You have to be a psychopath to convince yourself the concept of hell is OK. The earliest conception of the afterlife in modern Western religion was in the Torah and was called sheol, a place of darkness removed from the light of God. The word Hades (underworld) was later substituted for sheol. The modern concept of Hell shows up the New Testament when Jesus. Now we have the Lamb of God telling us that if you do not believe in his kingdom, you will be sent to Hell where you will be tortured forever until the end of time. Nice. The concept of Hell shows up in Mark 9, Matthew 13 and Revelations 14. Apparently, billions of Hindus, Bhuddists and Muslims are destined for Hell for their ignorance of revelations. As Mark Twain noted, The first time the diety came, it brought life and death and on it's second arrival, it brought hell. In Hell, you are sentenced to eternal life without the possibility of parole. This is part of god's exciting Divine Plan. Each year, across the world, nine million children under five die for various reasons (mostly disease) and are taken from the loving arms of their parents, and sent to Hell, according to Divine Plan. One thousand every hour. Dear sweet Jesus, Thank you, Lord. What's the point of being a Catholic or a Christian if you can't enjoy the thought of other people suffering for eternity?
God loves you so much that he created Hell in case you don't love him back. There is no finite act of evil that deserves an infinite punishment. Heaven may be all sunshine and rainbows, but hell is where all the fun people will be. What is a worse insult than telling someone, however "politely," that they're going to spend eternity in hell because they deserve it - and then worshiping a being you made up who is in charge of that judgement? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Lucifer or the devil is an excuse used by religious zealots for their behaviour. Recently, the Pope's staff announced that the devil had moved into the Vatican to encourage pedophelia. The devil made us do it. The concept of evil embodied in Lucifer must exist in religion, otherwise the story line collapses. Everyone goes to Heaven. However, in defense of Jesus, all sins can be forgiven on request except blasphemy. You can rape children, cut them up into little pieces, deep fry them, eat them, etc and ask for forgiveness to get into heaven and it will be granted. If you deny the holy ghost, you are going straight to hell.
The Mormons believe that Lucifer and Jesus are brothers People without vices have some very annoying virtues.
You should go to heaven for the climate and hell for the company.
Can you have sex in hell? Does Lucifer allow sex orgies? How about sodomy and beastiality? How about father raping and mother raping, father stabbing? Maybe, the kids in hell are up for grabs? A rational person would think so? How many virgins do you think go to hell? What is the physical size/volume of hell? How many levels does hell have? If there are multiple levels of hell, it can be said that there is a temperature gradient between the levels because heat rises? Thus, heat pumps can be used to air condition the lower levels. If Hell exists, it's full of so many scientists that it's probably air conditioned by now. Is there any temperature gradient between levels? Is hell endo-thermic or exo-thermic? Does it absorb heat, or expel heat? How many souls reside in each level of hell? How many souls reside in hell versus heaven? Why would a merciful loving God create a place for eternal suffering? If the devil does God's bidding by punishing evil, then either the devil is the agent of the good, or God is guilty by association.
Who's more dangerous to humanity? God or Satan.
Always remember that God created Hell and gave control of it to Satan. What a loving forgiving God. Satan, God's lackey, merely tortures people sent to Hell by God? Why would Satan, God's adversary, torture people sent to him? Would he not consider people like William Gacy and Adolf Hitler to be local legends? An eight year old asked his father, "If the devil tortures the rapists and murderers, why is he considered evil? It seems he is doing what god wants him to.
If you worship God and all his wonderful creations, then you should worship Satan and Hell, because they too were created by God.
The devil made me do it.
Is Islam's hell and Christian hell and Mormon hell all different hells? Any temperature difference. If you go to Heaven for eternity, will you be able to think of all your relatives that went to hell, for an eternity. Any organism, under the most tightly constrained conditions, will do as it damed well pleases. This notion requires Hell to have many daemons to ward off anarchy in hell, or else all Hell will break out.. Hell is the burr stuck in our omni-benevolent God's asshole. Eternal suffering is not consistent with omni-benevolence. If the damned are no longer conscious, how are they expected to wail, gnash their teeth, and cry out for mercy?
