(May 5, 2011 at 11:39 pm)padraic Wrote: Argument from incredulity. What you understand is irrelevant.So too is your personal world view and values. It's not up to you or anyone else to tell others what they should think or believe.
It is a common conceit (and ad homimen attack) by many atheists that believers in X Y or Z are stupid ,ignorant or insane. In my opinion,such a position is no more than a sneaky form of smug bigotry.
First, what i understand is not irrelevant, since Hell is not that complicated a notion...Hell implies that, for example, all Muslims, according to Christians, WILL go to Hell forever. Why would any Christian not do whatever they could to convert them ? how can one have a Muslim friend and not try everything they can to spare them from Hell ? Is it that they don't want to hurt their feelings or cause an argument ? If so, how serious do they think Hell is ?
I don't think they are insane, but i do think they are ignorant of their religion in the sense that many believers i talk to think everyone who was a "good person" will go to Heaven regardless of the "path" they took to go there. Which is quite a good, reasonable line of thinking.
However none of the major religions actually even remotely support that line of thinking. So in my view, they ARE ignorant of their religion. Which is fine, i'm ignorant about an infinite myriad of subjects, so i wouldn't hold it against them, religion just isn't important to many people in their daily lives. Saying most Christians don't know what's in the Bible is not an ad hominem, it's a statistical fact, considering Church attendance for catholics in my home country is at around 7%...
But to those who actually know what their religion says, their only explanation seems to be "you always have a choice", i guess in the hope that the Holy Spirit will take care of it. But considering the number of people who die Muslims, Atheists or Jews, that Ghost is not taking its job so seriously. Potentially, everyone CAN be saved. But in reality, most are definitely not.
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To all, my brother did not "lash out", it was a simple conversation, not even a debate, i joked about going to Hell and being a "heretic", and he just said that yeah, i deserved it. It was not out of anger: it was a casual comment, this is just what he thinks will happen. Otherwise i wouldn't have minded it.
