Pope: "Atheists can go to heaven"- intellectual dishonesty?

[Esquilax]

I never really understood that criticism in all honesty. What's more important, inspiring other people or telling others what you think are the facts? There's no point giving people false hope.

The issue is that the religious have never been able to convincingly demonstrate the reality of hell to an atheist, so to us it's nothing more than a threat, and an admission that the person saying it believes we should be tortured forever.

It's a different connotation, really.