The Quran is very clear that all atheists, jews and christians will go to Islam's hell, while all muslims and atheists will go to jewish hell or christian hell. As an atheist, I will have a time sharing arrangement between the various and assorted hells. When jews were sent to the Third Reich's concentration camps and worked to death (not more than 6 years), there was eventually the sweet release of death. When you go to God's specially constructed torture camp called Hell, you are tortured forever, which I need not remind you is a long time. When the great flood came, all the little children in the entire world (every single one) were sent to hell. This makes Hitler's Auschwitz concentration camp look pretty benign. At least, Auschwitz had plenty of survivors.
Apparently hell is meant as a painful torture facility for souls which would imply that souls have a nervous system that can sense pain. If they can sense pain, they would also sense pleasure (like any good orgasm or is that organism?). Christians will tell you that Satan has a large dinosaur fossil manufacturing facility in the backwaters of Hell where he and his minions make and distribute fossils all over the planet to fool us. What was God doing before the divine creation? Was he preparing hell for people who asked the wrong questions? Is there a difference between one second and a gazillion years in Hell? When I was much younger, I knew a young lady who told me that she would only have sex with me when hell freezes over.
I wonder what she is doing on Tuesday night.
Meanwhile, many people believe Hell is Florida.
Nothing is so pleasing to these gods as the butchery of unbelievers. Nothing so enrages them, even now, as to have some one deny their existence. To deny the existence of all gods was, and is, the crime of crimes. Redden your hands with human blood; blast by slander the fair fame of the innocent; strangle the smiling child upon its mother's knees; deceive, ruin and desert the beautiful girl who loves and trusts you, and your case is not hopeless. For all this, and for all these you may be forgiven. For all this, and for all these, that bankrupt court established by the gospel, will give you a discharge; but deny the existence of these divine ghosts, of these gods, and the sweet and tearful face of Mercy becomes livid with eternal hate. Heaven's golden gates are shut, and you, with an infinite curse ringing in your ears, with the brand of infamy upon your brow, commence your endless wanderings in the lurid gloom of hell--an immortal vagrant--an eternal outcast--a deathless convict.
Any person possessing critical thinking skills can understand that a magnificently powerful god would have no incentive, interest, or even the slightest inclination to inflict pain and suffering on dead people. Hell makes no sense and it represents an ill-fated and entirely avoidable error in the foundation of Christianity.
The Doctrine of Purgatory The doctrine of Purgatory was defined by the Council of Florence in 1431, and was reaffirmed by the Council of Trent in 1563. This process of purification occurs in a place designated by the Catholic church as purgatory. The following text belongs to someone other than me....
The doctrine of purgatory offers a preposterous revelation of the way the theological mind works. Purgatory is a sort of divine Ellis Island, a Hadean waiting room where dead souls go if their sins aren't bad enough to send them to hell, but they still need a bit of remedial checking out and purifying before they can be admitted to the sin-free zone of heaven. In medieval times, the Church used to sell "indulgences" for money. This amounted to paying for some number of days remission from purgatory, and the Church literally (and with breathtaking presumption) issued signed certificates specifying the number of days off that had been purchased. This selling of indulgences was one of the greatest con tricks in history. What really fascinates me about the doctrine of purgatory is the evidence that theologians have advanced for it: evidence so spectaularly weak that it renders even more comical the airy confidence with which it was asserted. The entry on purgatory in the Catholic Encyclopedia has a section called "proofs". The essential evidence for the existence of purgatory is this. If the dead simply went to heaven or hell on the basis of their sins while on Earth, there would be no point in praying for them. "For why pray for the dead, if there be no belief in the power of prayer to afford solace to those who as of yet are excluded from the sight of God." And we do pray for the dead, don't we? Therefore purgatory must exist, otherwise, our prayers would be pointless! Q.E.D. This is what passes for reasoning in the theological mind.
Sick and depraved excerpts from:
But I will warn you to whom to fear: Fear him who, after he has killed,
has authority to cast into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him!
