Recently I read a Christian post stating that we consider these words to be "trigger words".
Aside from being dogmatically condescending, I'd have to say that personally, I agree with this person. The words and phrases sin and hell come hand in hand with other words 
that make my eyes twitch. Like molestation. Rape. Murder. Women belong in the kitchen. Women should be silent.  Women submit to your husbands. 

All of these words bear a negative connotation not in their meanings, but in their applications within my memories as a prior Christian. For instance my Dad, holding the bible in his hand bending his finger back painfully as he angrily pointed it onto the bible and told mom that god says she should submit to him and to "shut her fucking mouth", etc. Was he wrong? Not inherently although I highly doubt any Christian would rationalize such behavior. Hear no evil say no evil see no evil, right? Wrong. I saw. I heard. I'm speaking out, and yes it's a tad bit of a "trigger" to be reminded of the tenents that were the basis of the most fervent and distasteful memories in my mind.

If you talk about rape in front of a rape victim, and say "oh sorry I understand that the word 'rape' is a trigger word for you, but it's real and just part of life so you must accept it," --is that not unconsiderate and offensive? I suppose it's non sequiter, since in this instance "rape" isn't a deterrant or reasoning for eternal spiritual punishment. I would think that because of this, the words "sin" amd "hell" to the ears of someone who spent most of their lives believing in such things only to conclude that they were false fears, is worse than the word rape to a rape victim. 

So atheists do you consider the words sin and hell to be "trigger words", and also could you state whether or not you were a prior believer in sich beliefs?  

I was raised a Jehovah's Witness, and they teach that hell is just another word for the common grave of mankind. Which means that when you die, you cease to exist. No suffering. So hell is not a trigger word for me. I suppose that sin is not a trigger word because hell isn't.

I think that demons probably were a trigger for me for a while, because while I no longer believe in them the old tales still resonate in some part of my subconscious. I still get spooked by the dark, though I notice that it is less and less of a problem for me as time goes on. When I was a believer I don't think I could have spent a night alone in the house I live in now --nights alone in an apartment were bad enough-- but it isn't a problem for me now. Heck, I am finally able to watch horror movies again without feeling terrorized by the long shadows in the corridors.

Hell is just a curse word to me doesn't phase be at all. Sin makes me roll my eyes or laugh depending on who is saying it. Neither word really does anything to me in the long run.

You can say it. Im the member being referred to here.

Though i wish the context of which I said that in had been posted, as I feel as though the way it is being presented here is a bit of a misrepresentation.

Anyhow, sorry if it was condecending and insulting to anyone. It was not my intention.

I don't get triggered by sin or hell no more than if someone told me that Santa is going to bring me a lump of coal for Christmas. It's just silly.

Definitely trigger words, although they do have one useful function: When used in the context of a threat or character slur they identify the person using them as uncivil and abusive, and deserving of no fucking mercy and no benefit of a doubt.

I take great pleasure in throwing the words back in the faces of such people, accompanied with suitable imagery designed specifically to put a personal face on the things they use to threaten others.

You should read fewer xtian posts, Luckie.

I'm not upset by it that deeply.  When I hear the word sin I just think it's talking about some rules that were there for a religious person to follow.  When I think of hell I think that'd be hot and overcrowded and I wouldn't like to go there.  Burning hurts and I imagine burning forever would get be boring and also painful at the same time after a few billion millenniums of burning.

Like I said in the thread in which this was brought up, the words themselves aren't triggers. The concepts when used by those who believe wholeheartedly in them, put forth as threats or judgements, are horrible.

My dad used to flippantly tell me I was going to hell, and when I asked what hell was, he would say that it was a place where I would be tortured in a fiery pit for eternity. All because I didn't want to go to church or because I went to homecoming with a black guy or because I disobeyed him and didn't clean my room, etc.

Obviously, it says more about him than anything else, but I grew up around more people who believed that viciousness than who didn't. They're pretty awful concepts to project onto people.

No. Absent a theistic framework, those words are meaningless.