I mean technically, if you really read about hell in the bible, it’s only the only place god is not. I mean it’s described as an awful lake of fire and so on, but that’s just because the people who were reading it needed to hear that the people persecuting them were going to get theirs.
But yeah, what you said is what most people believe, I just think it’s funny that the word for Hell when Jesus talks about it is actually Gahanna which is the place outside Jerusalem where they burned all their refuse.
Yeah, there’s actually a lot about the faith that is purely metaphysical, but had to be described as something that people who lack abstract thinking could understand. Which is where we got the Lake of Fire from. Remember Dante’s Inferno is a novel, it was written by an edge Lord, it is not official church doctrine even if pop culture movies about hell will draw on it for inspiration.
Essentially: “If you’re a trash person, you’ll be thrown out and burned on the trash heap. But if you love me, that proves you’re not a trash person and it’s the only way to prove that.”
More like if you’re a non believer you go to a place that I choose to ignore, but since I’m the best, most magnificent being in all existence you would be making an awful choice. It would be akin to being in a trash heap simply because I’m not there.
Revives anyway coz it’s too boring to stay dead
And thus the zombie hath risen.
Jesus: “I made this checklist of what we call ‘sins’, and you seem to be violating a lot of them!”
Human: “your checklist sucks.”
Jesus: “well that’s fine, that’s fine… you can keep on violating them and I’ll forgive you as long as you swear that I am the best. Then I’m going to need you to give me 10% of your income, as a gift… and I also want you to tell everybody else about this sweet deal I’ve made with you.”
Human: “fuck off you crazy wannabe gangster.”
Remember back when atheism was just about not believing in god?
Yeah, it’s hard to take rationalism seriously when it seems to be preached by those who worship at the altar of Sam Harris. When that’s not how being rational works, that’s literally dogma.
It is a strange irony that a creature such as man can take the concept of not having a religion, and somehow warp it into being very much resembling a religion.
I suppose this is why in Psychology they say, man is a religious animal.
I remember when this community was created. I was one of the fist to post here and suggest that it try and stray away from the angsty “Reddit atheism” rhetoric.
I knew that was an impossible thing to suggest.
I’m not trying to elbow drop you but it truly was an impossible thing to suggest.
I am now 49, and when I was 24 I decided to join an atheist club. It was my desire to be around like-minded people and make friends.
I quickly realized the only thing we had in common was atheism. And I was saturated with irony, being among people who felt compelled to continually talk about how they don’t believe in something.
True, but with proper moderation, this sub could have been a place to discuss the philosophy and finer nuance of atheism rather than just shitting on Christianity like a bunch of edgy teenagers.
Alright I’m game! What do you think are some of the nuances that don’t have a chance to be explored to their potential?
Well, for starters-
• the role of atheism in the workplace.
• is atheism represented well in Hollywood?
• What economical impact does atheism hold? Are we contributing enough to be recognized amongst other groups in comparison?
• Where does atheism fit in on the world-stage of charitable donations. How can we improve this?
• Related: How can atheists improve their image? What can we do as a collective?
See? There’s five examples of mature discussions that could be had if people didn’t see this community as a trash receptacle for angsty teens to bash “tEh bAd cHriStiAnS.”
Okay I’m waiting to hear your feelings on these subjects.
It seems it’s hard for humans to discuss anything without making it a piece of their identity… Which is really unhealthy when discussion is not varied.
Seriously, every transgirl who’s been around long enough has a horror story about why they don’t go to their local support group anymore. Except for me, I have closer to three.
Its funny because memes like this actually kind of require you to believe in God to make sense. Jesus was either made up or some crazy person. He didn’t die for our sins so I don’t think it makes sense to be pissed off at him or a god that doesn’t exist. These whole line of reasoning assumes a believe in god and Jesus and its a super weird fit for an athiest perspective.
“Using logic and reason isn’t enough. You have to be a dick to everyone who doesn’t think like you.”
- An otter
“dies”
If he already died for my sins then why would I go to hell? That shit is prepaid.
It’s also like when a guy scams a tourist by insisting something is free but then demands a tip after they accept it. Like, oh yeah, this gift of Jesus dying for your sins is totally free, no charge… But hey, here’s the tithe plate on Sunday.
“full payment” = “check this box”
Just gonna say, as a Catholic, He never sends anyone to Hell, they send themeselves to Hell. Furthermore, the whole “Hell is the worst pain you can imagine” immediately makes one think Of a torture chamber. That isn’t neccessarily what Hell is. Hell is simply a separation from God. It is being alone and miserable that is thgreatest pain.
