Question from Aaron:
Hello! Have you considered if Hell is real?
The Bible and the Lord Jesus Christ Himself warned people of a literal Hell, the lake of fire ultimately, where all those who rejected Him and His shed blood payment on the cross for their sins alone (His death burial and Resurrection), will spend eternal conscious torment, forever. He created Hell as the final eternal torment for the Satan and his fellow fallen angels who rebelled against God. But, human beings are given a free will choice to either trust in Jesus/believe on Him and be forever saved (once saved always saved) or to reject Him and end up burning forever in Hell.
As an atheist have you ever considered the idea that eternal Hell is for real? If the atheist is right, then we all die at the moment of physical death and that is the end of our conscious thought. Nothing wasted nothing gained. But if the Bible is right, and indeed Jesus IS, then the atheist ends up burning in Hell forever. Ignoring the various religions (which are all false and easy to prove false anyhow) and sticking to either atheism or Biblical Christianity, which is the stronger position?
I do not want you to end up in Hell. I want you to be saved and end up in Heaven. And the only way to be saved is to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. All you must do is trust in Jesus Christ alone for eternal life. Faith alone in the shed blood atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ alone period. It is not a life long process like all these religions and cults teach but it is a once for all event in your life. The moment you trust in Jesus you receive Him forever and are forever sealed to Him. “Grieve not the Holy Spirit of God whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption.” Ephesians 4:30.
But to him that worketh not but believeth on Him that justifieth the ungodly his faith is counted for righteousness.” Romans 4:5.
Much more then being now justified by His blood we shall be saved from wrath through Him.” Romans 5:9
What do you think? I believe in freedom of the individual to believe whatever they want, even if you totally disagree with me. It is your choice my friend.
Answer by SmartLX:
Yes, I have considered the possibility that I’m wrong about Hell, mainly because I’m often asked to. My reaction to that possibility is covered in my piece on Pascal’s Wager. In short, it does not make me want to accept Jesus.
To apply what I wrote directly to what you’ve written:
– You cannot simply ignore the “various religions”. They’re not so easy to prove false if you don’t just rely on the premise that Christianity is true and reason that they contradict Christianity. Even if you could, the gods of the other established religions aren’t the only possible alternatives as there’s an infinite number of gods people haven’t yet described.
– If Christianity has evidence of a kind the other religions don’t, present that evidence as part of a proper argument and don’t bother fearmongering with “what if hell is real?”
Finally, I’m an atheist so you can probably tell which of atheism and “Biblical Christianity” I think is the stronger position. Of the two, Christianity merely makes the greater threats, but the trouble with a boogeyman is that you need to believe in it to be afraid that it’ll get you.
2 thoughts on ““Have you considered…” (spoiler: yes)”
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Trust in your god, eh? Since you like Bible quotes, what else can we glean from the divinely inspired word? If we trusted in your god, we’d think pi = 3.
2 Chronicles 4: 2 He made the Sea of cast metal, circular in shape, measuring ten cubits from rim to rim and five cubits[b] high. It took a line of thirty cubits[c] to measure around it.
The inerrant word of an all knowing god shows that it doesn’t know the ratio of a circle’s circumference to it’s diameter. Not sure taking that creature’s word for anything is a real good idea…
“Ignoring the various religions (which are all false and easy to prove false anyhow)”
Please, by all means Aaron, back up this statement you made. I’d love to see you prove them all false…
I am a Christian, but I have to say that I feel quite embarrassed by the tone and presentation your question, Aaron. This is indeed a classic example of the fallacious ‘Pascal’s Wager’, which is based on a circular argument. After all, those Muslims could be right who say that all non-Muslims are going to hell. How do you know they are not right?
“But if the Bible is right, and indeed Jesus IS, then the atheist ends up burning in Hell forever.”
I think what you mean, Aaron, is “if my particular interpretation of the Bible is right…”. You assume that all professing atheists are going to hell. This can actually easily be shown to be a hasty assumption, based on another interpretation of the Bible. For example, the Scripture says “mercy triumphs over judgment” (James 2, v.13). Who are you to sit in judgment on others? Who are you to declare that God denies mercy to millions of people, who, after all, are claiming to be acting and thinking in good faith on the basis of what they see as the evidence presented to them?
Doesn’t it bother you that millions – perhaps even billions – of fellow human beings are, according to your theology, going to suffer the most unspeakable horror forever, simply because they failed to say the magic Christian words before they died? And you will be in your heaven, completely unconcerned and unperturbed by this reality? Throughout my entire Christian life I have been disturbed by the ease with which evangelical Christians (not to mention Catholics) talk about people going to hell. Is there really NO real empathy in the hearts of some Christians for other people who do not think exactly like them?!
Don’t get me wrong, Aaron, I believe in hell. I accept that there must be the possibility that in the final analysis there are those who are so completely arrogant and evil that even the reality of the love of God is torment for them (which is what hell actually is). You play your game of religious box ticking. I believe in the God who sees beyond that.
I can understand why so many people are repulsed by so-called ‘religion’ when they read the kind of thing you have expressed. For intellectual reasons I don’t accept atheism. I am completely convinced that the philosophy of naturalism undergirding atheism is self-refuting and simply does not explain most of reality. But I hope no one imagines that the alternative to atheism is the kind of self-righteous fundamentalism which maligns billions of people, and is nothing more than sanctified misanthropy.