Atheist view of hell

[Elf01]

You ignore the rest: That you can expect it from irrational person. Are we irrational?

We’re certainly capable of making irrational choices. I think that you acknowledged as much on a thread on why we have free will.

 

[tonyrey]

I wonder who made us that way.

According to atheists the blind Goddess - which implies that reason is nothing more than a “little agitation of the brain”! In other words all our conclusions are worthless - including the conclusion that reason is nothing more than a “little agitation of the brain”…

 

[tonyrey]

That’s like saying the robber doesn’t take people’s money. When a person sees the robber with a gun they can either give him their money or die.

OR

That’s like saying the mafia doesn’t break your thumbs. When a person sees the mafia and they ask you to worship their children or have your thumbs broken.

To not worship their children is to have your thumbs broken.

On the contrary if you choose to ignore and reject your Creator you are punishing yourself. You become isolated and frustrated as the result of your own pride and presumption because ultimately you realise nothing makes sense and life is worthless in a pointless world…

 

[STT]

I would separate desire from feeling.
As I see it, you’re talking about several things:
Intellect: This is our rational activity that understands the good thing to do.
Will: This is our decision-making power. When the intellect reasons correctly, it can then direct the Will to do a good thing or bad thing.
Feelings: These are bodily reactions. The intellect and will can direct, change and generate feelings, and sometimes feelings just come from the body.
Desire: This is love - not a feeling, but the movement of the heart towards what is perceived as good. Desire for God is the greatest love - because we love the greatest Good.

Thanks for definitions. I will stick to them. I however consider love to be a feeling. It is something which pushes us to do things, like other feelings.

So, feelings and desires don’t always aim for good things. They need to be directed by the intellect. We think about things, then choose with the will.
By habits, over time, we will either do good things or bad things repeatedly.
The intellect can redirect choices, and from that good or bad feelings can result.

Yes, that I agree.

The feeling to become a hero was created by the thoughts in the intellect. As we said, both the hero and coward have feelings of fear. The fear is also caused by the intellect as it remembers past events that caused pain. But the hero fights against the fear and does the good deed. The coward follows the fear.

I don’t think so. We receive the pleasure of being a hero. We like hero and we like to be liked. That is a feeling too.

Yes, exactly - we try to resist certain feelings because we know with our mind the good thing we want to do. So, we fight. We don’t want to follow the feelings. However, you said we become a slave when we follow the feeling when we could not resist it. True. In the fight, we were weak. We did not want to fight any more – so our Desire or Love was for something else.
Perhaps we have a fight to resist the feeling of comfort. We want to do something good, but the feeling of having comfort is strong. We fight. But we love the feeling of comfort more than we love the good things we wanted to do. So, we do not want to resist the desire for comfort and we stop fighting. Then we commit a sin.

Should we be blamed because we wanted the good feeling of comfort? No. We are blamed because we wanted comfort more than we wanted the better thing to do – the good thing. Perhaps we wanted to do some good work. But we choose comfort instead. The comfort we choose may also be sinful (drunkeness, lust, etc).

What is to be blamed is our weakness. That is a sin of weakness. A weak man is one who does not want to fight, or has a habit of avoiding things. He chooses the easy path every time. That’s a bad habit.

A weak man gets weaker the more he falls into sin.

The only way the man can become free is to turn to God and repent, say that he is sorry. Then he tries again when the next temptation comes.

Otherwise, if he is too proud to pray to God - he stays a slave to his sin.

I am afraid to say that you didn’t provide an answer to my question. We either manage to resist sin or we break and sin. Should we blame because we break?

Yes, absolutely right. When we are too weak, we lose the fight against temptation. Some temptations are so strong, nobody can resist them on their own.
That is why, we say from the Christian perspective - the only way to overcome sin and live with true virtue, is with the help of God. Only God can save us from those sins and temptations - and God actually gives us inner strength to win and resist temptation. Then we become more like God - we have more goodness and we are no longer slaves to sin. That is freedom and joy.
But only God can give that. Why?
Because without God we have pride. We think we can do everything ourself.
Humility is the first virtue. Humility before God. We admit that we cannot resist some temptations. But we want to resist - we want to win.
So, we humble ourselves and admit. We are just weak human beings. Only the power of God can change us. Then God will change us! You can see people who have overcome terrible addictions by the power of God - they asked through prayer and God helped them (this usually takes time for the person to realize their own sin).

Why should we blame weak?

 

[reggieM]

Should we blame because we break?

Yes

Why should we blame weak?

Because virtue is strength against sin and a lack of virtue is weakness.

We blame people who sin because they choose what is wrong. Their weakness comes from wanting to do what is bad and not what is good.

 

[STT]

Yes.

Because virtue is strength against sin and a lack of virtue is weakness.

We blame people who sin because they choose what is wrong. Their weakness comes from wanting to do what is bad and not what is good.

So it is laws of jungle. Those who are weak and break should be perished. You are not making any sense.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

Every Christian appears to have different ideas on hell. Some ideas overlap, some are contradictory, some are close to each other and some very far apart.

Which version would you like to discuss?

The version he who says, “I am an atheist and I am comfortable being in hell because I don’t believe in God; and if there is a God I would not want anything to do with Him.”

Atheism is a risky business, as Pascal would say.

 

[reggieM]

So it is laws of jungle. Those who are weak and break should be perished. You are not making any sense.

Strength in goodness and virtue takes exercise and practice and decision of the will. To refuse to strengthen oneself is a sin.