Do not withhold correction from a child, For if you beat him with a rod, he
will not die. You shall beat him with a rod, And deliver his soul from hell
Hell is not a place where you can have fun. Hell is not a place where friends gather to hang around. Hell is the furnace of fire where people go who die in their sins without being saved by Jesus. The people in hell are there forever, without any possibility of relief by the mercy or pity of God. Who goes to hell? All people born with Adam's sin in them go to hell if they don't trust in Jesus... teenagers go to hell, and even little children can go to hell. Remember, little children are not too little to go hell. I don't think Hell exists. I happen to believe in life after death, but I don't think it's got a thing to do with reward and punishment. Religion is always in the control business, and that's something people don't really understand. It's in a guilt-producing control business. And if you have Heaven as a place where you're rewarded for you goodness, and Hell is a place where you're punished for your evil, then you sort of have control of the population. And so they create this fiery place which has quite literally scared the Hell out of a lot of people, throughout Christian history. And it's part of a control tactic.
Have you ever considered how illogical hell really is? I can understand the use of hell as a deterrent to keep people under control, but once you are put into hell, there is no redemption, no way out. So what is the point of a soul being in hell? Who does it benefit? It certainly doesn't benefit the soul that is in hell. Does your eternal torture benefit god? If it does, what does that say about the nature of god? If it doesn't benefit god in some way, then why does he keep you in hell? No benevolent god would do such a thing. Once you are actually dead, there is no logical reason for hell to exist. No, the entire concept of hell makes no sense. Think about it - humans live ~90 years. These 90 years are supposedly used by god to make a ONE TIME judgement that sends you to either eternal bliss or eternal torture. Wait, wut? 90 years is NOTHING compared to eternity. Why does god bother with this test? Does god obtain some benefit from souls being in heaven? Religion says god wants every soul with him in heaven, right? Well, if that's true, then why bother with the 90 years of mortality? Why not just create souls directly in heaven? If god did that, there would be no need for sin, no need for judgement, no need for hell, no need for Satan. Wouldn't that be far more efficient? This entire universe is a horribly inefficient system. Pretty shoddy work from what is supposed to be an omnipotent deity. I expect MUCH higher quality work from my deities. This is the kind of stuff you expect from some office temp with a bad attitude. It seems wasteful to keep the heat on simply for the enjoyment of torturing people's souls. From what I can tell Heaven and Hell are supposedly invisible... What religious folk fail to see is for the fires of hell to exist there needs to be an oxygen rich atmosphere for the fire to burn and fire also releases photons of visible light. Similarly visible light has to reflect off those clouds up in heaven in order to see them which in turn renders them visible and for the clouds to be there at all means heaven has an atmosphere. So does that mean heaven and hell are located on planets? If so then they have to obey the laws of physics. Also when you die your pain receptors dont exist anymore and your body rots so why would you care if you are being burned by fire. Surely being burned by fire is just cremating you. What if you were a terrible person (and thus destined for hell) and you get cremated upon death. Does the devil himself proceed to burn your ashes for all eternity? He'll tire himself out in no time. Obviously I dont believe a word of any of it but so many religious people believe God has a beard and wears a white dress and has his afternoon nap on a cloud. Crazy. Hell is the burr stuck in our omni-benevolent God's asshole.
Is Christ truly the only path to salvation? (self.atheism) Something occurred to me last night - a conundrum for Christianity that I've never heard before (but which may be a common one that's already been thoroughly addressed). Begin with the assumption that there is some sort of path to salvation; that there is a way to Heaven, and those who do not follow it are condemned to an afterlife without God (call it Hell, call it Purgatory, call it Limbo; but whatever it is, it ain't Heaven). The Christian position, as I understand it, is that this path is through Christ; that one must accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior and follow his teachings to get to Heaven. This presents a problem, however: for most of human history, Christ hadn't been born yet. Anyone who lived and died in the period before Christ was born, lived, crucified, and resurrected could not have followed him or accepted him as Lord and Savior, because he didn't exist. Therefore, no one who lived at that time could possibly have found a path to salvation. There WAS no such path. The list of people who could not make it to Heaven simply because of when they lived includes such notables as: Noah, Moses, David, Samson, Job, Solomon, Elijah, even Abraham. None of them could follow Christ, because they preceded Christ. None of them could possibly get to Heaven on their own merits and cognizance. The best-case scenario is that they had to wait, in some cases for thousands of years, in some sort of purgatory without God before Christ came along to rescue them. That just seems... well, unfair. In God's eyes, these were among the best people who ever lived. They all lived by faith, did just as He asked and did it extremely well, for the most part. Did they deserve to be condemned just because Part Two of God's plan hadn't been enacted yet? The other possibility is that the souls of these people, and others of the Old Testament, DID make it to Heaven - in which case, there must be other paths besides accepting Christ! So... which one is it? Is it ONLY possible to access God through Christ, in which case all the people who lived and died before Christ had no hope of doing so? Or, are there other ways to God, in which case Christianity is essentially unnecessary? I'm planning to post this on some kind of Christian AMA board (recommendations are welcome!), but I wanted to bounce it off my fellow atheists first to see if anyone had seen it before.
