(September 23, 2008 at 11:01 am)EvidenceVsFaith Wrote: Well my belief now is this: Why be afraid of going to hell if you're just as likely to go to hell whatever religion you follow. And just as likely to go to heaven whatever religion you follow, even if you don't follow a religion at all. God might want noone to believe in him and only send atheists to heaven and all believers in ANY God to hell. Because faith is 'made up' and so is heaven and hell. If I invent a God its just as likely as the ones 'invented' by religion, and this God might even unfairly hate believers and love atheists.
Why? Because you were raised in that fear. Children expect their parents and elderly to be wiser and speak the truth. They are impressionable. For them "if you touch yourself, you will die a neverending death in a river of fire" is as credible as "if you cross the road without waiting for the traffic light to turn green, you will get run over by a car".
I don't think a raised atheist can that easily be converted with fear. Fear is what was instilled in many theists' hearts in their childhood and that's why it's also what keeps them in their religion in adulthood even when they learn better.
There's a good reason Dawkins called it psychological child abuse.
I was raised by a Christian moderate mom and a religiously apathetic dad, so hell never was much of a reality for me (in fact, most moderates I know are convinced they won't go to hell even if their religion in question would say otherwise -- the good old "wouldn't happen to me" reasoning), but I can understand how troublesome it must be for people who were raised by literalists and other extremists -- particularly in the U.S. and South America where the fear of hellfire is very real for many Christians.
