Do I believe Atheists are going to hell?

[Catholic_Lady]

So in Catholicism, the official teaching on this is that Hell is attained through a deliberate rejection of God. 

The tricky part is deciphering whether someone has indeed "deliberately rejected God" or not. 

- If you are a person who has sought out truth and genuinely came to the conclusion that God does not exist, is that a deliberate rejection? Can you really reject something you don't think is real in the first place? 

- What about the person who believes God exists but chooses to live a life contrary to God's commandments to love others and do good? 
Has that person rejected God then, despite believing in Him? 

- What about the person who sincerely does not think God is real, but who strives to live a life of virtue, loves others, and does good? In doing so, is this person unknowingly accepting God in his/her heart by following His ways? 

Point is, a "deliberate rejection of God" is much more nuances than a simple "I believe God exists vs I do not believe God exists." Which is precisely why the Church has no authority to claim any particular person is in Hell. We know that Christopher Hitchens was atheist when he died, but we can't claim he went to Hell, because there's much more to a deliberate rejection of God than simple disbelief. We can't see into Hitchens' thoughts and motivations. We don't know his culpability. Therefore we cannot judge the state of his soul. And because the Church teaches that we should be charitable and assume the best of people's intentions when we don't know what they are, it is actually contrary to our principles to make the claim that a person is in Hell. 

Personally, in assuming the best, I very much think that a non believer who strives to live by the virtues of truth, love, and goodness, has indeed unknowingly accepted God into his heart in that way, and will certainly be in Heaven. 

None of this is to say that I take the attitude of "Oh, don't worry, you don't have to be Christian because you can still go to Heaven anyway!" The point is for people to constantly seek truth. Not to take the position of "Eh, well... If I'd go to Heaven anyway then I  don't got nothing to lose, so I'm just gonna go ahead and stay atheist and call it good!" There's a difference between reaching the atheist conclusion in a sincere quest to find truth, and just taking it because you're lazy and can't be bothered, which is kind of what I would be encouraging if I took that attitude. Does any of this make sense?

Yes, it makes sense, as in you are... trying to squeeze god into your conception of morality. From my point of view, nothing ties the two together. Do I deliberately reject god? Yes. Do I deliberately reject morality? Not at all. And I don't feel the slightest hint of moral inconsistency with that view.

When you use the word 'god' to refer to morality, you attach the entire institution of the Catholic Church and the Bible to your morals, which is the first sign to me that you can't really believe them. For example, the Catholic Church is rife with child sexual abuse scandals. We're talking about thousands of authority figures in the church repeatedly sexually abusing children. You can't possibly agree with this behaviour. So why pretend that an organization fostering this kind of abuse has anything to do with your morality? Why do you need that corrupt institution at all to believe in a form of karma after one dies?

You agree that one can come to morality without being Catholic. So I don't see the role of god. I think the church likes to collect money for the concept of morality, and provides nothing real in return. You say the point is a desire to "constantly seek truth"... I don't think highly educated people often land at religion from their studies. I'm a very committed student but I've never come close to believing in religion. And you said it yourself - one could be led to an atheist conclusion even through living a good, moral, and truth-seeking life. So why on earth did god make himself empirically non-existent to so many of us, with the expectation that we would not find him, if there is any truth in that belief? The much simpler explanation is that god does not exist, so one can be a very moral person without finding or seeking god.

I think you may have misunderstood. I believe that God is love and goodness, and so where those things are present God is present also. If you accept love and goodness, if you strive to live by the values of honesty, truth, generosity, humility, kindness, etc, to the best of your understanding of those things, you are unknowingly accepting God into your heart, and He is present there, imho. I am by no means saying that people who are religious or Catholic are all good people. And yes, I "attach" Catholic doctrines to God. This does not mean i think Catholic people , even the clergy, are all good people.