This is the standard teaching among most Catholics and other sorts of Christians, as far as I can tell. Pre-Christ, everyone was judged according to his works and was treated app ropriately until the dust had cleared in the expanded wing. No one was completely and eternally condemned, but they weren't given full induction into god's glorious presence. Not yet. Post-cross Christians get the same treatment - Jesus claims that everyone gets a little burned. That is, even though you get saved from eternal torment, you will get your shit kicked if you were a bad person. However, in 1 Peter 3:18-20, it's claimed that Christ preached to souls in torment who formerly disobeyed. In some creeds, Christ descended into hell. I think the only thing you' re missing is that pre-cross faithful were treated nicely, but not given the entire package. Besides, purgation isn't awful for everyone - sometimes it's just a gentle pat on the knee. You know, you were kind of an asshole to your sister that one time. (Edit: I'll add, it's even called paradise.) N.B.: I don't believe any of this, but it has been thoroughly and repeatedly addressed in Christian thought because it's kind of an obvious question. There are reasons Christian soteriology is nonsense, but this particular problem can be solved without too much trouble. The more complicated the question and reasoning, the more convoluted the answer will be. They will just go down rabbit hole after rabbit hole, until the people listening think they have won, and they themselves have convinced themselves they answered your questions, and you are ready to stab your ears in frustration.
The concept of hell is the most evil invention of humans. The psychological trauma this made up place has caused millions if not billions of people is truly sad and the most disgusting fantasy made up by humans with motives to control others with fear. Absolutely disgusting How you can believe in such a place? You gotta be a lunatic to believe this nonsense You can not love humanity and humans and believe in this garbage If I had a child, and I told them on a regular basis that if they disobeyed I would whip them with a belt, that would constitute child abuse, right? I'm sure CPS/DCF would think so. Why then should it be allowed for a christian parent to tell their kid that they'll go to hell if they sin, to burn for ALL ETERNITY. Every bible thumping christian parent is a child abuser and if you don't call them out, you're enabling them.
The fact that there's a Highway to Hell and only a Stairway to Heaven says a lot about anticipated traffic. Publicly wishing death upon millions of innocent people makes you a psychopath, but publicly wishing eternal torture upon millions of innocent people just makes you a christian Satan arrives to welcome a new damned soul to hell. "Congratulations!", he says, "You wasted your entire pitiful life!" "Well," the man replies, "at least I'm not an adult living in my father's basement." Satan, fighting back tears: "Fuck you, go to hell!"
Satan is the best god when it comes to Christian mythology. Satan is the god who encouraged the girl to eat from the tree of knowledge while the other god wanted her to live naked in the cage of Eden. Satan is the god who tried to get Jesus to live. Jesus declined. Satan is the god who was appalled that the other god tortured Job and killed his family. If I didn't believe in your magic invisible celestial wizard, why would I believe in your magic invisible subterranean goblin? Unlike the god of the Old Testament, the god of the New Testament is not happy when his enemies lay dead and broken before him. He viciously pursues them into death to inflict never-ending suffering. The god of the Old Testament loved to kill people, but after he killed them he moved on to other people he could kill. But the god of the New Testament is not satisfied to just kill, he wants to torture people after death even unto eternity. Are we talking about a different god, or did the god of the Old Testament get tired of just killing and needed something more to satisfy his bloodlust? Christianity wants you to believe that all humanity is born deserving of unbearable suffering. But thankfully, an extra-dimensional Universe Creator had a third of himself executed so that we could experience a conspicuously opulent immortality as opposed to being set on fire forever. Hell is useless. god (if he existed) would have no reason to make hell, or send anyone there if he did. punishment is done for reasons: deterrence, reform, or to separate from society. none of these things apply to hell, it doesn't deter, it doesn't reform (as you don't come back from it) and you can just make people cease to exist instead of sending them to hell.