 

[tony12356]

On the contrary if you choose to ignore and reject your Creator you are punishing yourself. You become isolated and frustrated as the result of your own pride and presumption because ultimately you realise nothing makes sense and life is worthless in a pointless world…

Please tell me more about what I believe!!! I don’t reject god. I just don’t believe a god exists, because I am not convinced. The evidence for a god either doesn’t exist or I have yet to see any evidence for a god.

 

[misstherese]

So it is laws of jungle. Those who are weak and break should be perished. You are not making any sense.

Those who are weak are weak by their own fault. Feelings are not as powerful as you think, God gives all of us enough grace to overcome them. By choosing to becoming slaves to passion we become servants of the devil. We choose to become slaves to passion by submitting to the passions instead of submitting to God.

Please tell me more about what I believe!!! I don’t reject god. I just don’t believe a god exists, because I am not convinced. The evidence for a god either doesn’t exist or I have yet to see any evidence for a god.

Here’s some evidence:
*Miraculous Image of Our Lady of Guadalupe - Supernatural lasting image from 1531 cruxnow.com/faith/2014/12/12/four-awesome-facts-about-our-lady-of-guadalupe/
*Eucharistic Miracles - Two bleeding hosts, received an unbiased blood test and turned out to both be AB positive blood. An esteemed cardiologist and forensic pathologist at Columbia University tested the samples he was given and said the person whose heart it came from must have been tortured
*Turin Shroud - light emitted supernaturally to create image, unbiased blood tested and turned out to be AB positive blood news.nationalgeographic.com/2015/04/150417-shroud-turin-relics-jesus-catholic-church-religion-science/
*Veronica’s Veil - Face of Christ imprinted supernaturally when he wiped his face
*Our Lady of Fatima - Sun turned colors and danced in front of thousands of people, even atheists
*Liquefied blood of Saint Januarius - His blood liquefies 3 times a year on special feast days
*Lives of the saints including St. Padre Pio and St. Gemma Galgani
*Natural reason - Reason points to a God existing

 

[HelenRose]

Please tell me more about what I believe!!! I don’t reject god. I just don’t believe a god exists, because I am not convinced. The evidence for a god either doesn’t exist or I have yet to see any evidence for a god.

As a Catholic I get tired of people telling me what I believe also or even worse accusing me or someone else of evil intentions. It is a very rude thing to do. So, I sympatize with your position.

There is no better way to stop a reasonable conversation between people.

I think it is a subtle or not so subtle form of setting up a straw man. It is like saying, “This is what you believe so you must be stupid” That is a poor way to introduce oneself.

 

[tonyrey]

On the contrary if you choose to ignore and reject your Creator you are punishing yourself. You become isolated and frustrated as the result of your own pride and presumption because ultimately you realise nothing makes sense and life is worthless in a pointless world…

I’m not telling you in particular anything whatsoever! I am simply pointing out that **those **who ignore the possibility that God exists and live according to that assumption become isolated and frustrated as the result of their own pride and presumption because ultimately they realise nothing makes sense and life is worthless in a pointless world. Why else do so many non-believers commit suicide - like a Catholic friend of mine who lost her faith? It was an atheist, Sartre, who pointed out that we cannot sit on the fence indefinitely. It is the way we behave that reveals what we really believe…

 

[thinkandmull]

What do you think of Buddhism tonyrey? I think they are against suicide too

 

[tonyrey]

What do you think of Buddhism tonyrey? I think they are against suicide too

I have great respect for their moral teaching - apart from putting compassion before love. Their belief in reincarnation seems unnecessarily complicated and destructive of our identity. The Christian view of God and life with Him is much more appealing.

 

[ANV]

I think that a god who gives cancer to an innocent child isn’t unlikely for him to send an innocent atheist or any non believer in him to hell. Hell is so consistent with such a god. The idea of an all loving all merciful and powerful God is absurd.

 

[reggieM]

I think that a god who gives cancer to an innocent child isn’t unlikely for him to send an innocent atheist or any non believer in him to hell. Hell is so consistent with such a god. The idea of an all loving all merciful and powerful God is absurd.

How would you describe heaven? In comparison with life on earth?

 

[ANV]

How would you describe heaven? In comparison with life on earth?

A loving god would only create heaven without Hell, beauty without suffering, here on Earth or anywhere.

 

[reggieM]

A loving god would only create heaven without Hell, beauty without suffering, here on Earth or anywhere.

That’s not what I asked - could you try again please? Thanks.

 

[ANV]

That’s not what I asked - could you try again please? Thanks.

But I answered indirectly, maybe a happy beauty place, as it is being said, I don’t believe in Heaven so I’m describing heaven and Hell according to what is being said about both. I can’t describe them literally apart from what they are being refered to, eternal place of happiness, eternal place of suffering. I can see a beautiful place on earth and call it heaven as figure of speech and a terrible place and call it Hell.

 

[reggieM]

But I answered indirectly, maybe a happy beauty place, as it is being said, I don’t believe in Heaven so I’m describing heaven and Hell according to what is being said about both. I can’t describe them literally apart from what they are being refered to, eternal place of happiness, eternal place of suffering. I can see a beautiful place on earth and call it heaven as figure of speech and a terrible place and call it Hell.

Ok, but I think you need a lot more detail than that. Right now you just have an eternal place of happiness with beauty. But what does that entail? What is it like for the people there?
The reason it is important is because you’re comparing these ideas on hell, so the more knowledge and detail about heaven you have, the better your comparison will be.
What are the conditions of the people in heaven? Why are they happy?