Do I believe Atheists are going to hell?

[The Grand Nudger]

I am the way, the truth, and the life.  None get to the father but through me.

Well shit, sounds pretty final.  Ask a catholic one question and you'll get three opinions.  There is no consistent or rational reading of either the foundational underpinnings of all christian faiths or the catechism of the catholic church that would explicitly state otherwise.   OTOH, like all things religious, heaven is a product.  You don;t get to ride the merry go round forever with jesus unless you pay the man...but some people who would otherwise want to pay the man find that notion abhorrent.

-and so we ambulate forever, with the church and most christian faiths allowing people to be bad christians in order to be decent human beings. This is the intractable problem of faith as it pertains to it's deployment. The institution of faith cannot persist unless it remains relevant and makes concessions in accordance with the changing expectations of the faithful. Failure to do so marginalizes the market share of any given sect, and just makes it's followers look like hateful nutballs...driving them to obscurity.

[downbeatplumb]

Short answer: no.
[...]

Phew! That's a load off my mind.

Now, can you please tell me, whether or not atheists can enter Narnia?

There is bound to be a lady called Narnia somewhere.
People seem to name their kids after any shit now days.

[Antares]

I'm going to Hell. See, I was born into sin because my greatest granddaddy, Dirt Man, disobeyed The Whiz and now, wouldn't ya know it? I gotta pay for it because I think the whole idea is ridiculous.

[Fake Messiah]

Before talking about afterlife could Muslims, Christians and other theists explain first why would we want to go to their heaven?
I can't stand them 5 minutes let alone an eternity!!

[Brian37]

Short answer: no.

Long answer: 


Any human who when the truth is presented and has a way out of the darkness and perceives it but denies it after God's proof is settled, then yes, they belong to hell.

If words can decisively prove a Creator there would be no need of religion. Religion has a Guide, paradigms to act upon while searching it, and love has many interpretations.

I see humans as they outwardly appear so it's inwardly like that.


Most people are not so beautiful nor so ugly, but just good looking to the extent they should be satisfied with how they look.

The same is true pertaining to truth seeking. Most won't go the ends of the earth is search of knowledge of the self and most can't even if they wanted to.

However most when truth becomes apparent to them accept.

I believe most humans are dishonest with themselves, I believe to a great degree I deceive myself as well.


But when things are proven in the way God proves firmly beyond doubt, then truth, is no longer veiled, then some nations most believed and many nations disbelieved, and of the nations mentioned in Quran, it's only people of Yonus who benefited from their faith.

The Israelites believed but then turned the message into meaningless stories when they rejected Mohammad and the Mastership of Ali and their family.


I get frustrated but I am not the doctor to cure you, nor have I placed in the right way.

I don't believe I have established the proof despite knowing by arguments are both valid and sound. The premises they rest upon do need more elaboration which I have not done.


Give me time and I will come back after sometime, as a better communicator. I will prove the premises you dispute about in a better way.

I believe we all are dishonest in many levels, we deceive ourselves, the greatest degree is I believe what Atheists find themselves in, where they convince themselves they have no knowledge of God.

But the proof of God is a healing and healer, it cures the dishonesty and sets the world back in proper balanced order, set's your soul in it's proper image, not the mirror inverted backwards image of falsehood and lies of Iblis.

I can't prove all this stuff because I don't know what you really know and what you don't. It makes sense to me, is all I can assure you of.


We will however to move forward have to have a more serious conversation. We all have to be more serious. Less battle of egos and more serious to the discussions.

I seriously reject all mythology, not just yours. 

Concepts of punishment in the afterlife are not unique to Islam, or Christians or Jews. Concepts of divine punishment/reward are far older in religion in any of those three.

"Ego is still insisting that old mythology is equal to modern scientific observation.

[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.

[chimp3]

Where is Hell anyway?

[Catholic_Lady]

Where is Hell anyway?

In yo miiiinnnddddd.... It's a state of being.

[chimp3]

Where is Hell anyway?

In yo miiiinnnddddd.... It's a state of being.

No problem then! We have good drugs for that.

[shadow]

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.

You're quite secular for a Catholic, CL

I really don't know how you can get that where ever there is "love and goodness", there is god. God is supposed to be everywhere, right? Including all awful places, and allowing all awful things to occur. Once again, your conception of god is not your understanding of morality.

If, in your view, a good portion of the Catholics aren't moral and therefore aren't going to heaven, and a good portion of the atheists and members of other religions are moral and are going to heaven, there is no correlation between heaven and religion. So what, then, is the role of the Catholic Church?