So, setting aside for the moment that nothing can really be known with 100% certainty, let's say you had it for this: As of right now, based on not believing and following Christ, you're going to Hell when you die.

Would it change your mind? Would it change how you lived? Like, would you try to correct that? Or would you argue with God about the parameters of sending you there? Or would you be like, "Fine. Anywhere except next to you, God, is better." ?

I am in the last group. If I somehow got the cosmic paperwork and saw that I was going to Hell when I died and knew this as the most absolute truth I could ever know, I would be filled with resentment for the being that declared me unfit to be in paradise. You don't get to make me, never instruct me or have a personal relationship with me, and then all of a sudden come in and try to make me feel not good enough for you. Screw that. You don't want me? Pffft! Way ahead of you, bro. Because I want nothing to do with you. 

***prompted by a silly Christian comic someone posted in another thread. Panik? Uh, maybe you don't understand that you're in an abusive relationship and some of us wouldn't stand for that even if your imaginary friend were real.

I'm practical. I'll give up a finite good to avoid an infinite bad.

There's somebody out there promising to do terrible things, and we're wondering if that changes our mind about them being terrible?

I can't imagine why, it doesn't seem to have that effect with regards to any other terrible somebody making a terrible promise. Insurgents scream death to america and I believe they mean it, but that doesn't change my mind about them or make me want to by a split level in their gated community.

I'm not really sure that it's a thing that people can "change their minds" about. Don't get me wrong, I've heard them say it, but I strongly suspect that it's performative language. If it isn't, then people telling me that they chose christ seem to be telling me how they continue to choose sin. If stringing up the better man for cake and punch in the sky isn't sinful, what could be?

All the interesting people are going to be in hell. So I'd rather be there.

If Heaven and Hell, after all, are merely a reflection of life and how people have lived it, then Heaven will be filled with all the boring people who never learned to live. Hell will be filled with all the interesting people who dared to live.

"Heaven won't have us and Hell's afraid we'll take over."

Been there. Done that.
Have the T shirt.

(March 8, 2021 at 9:50 am)The Grand Nudger Wrote: I can't imagine why, it doesn't seem to have that effect with regards to any other terrible somebody making a terrible promise.  Insurgents scream death to america and I believe they mean it, but that doesn't change my mind about them or make me want to by a split level in their gated community.  

It's not about what is good but more about what's good for you.

Already had my run in with those nutbars, didn't change my mind about them. Thankfully, they're not the omnipresent masters of the universe, so a rifle does the trick. We'd be in dire straights if the bloodgod had a torture pron dungeon all laid out for us, nothing we could do about that, but it's hard to see how that being a reality would change my mind about the bloodgod, you know?

-and I don't personally think that hell would be good-for anybody (kindof not the point of hell) - but there's always going to be some weirdo who loves it - and I guess that might change that nutbars mind?

If I believed in a god or hell I doubt I'd change much.

I know, I'd just carry a card that states "Dear God-I repent". I paid attention when Monopoly taught me about get out of jail free.

I reject the premise as being incoherent. If I don’t believe in Christ, then I cannot be convinced that I’m going to hell until I can first be convinced to believe in Christ, in which case I could not be convinced that I was going to hell.

And so on and so on.

Boru