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

[ideologue08]

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.

Well, of course it's a threat, there's no question about that. But some prominent Atheists like Penn Jillette don't agree with your take. You might not believe in a hellfire, but to accuse a person who does of insincerity is taking a step beyond your pay grade so to speak.

If someone genuinely believes that you will be punished, they have a duty to warn you, an obligation, it's a part of being an empathetic human. Whereas if I believed that you will be punished and I didn't care to warn you, or even worse, gave you false hope or security, what kind of twisted sadistic person would I be? Like Penn said, only a person who is really evil would do such a thing.