How can anyone be okay with Hell ?

[Watson]

What does that have to do with anything? It isn't God who has failed, you're just not listening Skipper.

[Minimalist]

Or you're very good at resisting

Then why call him 'god', Frods? If a mere human can resist him he must be quite the shmuck.

[Rev. Rye]

I simply don't get it...i mean Christians are always the first to talk about pity, and love, and acceptance...How can any Christian not go completely mentally insane about the idea that most people they see every day are going to burn forever in agonizing pain...the guy you pass on the bus, the co-worker who you talk about sports with...

I don't see how anyone can stay sane with that kind of fatality that the idea of Hell implies...

The way my pastor spoke of it, he compared it to prison. That said, prison doesn't usually entail torture, and sentences are often much lighter than eternity, and this isn't usually the kind of thing that can relate to most prisoners' experiences:

"What must it be, then, to bear the manifold tortures of hell forever? Forever! For all eternity! Not for a year or an age but forever. Try to imagine the awful meaning of this. You have often seen the sand on the seashore. How fine are its tiny grains! And how many of those tiny grains go to make up the small handful which a child grasps in its play. Now imagine a mountain of that sand, a million miles high, reaching from the earth to the farthest heavens, and a million miles broad, extending to remotest space, and a million miles in thickness, and imagine such an enormous mass of countless particles of sand multiplied as often as there are leaves in the forest, drops of water in the mighty ocean, feathers on birds, scales on fish, hairs on animals, atoms in the vast expanse of air. And imagine that at the end of every million years a little bird came to that mountain and carried away in its beak a tiny grain of that sand. How many millions upon millions of centuries would pass before that bird had carried away even a square foot of that mountain, how many eons upon eons of ages before it had carried away all. Yet at the end of that immense stretch time not even one instant of eternity could be said to have ended. At the end of all those billions and trillions of years eternity would have scarcely begun. And if that mountain rose again after it had been carried all away again grain by grain, and if it so rose and sank as many times as there are stars in the sky, atoms in the air, drops of water in the sea, leaves on the trees, feathers upon birds, scales upon fish, hairs upon animals – at the end of all those innumerable risings and sinkings of that immeasurably vast mountain not even one single instant of eternity could be said to have ended; even then, at the end of such a period, after that eon of time, there mere thought of which makes our very brain reel dizzily, eternity would have scarcely begun."

[Cinjin]

Is it that they just don't really believe it, or is it that they are entirely devoid of human emotions ?

Many many people love the idea of being part of an elite club. For some, that idea is reinforced whenever they tell someone else that they're going to hell. Even if its subconscious or not, it makes that person feel superior, a more worthy person if you will. Add to that, that it allows them to believe that they have a personal relationship with the most powerful being in the universe - well shit, that's like the ultimate of elite clubs. "God loves me and not only does he love me more, but he's going to burn the shit out of YOU!"
It's actually the same reason people profess to have been given visions from god. It's nothing more than an attempt at a weak small person to be more than what they actually are. It's pathetic. Hell is pathetic. Heaven is pathetic. Christianity .... is fucking pathetic.

[Watson]

On what do you base this notion of Christians, Cinjin? Did you yourself experience these feelings of superiority towards others when you were a Christian, and you told someone else they were going to Hell?

[TrueSpirit]

First, this post may be a bit emotional since i'm a bit shaken up, my brother, who i am really close with and who is not a fundie by any stretch of the imagination (he rarely even goes to Church) told me that i will be going to Hell when i die, and that i deserved it for being an atheist.

I simply don't get it...i mean Christians are always the first to talk about pity, and love, and acceptance...How can any Christian not go completely mentally insane about the idea that most people they see every day are going to burn forever in agonizing pain...the guy you pass on the bus, the co-worker who you talk about sports with...

I don't see how anyone can stay sane with that kind of fatality that the idea of Hell implies...

How can you be okay with anyone not sharing your beliefs ? How can you have someone you love not believing in God and not do every single thing you can to convert them ?

Is it that they just don't really believe it, or is it that they are entirely devoid of human emotions ?

It's usually that most people are just confused, the system that we live in is designed that way.

I don't mean to make light of your situation, but this brings up a funny point made by comedian Eddie Griffin(sp?) in one of his recent stand up routines. He said that Christians are always the first people to tell you that you're going to hell, as if God needed some help, and gave you special permission..."Uhm could you please let him know that he's going to hell...I'm a little busy at the moment!

I'm brand new to this forum, and I don't personally know any atheists. I was just curious, if you don't believe in a God, what, do atheists believe in?

[fr0d0]

Then why call him 'god', Frods? If a mere human can resist him he must be quite the shmuck.

Resistance is futile, but still a choice. That's why God is so great.

[TrueSpirit]

Is it that they just don't really believe it, or is it that they are entirely devoid of human emotions ?

Many many people love the idea of being part of an elite club. For some, that idea is reinforced whenever they tell someone else that they're going to hell. Even if its subconscious or not, it makes that person feel superior, a more worthy person if you will. Add to that, that it allows them to believe that they have a personal relationship with the most powerful being in the universe - well shit, that's like the ultimate of elite clubs. "God loves me and not only does he love me more, but he's going to burn the shit out of YOU!"
It's actually the same reason people profess to have been given visions from god. It's nothing more than an attempt at a weak small person to be more than what they actually are. It's pathetic. Hell is pathetic. Heaven is pathetic. Christianity .... is fucking pathetic.

I agree with you about people loving to be a part of an elite club, and your observations as to why, but I don't fault them for that, because it's human nature. Humans need some kind of significance in their lives to give it meaning. Most of us just go about it the wrong way because of our egos.

I don't understand why you said that Christianity, Heaven and hell are pathetic though, because I feel they are all real, they're just not what most orthodox religions say, or believe they are. Could you expand on that?

Peace

[Darwinian]

I'm brand new to this forum, and I don't personally know any atheists. I was just curious, if you don't believe in a God, what, do atheists believe in?

That's a bit like a drug addict saying, "Well, if you don't take heroin, what drugs do you take?"

You may have a habit but I'm clean....

[TrueSpirit]

I'm brand new to this forum, and I don't personally know any atheists. I was just curious, if you don't believe in a God, what, do atheists believe in?

That's a bit like a drug addict saying, "Well, if you don't take heroin, what drugs do you take?"

You may have a habit but I'm clean....

I don't quite see the parallel. I wouldn't know what a drug addict would, or wouldn't say, or what they believe in either, because I don't know of any personally.
I'm not trying to be facetious here. I grew up in a southern baptist Christian household, and everyone that I know of, or come into contact with are, "believers." I don't consider myself a "Christian" though. The only thing I really know about athiests is that they don't believe in God, so I thought that although broad, it was a fairly easy question. Maybe I should've been a bit more specific.