of bread is considered more immoral if the theft was committed by a rich thief who simply didn’t feel like paying for it than if the bread was stolen by a poor man who needed to feed his two hungry children. But the act of driving an injured person to the hospital is no more right when performed by a good Samaritan who just happened to be passing by than by a paramedic team who will be financially compensated for their actions. We may find the one more admirable, being less expected, but it cannot be more morally correct because that would imply that there was some degree of moral incorrectness to a correct action. To do right is to do right, the amount of rightness in the action no more depends upon the motivation than the amount of a woman’s pregnancy depends upon whether she is a married woman whose third round of I.V.F. treatment has finally proven the charm or a high school senior knocked up by the varsity quarterback on prom night.

An atheist can certainly behave better than a theist by the theist’s own moral reckoning. But it is logically incorrect to insist that identical moral behavior on the part of an atheist and a theist is proof of the atheist’s moral superiority.

Theodore Beale, The Irrational Atheist

[TheJimmyRustler]

The intellectual side of you might laugh at the notion of Hell but the emotional part of you can't seem to shake that feeling of "What if......"



http://prafulla.net/wp-content/arenr...93137/hell.jpg

Yes, funny how fear, or the fear of pain, can affect how people think. Can even make them so scared that they base their entire worldview around it.

[Mr Beer]

What about Hitler? Jeffery Dahmer? 9/11 Terrorists? You don't think they are deserving of a Hell?

No-one deserve infinite punishment for a finite crime, so no.