Worst Thing Said to You for Being a Non-believer

[Pyrrho]

That is because she believes hellfire is real.  If it were real, it would be a more serious matter.  So the relative value she places on the two ideas is correct.  The error is in believing that the imaginary one is real.

I have read several posts in which an atheist states that Christians should not frighten children with stories of hell.  The thing is, if hell were real, it would be the most important thing parents could possibly teach their children to avoid.  So as long as parents believe in hell, they are going to be telling their children about it, because that is what a good parent does.  Good parents try to teach their children about the most serious dangers to avoid.  The only way to stop good parents from teaching their children about hell is to convince the parents that hell is not real.

You're absolutely right. If there were a hell and if you actually did go there for not following a specific belief system, it would be the highest priority. And for many, this is just so. I see it as a vicious circle though. How will children eventually become good parents who don't inflict this psychological malady on their own children when they themselves are warned in a quite dramatic fashion of the dangers of hell and the hideous tortures that await sinners, idolators, the unbelievers, and others? Naturally, some will come to realize the truth, but plenty of others will venture ahead thinking that they know the truth.

People often say that the doctrine of hell gives a motive to not question things.  In a way, that is true.  But it also gives one a motive to question things.  When I was a child, I was a Christian, who was raised to believe in hell.  Avoiding hell seemed to me to be the most important thing I could possibly do.  And since salvation, I was told, depended on what one believed (at least in part), then I wanted to make sure I had the right beliefs.  I knew, as pretty much everyone in the U.S. knows, that there are many kinds of Christians in the U.S.  Since they all disagree with each other, that means that most of them must be wrong.  (Logically, the most Christian denominations that could be totally correct is one.  They could, of course, all be wrong, but it is impossible for two contradictory positions to be correct, so no more than one denomination of Christian could possibly be totally correct.)

Now, how could I be so sure that I was lucky enough to be raised in the right denomination (even if there were a right denomination)?  Most people obviously are not raised in the right denomination (even if there were a right denomination), so the odds would be very much against being so lucky.

Also, although I was told not to question things, I knew that the truth cannot be proven to be false, and that all of the false religions have as a part of them (for good reason) that one ought not question them.  With all of the false religions, not questioning them was the way to keep people believing their falsehoods.  So the idea that one ought not question things really does not make much sense, if the actual goal is to believe the truth and not to keep people believing falsehoods.

With that in mind, I examined my beliefs, to try to make sure I had the right ones.  Screwing it up might mean an eternity in hell, so I was highly motivated to be careful and thorough in my examination.  Doing so, of course, led me to disbelieve Christianity entirely, as there is no way to make it make sense and be coherent and sensible.

As for your question, many people will not figure out the truth of the matter, and will continue to believe in hell.  If they have children, they will teach their children about hell.  So, yes, you are correct, it is a vicious circle.  There is no panacea in the real world for making everything okay.  That, by the way, is one of the reasons one can know that there is not an omniscient, omnipotent, perfectly benevolent God who created the universe.  If there were such a god, the world would be perfect, and there would be no problems to solve.  The excuses that people try to come up with to avoid the problem of evil are all completely fallacious and ridiculous, as an omnipotent being could effortlessly overcome any obstacle and make the world exactly as it wants the world to be.  But people who do not think deeply about the question are often satisfied with something that gives a superficial appearance of explaining away the problem, and so they are not roused from their dogmatic slumber.