cgordon

Hell is a metaphor for the unknown. Fact is, hell and heaven are both in your head. Fear is a HUGE part of religion and is the thing most people have most trouble with discarding.

As an atheist, I don't fear hell (or heaven, which seem MUCH scarier if you pay attention and are really examining what heaven IS), or death. I live today and love well. And that's the key. Heaven is here and now, or hell is here and now. It's up to you.

You'd be surprised. Most Christians aren't. They cultural Christians. They've simply never asked the Big Questions.

Oddly enough, most atheists don't live like that. The folks you see living dissolute lives will probably (in a nation that's 75% Christian) self-identify as Christian. I drink a little, cuss a little, but overall, my life is honest, open and civil. I don't steal, try not to lie any more than is necessary, don't cheat on my wife, treat others with respect and am generally a nice guy.

HL, I've read the Bible severla times, in a couple of differnt languages, and at one time even started learning Koine Greek so I could read the original scriptures. The Bible was one of the things that led me away FROM Christianity. If you undertake a serious, critical, honest examination of that collection fo documents, it MIGHT change your life.

That's not the point. If you are worried that others are having fun while you ar ebeing virtuous, then that's NOT the right reason to consider leaving the fold. If that's your basis, you might want to reconsider. I actually live a more virtuous life as an atheist than I did as a Christian. Seriously.

Fear is the mindlkiller ...

A cookie is yours if you get the reference.

cgordon

HL,

If there WERE a perfect god, that god would be a loving deity and would want us to excel.

If you live well, treat others well, care for those hwo love you, leave a legacy of honesty ... you would be destined for Heaven in any case.

If then, god condemned you to Hell - despite that Good Life you'd lived - because of some really petty shit, then that god needs to have its ass kicked.

Basically, this is one of the most cited and consistently honest arguments against the Bible god.

If you can't question your religion, it's probably not worthy of being questioned in the first place.

Al Fresco

Actually this is yet another example of a failed prophecy. A substantial portion of the west wall (the so-called Wailing Wall) of the temple was spared and remains intact to this day.

In my opinion, one of the biggest loopholes in the Bible story was Jesus' inability to accurately predict the timing of his "second coming." In order to downplay the discrepancies, some apologists even contend that it occurred in 70 CE. See this article for a detailed rebuttal of this ad hoc attempt to save the Bible from itself.

James Brown

I don't know if this well help you, but a possible parallel for me was Uncle Sam.

Uncle Sam, as most Americans know, is intended to be a personification of the United States, first mentioned during the War of 1812 and first depicted in 1852, forty years later. That sounds similar to Paul writing about Jesus in 30 CE and Mark depicting Jesus in 70 CE. Mark put flesh and bone on a spiritual concept that Paul interpreted based on his reading of the Old Testament.

Uncle Sam has been portrayed in media ever since--posters, movies, graphic novels, you name it. Typically, the message that was conveyed by Uncle Sam mirrored that of the writer or artist. When Nazis menaced the world, anti-nazi writers used Uncle Sam to fight Naziism. But when Naziism was replaced by Communism as the enemy of the hour, Uncle Sam was recruited to fight Communism. Every person working the myth of Uncle Sam used him as a voicebox to air their own views (or the views of whomever was writing the checks).

So imagine hundreds of years from now, all that's left of the United States is a comic book depicting Uncle Sam--the guy with the top hat and long coat--actually rolling up his sleeves and fighting Nazis in WWII. It's easy for me to see how someone could look at the comic and decide that Uncle Sam was a real person, a powerful superhero that walked the earth. After all, the comic book has the historical details right--Nazis, World War II, Europe, etc. The comic must have been drawn from the accounts of eye-witnesses!

Of course, we know the answer. Is there really a United States? Yes. Is there really a flesh-and-blood man named Uncle Sam? No. Does the US really have a "spirit" that can be personified? Well, maybe, but it would certainly be foolish to expect this personified spirit to listen to our prayers and to have an opinion on what kind of car we drive and to one day "come back" and rescue us from our world. But religions have sprung from stranger sources.

Is the analogy of Uncle Sam to Jesus perfect? Of course no; no analogy is. But for me at least, when I see an image of Uncle Sam, I'm reminded of why someone else might want to "make up" a story about Jesus.

Donn10

If I told you that someone I knew had predicted the events of 9/11 back in 1973 would you take my word for it? I hope not! You would want to see proof that the prediction was made before the event occurred. Any 'prophecy' which is penned after the event occurs cannot be trusted to be a prophecy. There must be proof that the prediction was made before the event occurred.

It cannot be proved that anyone, much less Jesus, spoke or wrote those words before the temple was destroyed. Surely an all powerful being could have found a way to provide irrefutable evidence that he made the prediction before the event occurred. On a side note, why isn't there more detail. Surely an all knowing being would have included more detail.
Why don't you believe Apollo is a god? It is written that the Oracle at Delphi made predictions which came true. I'm not claiming that the temple was not destroyed, I'm claiming that there is no proof that anyone predicted it.

Crowley

I was raised in a very Christian household. One of my earliest 'questions' about my religion concerned the words of Jesus. You see, I had one of those Bibles where Jesus' words were in red. It made it real easy to see where he was talking. His words. My question was simply, how did the writers of the Bible remember exactly what he said. He did a lot of talking. How do we know that we are reading is what he said.

My Sunday School teacher was all too happy to tell me that scribes wrote down what he said word for word. You can very easily see some problems with this answer. A later teacher told me that the writers of the Bible were divinely inspired to recall Jesus' words exactly as he spoke them. That, of course, begs the follow up question: then why don't all four Gospels use the exact same words? Why would we need four gospels if they were divinely inspired?

Questions concerning the Bible go on and on. The answers are often convoluted and sometimes contradictory. Doubting the Bible and Christianity is very easy to do.

To me, if you want to discount the Biblical Hell, start with the Fall of Satan and move to the Fall of Adam and Eve. Do some research. In short, the OT is very unclear about Satan's Fall (Isiah 12). In fact, to learn the "popular" story of Satan's Fall you have to go to the Book of Revelations. Hell, ruled by Satan, does not exist in the OT. It was a late addition to the Christian Mythos.

chrisengland

Remember if your wrong you go to Hell

juergen

Wouldn't that depend on what you're wrong about, and who or what is really right?

The very same could apply to you: if you're wrong and someone else is right about the existence of hell.

Or not apply to you at all: if you're wrong but there is really no hell.

Headache

There is a prophecy out now that will soon be tested. Many claim that the world will end sometimes in 2012. According to several old mythologies, this seems to be a uniting time, 2012 that is. Now, 1/1/2013 we will know if it was true or not. Personally, I'm more than willing to put some money down on me seeing the sun shining on 1/1/13.

crispy

Its not my intention to scare you but, how do you know youre not already going to hell because youre affiliated with the wrong religion?

Right not i feel pretty lucky that i have never been threatened with 'youre going to hell' by anyone :>