Huh ??? What in the world are you trying to say here ?
As I do not know you, I cannot comment on your peace. What I do know is that many others in a similar situation (myself included) have found hope through the advice of a good priest and/or counseling. Life is not “sinners in the hands of an angry God”, where God is just waiting for us to fall into hell. On the contrary, God WANTS people to be in heaven with him enough to have sent his own Son to die for them all.
You admit it yourself. Atheism is easier than Christianity. And somehow I’m weak because I try the harder option? I don’t want to kill myself AT ALL, but if I believed that life had no purpose, then I would certainly consider it (and in fact, the times when I’ve flirted with atheism have been the most depressing points of my life).
On the contrary, I perhaps understand the implications of atheism better than you do. I never said that atheists are hedonists or depressed. I have known some very happy, well rounded atheists. If they are truly not hedonists and they are truly not depressed, perhaps it is because their heart has more sense than their head. All human beings know inherently, as the Apostle Paul taught, the law of God. And they attempt to follow it to some extent, good! However, if an atheist truly took his creed seriously, where would his basis for morals come from? Would he be moral just because he felt like it? What if he didn’t feel like it? If you admit that actions are truly right and wrong in and of themselves, then there is basis for trying to do the right and avoid the wrong. You might like to live in peace with all mankind, but if actions are not truly right and wrong, then where is the logical basis for doing so? After all, it’s just your preference. What if I prefer to go around destroying cities at will (much like many ancient/modern barbarians)? Who’s to say that my preference isn’t just as good as your preference? Perhaps you would say that love for yourself and others is better than hate/indifference. Good! We agree there. But you’ve just made a moral judgement. And unless love is just a preference, then there must logically be some reason that love is “good” and hate is “bad”.
Yes, more troubling. Supposing that someone beat me up, stole all my money, ran away, was never caught by the law, and eventually died unrepentant. You mean to tell me that a universe in which such a person never realizes or cares that he/she has done a terrible wrong is really less troubling than the concept of hell? You’ve got to be kidding me! Yes, I can reconcile eternal punishment for the unrepentant, but I cannot reconcile eternal peace for the unrepentant.If a lake of fire to punish people for eternity doesn’t exist, life becomes more troubling?
The phychobabble of the 20th century began with Freud and ended with chat show feelgood sentiments.The phychobabble nonsense sucks the virtue of human dignity and especially among those who can and do suffer,allied with the legal industry and the drug companies it generates tons of money because the modern selfish mind can’t bear a moment of suffering and considers itself to be a victim of either man or God when it feels down or things don’t go their way.
Truth, makes perfect sense. It’s just not easy, you, for whatever reason, felt you needed to stop seeking the truth…
Your intentions I am certain are good, but you are not helping her with this advice.
There is an indication in Scripture that about one-third will end-up in Hell…As I understand it, most people are going to Hell. Jesus Himself says so in the Bible when he says that the road to hell is wide, and the gate to Heaven is narrow and few enter it or something like that.
Furthermore, the Catechism says that no one is deemed ignorant of the moral law written in our conscience (or something similar), so people who deliberately and with full knowledge commit adultery, murder, theft etc. are in mortal sin even if they never heard of Catholicism. Right?
olrl.org/snt_docs/fewness.shtml is a sermon by a saint, and here are some quotes:
So is it true that most people are going to Hell?
Thanks!
I am glad that you found hope in the advise of a priest, but I, and many other atheists, find that hope completely empty and baseless.
No, I don’t. My point was that you said that atheism was easier than Christianity, yet you would probably kill yourself if you were an atheist. Maybe I misunderstood you. I apologize if I did.
Cultures have had different moralities regarding polygamy, incest, infanticide, cannibalism, suicide, prostitution and sex, etc.
I believe that the basis of morality is a reasonable application of the golden rule, which was around before Jesus. Actions may be deemed right and wrong on the basis of their destructiveness. You appear to be making the leap that because morals exist, they must be the laws of an invisible supernatural being. I disagree with this.
You don’t need to be able to contact them. Just write it down, pray over it, and either file it away or shred it (or burn it).
What? I stopped seeking the truth because I have decided to reject the idea of an invisible being? To me, that’s like saying because I have rejected the existence of fairies, I have stopped seeking the truth.
Nobody can really give up on God and more often than not this disatisfaction is a encouraging sign to go beyond the conceptions learned through geographic and cultural accidents.Every Christian writer of worth acknowledges that period of uneasiness and no better example was Paul who was out hunting Christians before his molten mind was struck by the Christian Way.
Of course, sin begets a darkening of conscience. Nonetheless, the basic moral law (especially the Golden Rule, which you are correct in respecting). I’d urge you to read C.S. Lewis’ The Abolition of Man. Among other things, it has an excellent appendix that demonstrates how many moral principles go accross different cultures.
I wouldn’t call that a leap of faith or logic. However, I’d at least say that morals must come from some place other than the human mind. If they simply originate in the mind, then they are preferences and not laws with the power to bind. This has been realized by atheists in the past. As an example of this consider the theory advocated by Raskolnikov in the novel Crime and Punishment by Dostoevsky. He says that certain men have the right and duty to go beyond morals because they are supermen. Such a theory, in my opinion, is inevitably where atheistic ethics leads.
Of course? If I understand you correctly, you are saying that because of the effect of Original Sin and sin in general, men’s consciences have been darkened, leading to different moralities?
OK.
I think that I agree with you that morals come from some other place than the human mind. Animals have a sense of fairness and feel wronged or guilty when this expectation of fairness is not lived up to. If there are other creatures on other planets, the golden rule and ideas of fairness, I believe, probably play a good part in their thinking, even though they may have differening ideas as to what is good and fair. However, these concepts could simply have a naturalistic, evolutionary reason for their existence.
My question is, are we losing hope (and I can say that to myself too!)? No doubt that we tend to be more worried about going to Hell than Heaven…yes, in the past, I was sooo discouraged and beaten up by my sins, that I TOTALLY lost ALL hope and was to the point of despair! Believe me, DON’T GET THERE!!! But there was a time when I was in total despair and yet prayed to God to give me hope! I guess you can look at that like I had hope deep down inside when I was in despair thinking I had no hope! So yes, please, pray for hope! 
Sometimes, I feel a lot of folks are too busy with the secular material world to pay much attention to God. That’s unfortunate. Personally, I try to be more aware of God and keep prayer in my life. I don’t think there is lack of hope in the world, but I do think there is a lot of apathy and indifference there.I’ve just finished reading most of the comments that reply to this topic. It’s interesting to see how most of your guys’ thoughts, fears, struggles, etc. are pretty much exactly how I feel, think, etc.
I WANT to give my whole life to Christ but somehow, don’t know quite how. Does anyone else have a clue what I’m talking about? I think, Christ gave up His life for us, now I want to give my life to Him! But don’t know how to do it! How?
Hermione said:
As I understand it, most people are going to Hell. Jesus Himself says so in the Bible when he says that the road to hell is wide, and the gate to Heaven is narrow and few enter it or something like that.
Furthermore, the Catechism says that no one is deemed ignorant of the moral law written in our conscience (or something similar), so people who deliberately and with full knowledge commit adultery, murder, theft etc. are in mortal sin even if they never heard of Catholicism. Right?
olrl.org/snt_docs/fewness.shtml is a sermon by a saint, and here are some quotes:
So is it true that most people are going to Hell?
Thanks!
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