The whole idea of God sending people to infinite torture because man is a depraved, wicked thing is a very harmful calvinistic idea.
Not trying to be a troll. I just want to set the records straight.
If God created everything, he created evil. He created the possibility for separation and he is the one that made us fallible. What value is free will if the price is eternal misery?
Not only that, but if he is truly all powerful, he should be able to rebuild reality in a way of which a person could have free will completely, while never be at risk of hellfire. Either he chooses not to do this which makes him not all loving, or he cannot do this which makes him not all powerful. Either way, this just makes him a giant wad of holy fuck juice in my eyes with an ego issue, undeserving of my praise.
There’s a work of fiction called UNSONG which posits an answer for this - essentially that God’s purpose is to maximize the amount of good that exists, but at the level of abstraction he functions two identical things are really just one thing, one template. So he creates a perfect world, then ones with a single imperceptible flaw, then ones with two such flaws, etc. Eventually you reach ones whose potential for good is only a slight net positive, and that’s more the neighborhood we’re in.
See, but then there’s the problem
that would make him not all powerful
And under that concept I see absolutely no reason to worship him.
That’s just moving around minutia of details and ignoring the skeleton of the argument, then re-stating a similar enough version of what the meme ridicules.
If god alone can fill the hole in your heart, why did he leave such vague instructions in a world full of grifters, with availability limited by geographical and cultural lottery, and expect us to believe this religion of others at face value?
I gotta say, ignorance being bliss is a true thing. All you have to do is look to “spiritual” (often just non-denominational pagan) people to see the same patterns of feeding themselves simple platitudes with a supernatural basis to fill the certainty and self-esteem needs they have.
The nature of hell varies wildly among different branches of Christianity. In some sects it absolutely is torture.
I personally think the idea of living separated from god with all the other people who rejected him sounds pretty awesome.
How do you know what hell is like?
deleted by creator
Hell is simply a separation from God
So heaven, nice
I’m a recently self-excommunicated Catholic, couldn’t be prouder.
Just gotta say, also as a person raised Catholic and who has studied it’s history a lot, your understanding of the teachings of Catholicism are very modern, heavily debated even today within the Catholic Church, and would not be supported by the church’s teachings even 70 years ago. Just go look at the art in a Catholic church from more than 70 years ago, and you will find people being judged and sent to torture.
Hell is simply a separation from God.
Cool. I was born in Hell and lived my whole life there.
Turns out hellfire was the global warming all along
john Kramer from saw doesn’t kill people, they kill themselves by not completing the trap! (ignore that John is the one who put them in there)
Though to be fair, his disciples were bad about intentionally making the trap unwinnable. Especially Amanda.
🤓
Hey, you gotta understand religion if you want to effectively argue against it, so thanks! Clarification is always welcome! I don’t see any trolling here.
The clarification is fairly stupid, that being said. “He doesn’t send you there, you send yourself there” is a distinction without a difference when the all powerful god not only is the only reason hell exists, but supposedly created this world and the people in it knowing ahead of time specifically which people would go to the hell he created. It’s like saying I didn’t stab you, you just didn’t get out of the way of my knife.
Their clarification is basically just a modern white-washing of their jealous, vengeful, and petty god’s holy doctrine, since the traditional “god hates you if you’re not just so” is working on less and less of the population
I do love a good fictional story! Tell us the one about the talking serpent…oh and the one about the (makes air quotes) virgin.
Okay okay, I troll…I troll…
The Catholic idea of being tortured in hell is completely made up and has no basis in the bible. They just copied the underworld from Greece and changed it a little bit to attract greeks to christianity
Okay I keep having to explain this, but if you are going to mock the theology you need to actually be familiar with what it says instead of trying to dunk on a pop culture over simplification.
Hell is not a place, this is a pop culture simplification, kind of like how no one actually believes that death is when a big skeleton takes you away.
It is believed that God is the source of all love and light and all the good shit in the universe, by tuning him out and severing your connection to God you become eternally damned, which is a state in which you don’t feel God’s love. This isn’t because God decided that he was going to stop loving you, it’s more that in a spiritual sense you just aren’t taking his calls anymore, and allegedly this is painful.
To put it in simple terms, imagine you actually have a loving father who cares for and supports you, but for whatever reason you have decided that he is an asshole, and you’d much rather hang out with the cool kids. They keep getting you into trouble, and your dad who wants to help out keeps getting voicemail.
