Does an atheist go to heaven?

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Beryllos said:
Atheists sometimes say they don’t believe in an old man in the sky, or a vengeful god, or a god who created evil. As Bishop Robert Barron has said, I don’t believe in that god either. Perhaps some atheists have a kind of faith, or a seed of faith.
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Someone can only make a call depending on what he or she is told.
 
I can easily imagine an atheist being absolutely delighted to realise that God is real and that He loves them tremendously.

What happens next is anyone’s guess!
 
It would obviously be harder. A life of sin that was unrepented and no sacraments of Grace from the Church, no adoration of a creator and savior. I would imagine a deep hurt and pain and sadness when an atheist faces Jesus. Frankly, hurt pain and sadness sounds an awful lot like hell.
 
Jesus answered that in John 14:6

6 Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me."
 
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That’s private revelation, so it might work as answer for you and others, but not for everyone.
 
If atheists don’t believe in God, and if they don’t want eternal life in Paradise, then God won’t force them.

Atheists have free will, they can choose to love God and inherit eternal life, or not care about God, deny him, or hate him, and choose to inherit instead eternal death.

God has never sent anyone to hell. Every soul in hell freely and willfully rejected God and chose damnation over salvation.

Love cannot be forced on creatures with free will. Either they will love Goodness and Life which is God, and so inherit eternal life, or they will embrace sin and death which is of the devil and inherit hell.

An atheist who through no fault of his own and in despair rejects God, or rejects God because of the sins of those who represent God in his life, and yet he is a good and loving person, and who is open to inheriting eternal life and paradise, but simply can’t bring himself to hope in their existence, in that case then there is a very good chance that atheist will be brought to eternal life through a period of purification.
 
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One who perseveres to the end in atheism cannot be saved. Faith is necessary for salvation:

From the Catechism:
161 Believing in Jesus Christ and in the One who sent him for our salvation is necessary for obtaining that salvation.42 "Since “without faith it is impossible to please [God]” and to attain to the fellowship of his sons, therefore without faith no one has ever attained justification, nor will anyone obtain eternal life ‘But he who endures to the end.’"43
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And we must of course first believe God exists before we can put our faith in Him:
Hebrews 11:6 And without faith it is impossible to please him. For whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.[a]
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However, for someone seeking to follow the truth with an upright conscience, God will lead them to that necessary faith (even in ways known only to Himself or if only at the 11th hour, as we see in the parable of the workers in the vinyard.)

Here’s how Pope Francis put it in his first encyclical:

Lumen Fidei 35:
Because faith is a way, it also has to do with the lives of those men and women who, though not believers, nonetheless desire to believe and continue to seek. To the extent that they are sincerely open to love and set out with whatever light they can find, they are already, even without knowing it, on the path leading to faith…Any-one who sets off on the path of doing good to others is already drawing near to God, is already sustained by his help, for it is characteristic of the divine light to brighten our eyes whenever we walk towards the fullness of love.
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I am agnostic.

Atheists believe there is no evidence for God and therefore they don’t believe in a god.
 
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Atheists individually may or may not be able to enter Heaven. However, if they do make it, it is despite their atheism and not because of it.
 
Fr. Mike Schmitz actually did a video yesterday talking about who will go to Heaven and how can someone go to Heaven. You will like the video and it should answer your question. Here is the link:

 
ChristMyLife said:
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QwertyGirl:
They simply don’t believe in God. It isn’t the same thing
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Define believe.
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C: Are you convinced that what I am saying is true?

B: No.

B does not believe what C is saying.

And I don’t believe I had to explain that.
 
ChristMyLife said:
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Sleepy2:
Most atheists don’t hate god
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@sleepy2 I have a question…

If God exists, would you want to have eternal life in heaven?
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Personally I would like a heads-up before I made that call. Eternity is a long time. As my grandad used to say: ‘If you didn’t hate losing so much, then winning wouldn’t feel as good’. I can’t imagine a week without some problem to work through. A sense of satisfaction from overcoming a challlenge.

And you want me to spend eternity with nothing to occupy my mind. It would be hell.
 
Bradskii said:
And I don’t believe I had to explain that
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It really comes down to whether someone is open to belief in God…

Would you believe in God if Jesus appeared to you? Would you even want Jesus to appear to you?

The most important thing to keep in mind when asking “will atheists go to heaven” is remembering that for an atheist NOT to go to heaven, he has to willfully choose to reject heaven. He has to not WANT to go heaven. He has to have no desire for God, want nothing to do with God. He has to utterly reject God, then God will allow him to to go where he wants to go - away from God eternally.

Also, it’s not just an intellectual rejection of God which will damn him. He also has to reject God in his deeds. God must be utterly rejected by a man for that man to be lost.
 
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Bradskii said:
Personally I would like a heads-up before I made that call. Eternity is a long time. As my grandad used to say: ‘If you didn’t hate losing so much, then winning wouldn’t feel as good’. I can’t imagine a week without some problem to work through. A sense of satisfaction from overcoming a challlenge.

And you want me to spend eternity with nothing to occupy my mind. It would be hell.
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God and heaven is infinite… It won’t be sitting around in a waiting room.

Imagine if you could travel through both time, history, and the world, space, at the speed of thought. I believe that will be something available to us in heaven. We’ll be able to go back to the 16th century or the first day the Earth formed and watch and view and understand everything going on.

Imagine a cosmic VHS tape. I picture the Universe and time itself to be playing on a sort of cosmic film role…

The universe is the film reel in that tape… And in heaven we’ll have access to a cosmic tape player, and be able to play the tape of creation and see whatever we want to see.
 
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Sounds like being a companion to the Doctor [Who] ;).
“This is the gateway to everything that every was or ever could be.”

Interestingly, as a child I was taught that God had perfect knowledge of the future. The future hadn’t happened yet, but God knew what would happen. It was the non-linear concept of time presented in the above referenced sci fi series that helped me understand that God exists OUTSIDE of time… in eternity there is no past, present or future- It’s all before God (and perhaps as you suggest, before the Elect in glory).
Great example of what Tolkien taught in his essay “On Faerie Stories”…and how even pagan Faerie stories can point to the Gospel.
 
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ChristMyLife said:
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Bradskii:
Personally I would like a heads-up before I made that call. Eternity is a long time. As my grandad used to say: ‘If you didn’t hate losing so much, then winning wouldn’t feel as good’. I can’t imagine a week without some problem to work through. A sense of satisfaction from overcoming a challlenge.

And you want me to spend eternity with nothing to occupy my mind. It would be hell.
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God and heaven is infinite… It won’t be sitting around in a waiting room.

Imagine if you could travel through both time, history, and the world, space, at the speed of thought. I believe that will be something available to us in heaven. We’ll be able to go back to the 16th century or the first day the Earth formed and watch and view and understand everything going on.

Imagine a cosmic VHS tape. I picture the Universe and time itself to be playing on a sort of cosmic film role…

The universe is the film reel in that tape… And in heaven we’ll have access to a cosmic tape player, and be able to play the tape of creation and see whatever we want to see.
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Apart from the fact that you just made all that up, I don’t think you’ve grasped how long infinity actually is.
 
Not a very interesting description of heaven, but perhaps you are starting to answer the problem if evil
 
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