The Quran & Hadith says,
The remark above begs the questions:
What is your favorite atheist quote, Here is mine.
Indulgences should have been sold like video game lockboxes. Very rarely you find a "get out of Hell free" card. Then the levels go in increasing frequency
Sorry if you made the list, eternal damnation awaits
Assuming that God even exists, if he is said to be all-knowing, then why did he create Lucifer if he supposedly knew that he would betray him??? According to followers of the Christian faith, their god is supposed to be an omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent being. If the Christian god supposedly knows everything, then why did he create lucifer when lucifer was going to eventually betray him. Lucifer's betrayal of God and rebellion against him lead to lucifer and his followers being cast out of heaven. Lucifer would later on become the devil of the Judeo-Christian teachings and the angels that followed Lucifer in his revolt against God are now 'demons'. These are the same 'demons' that Christians claim drive people into committing horrible acts in order to have mortals condemned to 'hell', another place that the Christian god created. My point from all this, is that for the Christian god to create a being that he supposedly knew would betray him along with other angels he created, and them cast them out of heaven to hell, shows that the Christian god isn't all that good.
A life-long atheist dies and is surprised to find himself before the Pearly Gates. St. Peter sadly shakes his head and tells him that because of his non-belief, he must be sent to Hell. The Devil greets him there and shows him where he will now spend eternity, a lovely cozy cottage set on a beautiful hillside where the sweet smell of flowers fills the air. The Devil tells him he will want for nothing and to feel free to walk the grounds. One day, while he is out strolling through the idyllic gardens, he comes across a tall wall. Curious, he climbs one of the many trees and peering over the wall, is shocked to see a fire-filled field with people writhing in agony and screaming hopelessly. He is very disturbed by this sight and returns home. The next day, the Devil pays him a visit and asks how he is enjoying eternity. The atheist says he finds Hell to be a lovely place but is concerned about the things he saw on the other side of the wall. "Oh" the Devil says, "those are Christian sinners" "But why" the man asks, "are they suffering so much while I, who didn't believe in God at all, am here in such comfort?" "I don't know" the Devil replies shrugging," that's the way they want it." |
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The following is supposedly an actual question given on a University of
Washington chemistry mid-term. The answer by one student was so "profound"
that the professor shared it with colleagues, via the Internet, which is,
of course, why we now have the pleasure of enjoying it as well.
Bonus Question:
Most of the students wrote proofs of their beliefs using Boyle's Law (gas cools when it expands and heats when it is compressed) or some variant. One student, however, wrote the following: First, we need to know how the mass of Hell is changing in time. So we need to know the rate at which souls are moving into Hell and the rate at which they are leaving. I think that we can safely assume that once a soul gets to Hell, it will not leave. Therefore, no souls are leaving. As for how many souls are entering Hell, let's look at the different Religions that exist in the world today. Most of these religions state that if you are not a member of their religion, you will go to Hell. Since there is more than one of these religions and since people do not belong to more than one religion, we can project that all souls go to Hell. With birth and death rates as they are, we can expect the number of souls in Hell to increase exponentially. Now, we look at the rate of change of the volume in Hell because Boyle's Law states that in order for the temperature and pressure in Hell to stay the same, the volume of Hell has to expand proportionately as souls are added. This gives two possibilities:
So which is it? If we accept the postulate given to me by Teresa during my Freshman year that, "it will be a cold day in Hell before I sleep with you," and take into account the fact that I slept with her last night, then number 2 must be true, and thus I am sure that Hell is exothermic and has already frozen over. The corollary of this theory is that since Hell has frozen over, it follows that it is not accepting any more souls and is therefore, extinct...leaving only Heaven thereby proving the existence of a divine being which explains why, last night, Teresa kept shouting "Oh my God." THIS STUDENT RECEIVED THE ONLY "A" |
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