No I’m not saying that that’s what I believe, I’m saying this is how theology typically sees the state of Eternal damnation, the Lake of Fire is just a pop culture oversimplification inspired by allegorical metaphors in the Bible.
Like I said another problem with you mocking religion, but understand what you are mocking.
It is for this reason why Christians in online circles often say to each other “Atheists do not disbelief what God is, but what they claim God to be”
I don’t disbelieve anything that god is or claim them to be. God isn’t a thing of this world beyond the minds of the imaginative and insane, their is nothing to believe about something that’s never existed. I could just as assuredly argue that Pokémon are real if I was imaginative or insane enough.
You misunderstand the quote, it isn’t saying that you’re making claims about what God is (Your claim is that God isn’t, which makes sense given that there’s no evidence for such a thing)
The quote is saying that your attempts to describe what Christians believe about God, is inaccurate to what the Church actually teaches, and therefore makes for a poor debunking.
I suppose I haven’t been in that situation, I never attempt to belittle anyone’s life comfort. Shit is hard, if having that belief and community helps then that’s great for them. My experience has mostly been small towns (like 1-20k population small). The most I’ve done is say that I don’t feel their personal beliefs are a valid reason to impede on anyone else’s personal beliefs or lack of. My grandma is the only person I ever felt uncomfortable around, she was so sweet otherwise but would say pretty hateful stuff about me, not because I was unkind, disrespectful, or anything wrong other than, I’m sorry grandma I’m just not into religion. With that said, you are correct in that I misunderstood the quote.
I’m going to level with you, I live in a small town and I don’t think anyone actually believes in God around here. I think they try to tell themselves there might be one, because the idea that someone actually care, someone with a level of authority who can look at all this and say that this is wrong, and that we need better. Such a lovely fantasy that people turn to it in times of stress.
And I think that’s why Donald Trump is such a cult of personality, that’s not that he is anything special, it’s that he represents the fantasy that there is someone with power out there who wants to lead us out of this Wasteland into something else, who can make our delusions of not grandeur, but mere adequacy a reality.
It is not because his character is Noble or that he’s particularly intelligent or anything like that, but some people just want to live in the fantasy that someone up there is looking out for someone down here, and that it will eventually be okay
I think people who claim to be Christian but live in a big city, are more sincere in their belief.
I hope there’s an afterlife, because, maybe that’s when things will actually be okay
You’re a fool.
Luke Skywalker is a man. He’s a jedi. He grew up on a farm. He’s a hero to the rebellion. He’s the son of Darth Vader. These are all true statements everyone can agree on. Everyone knows all these things. It doesn’t matter that he isn’t real.
If you told me that Luke Skywalker was a tree, I’d call you a fool. Luke Skywalker isn’t real, but we can all still agree he isn’t a tree.
Hopefully, this example has hammered into your overly literal mind that facts can still be true and false when they describe something that doesn’t exist.
Atheists claim that Deus burns people in a lake of father, AND that he doesn’t exist. You still claim a version of him, just like you claim a version of Luke Skywalker.
Christians are calling you out for claiming that a fake version of Deus doesn’t exist. And they’re right, you’re fools for it. Deny the existence of the actual nonexistent christian god, not a fake nonexistent christian god.
Nah, sorry, I’m not into your fan fiction. I claim no existence of whoever you claim Deus is or your Jedi. Just because someone put their fantasy into a movie doesn’t make it any more or less real than some fairy tail sand hippy because passion is the Christ is a movie.
Until I left home for work and college, I used to go to church thrice per week. My grandfather and uncle were preachers, my mom taught Sunday school, and my grandmother was a church organist. I have never heard anyone who didn’t preach the more literal lake of fire concept. Not saying it doesn’t happen, but if it does, as someone said above, yours is a more liberal interpretation vs what many or perhaps most christian churches espouse.
No it isn’t, it’s actually what the Catholic Church and most mainstream versions of Christianity support, only Biblical Literalists and Hollywood think otherwise
I guess I also have to keep explaining this…
Atheists do not disbelief what God is, but what they claim God to be
…that’s why Christians in online circles are clueless about atheists. We don’t claim a god. Christians do (among many other religionist types). The burden of proof is on them. My disbelief in a god is the same disbelief that my refrigerator will decide to wake up, sprout legs, walk out of my house and go live with another family. I make no claim of existence about either.
And since no religionist in history who does make such a claim of the existence of a god has yet to scientifically, objectively, with peer-review, proven such a deity exists, I have no reason to believe one exists.
