How to convert Christians to atheists in 30 seconds (ironically, using bible)

[Catholic_Lady]

This implies that god will resurrect some people for the specific purpose of causing them unending torment. [1] That will seem like a just punishment for some people, but how many rebellious teens who committed suicide will be writhing in agony for all of eternity next to Adolf Hitler? [2] And does it really ease the conscience to say that they created this punishment through their shitty actions in this temporal life?  Will god hear those cries and do nothing for the billions of people writing in torment forever and ever because they were poor citizens for a portion of the infinitesimally small slice of time that they existed? [3] For every child-abuser, how many drug addicts will be writhing in torment for the rest of time?  For every mafia hit-man, how many gays?  For every wife beater, how many atheists? [4]

1) That is one way to see it. I tend to see it like this: the future resurrection and this life's relation to it are just simply realities about the cosmos. The way you live now WILL determine the way you live at the resurrection. Our temporal actions truly do "echo" in eternity. Poorly lived lives do not bring joy even in this life. Why would they in eternity?

2) Probably way fewer than we think. God usually sorts through the true psychological and emotional suffering of those poor teenagers so that he can get to the heart. His mercy goes farther than we typically give credit. That doesn't mean every suicide is forgiven (maybe they are maybe they aren't?), but it means that God's judgment is not all that easy to figure out. We typically judge wrong when we are trying to guess at other people's eternal "echo" of their life's action.

3) I have no idea. But if it IS true that our temporal action contributes to a summation of an eternal "echoed" life, then torment in the next life means that you tormented yourself and others in this one. 

Hell isn't all or nothing. Read Dante's Inferno. There isn't a whole lot of writhing by the pagan philosophers is there? That seems to me to be a more accurate image of what awaits most people who live their way into hell. In other words, if you live a decent life (even as an atheist) that you guide as much as possible to your honest assessment of what is true, but you don't live that live in Christ, that doesn't mean you will, therefore, suffer eternal and terrible torment. It only means that you won't enjoy a divinely-human life for eternity. All eternal life is divinely-joyful, but some lives are more joyful than others. All the non-joyful eternal lives range from a sort of incomplete human happiness which knows that divine happiness was possible, all the way to writhing torment which knows that EVERYTHING else was possible.

4) Nothing is an automatic self-damnation. The "best" child-molesters will suffer a GREAT deal more than the worst drug-addict or gay person. It's not a binary as you might think.

Great post! I can stand behind this 100%.

I'd also like to add though that the "torment" of Hell comes from the darkness in our own hearts, and not from God. We are creatures of love, made for love, and fulfilled by love. If we choose to be consumed by greed and hate instead of love, we will feel empty and bitter and miserable. That's the torment. The schism that comes when love (God) is cast aside.