Actually the quote is in reference to how atheist interpretations of the Bible often miss Historical Context or mistake allegory for literal.
The fact that you misunderstood it kinda proved the point.
I don’t believe in God either, but I find philosophy and mythology interesting which is why I know this…
That and a close friend of mine is Catholic.
You made a statement on how Christians in online circles view atheists. I refute their premise. That’s not misunderstanding. That’s simply stating they are wrong. But it’s cool that you keep fighting for their way of incorrect thinking. I’m sure they appreciate it.
You didn’t refute their premise, because you didn’t understand it in the first place.
What did you do, create a separate account to reply with? Or do idiots just flock together in this thread? You’re not worth my time.
Guilty
I’m not defending them, I’m merely pointing out that you are mocking something you don’t understand. I’m not saying Christianity is unmockable, I’m saying, it’s way funnier when you actually know what you’re making fun of.
Okay, fine, I’ll prove that the gods exist.
Richard Dawkins coined the idea of a “meme”, which is the cultural equivalent of a gene. It’s an idea that can grow and spread through a population, and mutate along the way. The most successful memes are spread more, and so over time memes evolve to become better at spreading themselves. Anything can be a meme. A meme could be a recipe, or a style of fashion, or a joke, or a technology, or a language. Most memes are helpful.
Some memes are so successful that people worship them. Chaos magicians call these memes “egregores”. Egregores rule our society. Capitalism is an egregore, and so is the USA, and so is Jesus. These are ideas so powerful they shape the course of history itself. Why did the Conquistadores try to exterminate south american religions and teach the locals about “God”? Because a meme told them to. Why did the crusades happen? A meme did it.
Egregores are powerful creatures capable of steering the course of humanity. They are arguably alive, and are capable of taking intentional actions to secure their own survival and dominance. They are worshipped by billions of people, and are capable of having a personal relationship with every one of their worshippers, because they are spread across millions of brains and have access to the computational power of all those brains at once.
Egregores are real. How are they not gods?
That’s a lot of words to say “I make shit up.”
This isn’t because God decided that he was going to stop loving you, it’s more that in a spiritual sense you just aren’t taking his calls anymore, and allegedly this is painful.
I never got a call and I’m not in “spiritual pain”. He’s altogether untraceable, unless you want to play the game of ascribing good things with perfectly worldly causes to the alleged, omnipotent “good things happen because of me”-guy. It makes no sense, especially since there’s plenty of gods with similar properties on the market.
the Lake of Fire is just a pop culture oversimplification inspired by allegorical metaphors in the Bible.
It being a place you’re sent to is older than Christianity and plenty of Christian sects still believe that it is. Maybe try convincing them first, at least they agree on the there being a god at all.
Also what’s libmbo/purgatory then? Another set of metaphors?
It is for this reason why Christians in online circles often say to each other “Atheists do not disbelief what God is, but what they claim God to be”
Atheists don’t believe in any god period, that’s kinda the whole concept.
Okay bro, take it up with the Christians, I’m not advocating for the gospel. I’m explaining what the faith is claimed to be by the most mainstream sects of Christianity. I am not here to convert anyone, I’m merely explaining these edgy memes fail because they require buying into popular misconceptions about Christianity, instead of mocking what those of the faith are actually claiming to be the case.
What are you doing is buying into and spreading misconceptions of what the faith is, and proving your poor grasp on reading comprehension in the process.
Btw, Wikipedia is not a credible source. Thought you learned that in Grade School.
Btw, Wikipedia is not a credible source. Thought you learned that in Grade School.
Shouldn’t have added that line, made it clear that you’re just trolling.
Actually I’m not trolling, Wikipedia has become a circle jerk over the years, and people are very much encouraged to find sources outside if wikipedia. However by jumping to claim that someone is trolling simply because you disagree with them, you are participating in not only a bad faith argument but you are also trolling.
Whatever you may think about Wikipedia, it’s right on many Christian sects thinking that hell is a real place that you go to for eternity. Heck, you know that that’s true, right?
No I don’t, because literal hell is a Southern Baptist / Evangelical position, more mainstream forms of Christianity such as Catholicism do not subscribe to it
I’d rather worship Tom nook. At least I get a home of the deal.
Hey, thanks for those of you who responded courteously and constructive to the crazy Catholic 😊. I appreciate it. To anyone who might stumble upon this thread who is interested in learning more about the nature of Hell and Sin, here is a good article I found adressing the question. The same website also has a couple other articles on Hell. https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/what-is-hell God Bless! I guess the atheist version of that would be nice talk’in 😄
