Hell?

Once, when I was about twelve or thirteen years old, a close friend of mine told me that I was going to hell because I didn’t believe in God. I didn’t know what to say. I knew there was nothing I could say to make him think otherwise. I was not scared of this idea because I simply did not believe in such a place, however, I did not want to make a pointless argument by telling him he was “wrong.”

My question is, if God is the all-knowing entity of the universe (or however you may define “him” (her? it?) why would he send anyone to hell? If “he” understands me completely, wouldn’t “he” understand why I don’t believe in “him,” and not send me to eternal torture?

It almost sounds fascist. “If you do not believe in me or worship me, I will send you to hell.”

This question may sound vague because it’s a question that’s almost assuming that I already believe in God, however, I’m in the agnostic state of mind-I simply do not know if such a God exists.

Why would God send anybody to Heaven, or do anything with you after you die at all?

Why would an infinite and perfect being ‘do’ anything at all?

Good point.

Maybe a little rewording might help.

Why would I be sent to hell if I didn’t believe in God?

A glance into the general Christian beliefs shows that you are “put” into heaven or hell based off what you did in your life, and the decisions and actions put forth into it. So if one was “good” throughout their life and did nothing but “good” things (vague, I know, but you get the picture, I hope) and yet still didn’t believe in God, does that qualify them to go to hell when they die?

Well, according to Christianity, you wouldn’t be send to hell for ‘not believing in God’. You’d be sent to hell because, just like the rest of us, you’re a sinner who can’t live correct, and who has violated all 10 commandments in heart if not in deed. So you don’t deserve to be in Heaven, and the kind of creature you are makes you unworthy of God’s presence. Heaven is not something to which we are owed by default, unless we are especially naughty. It’s not like that.
As far as doing good things, I saw (and I think Christianity backs me) that there is no good man. Well, except for One. Are you a good person, mikey? By what standard?

The only way to make actual sense of an argument for “God” sending you to “heaven” or “hell” as a result of you believing in him or not requires altering the definitions (from how your friend would explain them).

Let’s consider “God” as all of the change occuring in the universe. Time itself is change. Change depends on everything that was prior to the change, and what was afterwards.

The absolute and eternal God in Hindu mythology is Brahman, and the Godhead Trinity consists of Brahma the creator, Shiva the Destroyer and Vishnu the preserver.

Brahman=Change=Time=All=A
Vishnu=B
Shiva=C
Brahma=D

A=B-C+D

Belief in God, Brahman, in the context of “Believe in Brahman or go to hell” means "Believe that each new moment is a new start, a new birth, a new life, a new opportunity (to use your mind to change the reality you perceive) or you are bound to continue suffering (being in hell) as you are not using your intelligence to creatively construct reality; you are swimming upstream.

Hell is fear, anger, any thoughts and emotion signifying your desire to escape the present situation/reality/universe.

I don’t know if this is exactly what early Christianity had in mind, but it’s the only way I can make sense out the beliefs ignorant fundamentalist Christians have today (“Believe in my Christian God or you will go to hell! My God is a Caucasian American! He’s a Republican too!”).

I’m not sure if I entirely understand you.

What is living “correctly?”

So, you’re saying if one does not believe in God then they have commited a sin which makes one unworthy of God’s presense, which in turn does not allow one to go to Heaven when they die, correct? Doesn’t this start out by one not believing in God? If I were not to believe in God, then I would be “sinning,” which ultimately would lead to not being worthy of God’s presense and therefore sent to hell, right? So isn’t not believing the same thing? I don’t understand the logic.

Do you believe I’m not worthy because I do not believe in God?

I’ll try to ask the same question: If God is all-knowing and all-understanding, wouldn’t he simply understand why I do not believe in him?

I consider myself a good person, but then again, I cannot be entirely sure.
Thoughts on what is “good” and the standards of “good” are entirely a different question and would be interesting in a different forum, but I don’t want to avoid the question.

I really enjoyed reading your post, mattmatter, it was well written. :slight_smile:

Thank you :slight_smile: I’m glad you enjoyed it.

Are you actually asking a question, mikey?

No, I said the opposite of that. I’m saying that you commit sins all the time irrespective to whether you believe in God or not. You know, stealing, lying, covetous thoughts, so on and so forth. We all earn hell through being broken people who don’t do and think the right things. This is true even if you do believe in God.

No, you stuck that in there, it’s not what I said.

No, I believe you're not worthy because you've almost certainly lied, you've probably stolen, you've probably wished harm on others, you've probably been jealous of what other people have that you don't deserve, you've probably lusted after people that you had no business lusting after, you in all likelihood have wished that somebody was dead at some point in your life, and etc. etc.  In fact, if your typical of today's society, you didn't just do those things once a long time ago, you do some of them daily.  I don't know you, maybe you're the Perfect Person.

Most of all, if you think you deserve Heaven (eternal respite with God), if you think it’s owed to you, then I think you’re guilty of extreme levels of vanity.
I’m not singling you out, everybody is guilty of most things on that list, I believe I said that too. The fact that you don’t believe in God means you don’t have any sort of medicinal relationship with Jesus, which means in turns that God will judge you according to the life you’ve led. If I’m right about anything on the above list, the judgement will be Not-Heaven. I don’t believe in Purgatory, so that means hell.

I find it interesting that you state you think you’re a good person, but every other time you use the word, you stick it in quotes, like you really don’t know what good is, or possibly don’t think there is such a thing. Why is that?
No. That IS the question. Since we’re assuming God exists, and that He’s the wise one who Judges for the sake of argument, you don’t get to wonder about what “good” is, or decide it for yourself, or make up the rules as you go along. According to the scenario provided, God would keep His own council on what a good person is, a holy person, and that would be the standard. It has nothing to do with believing in God, that part.

I see what you mean, Uccisore.

I put the word “good” into quotes because an individual being “good” or “bad” can be very subjective depending on the circumstances. I used them so I would avoid reponses like, “what do you think is good?” Everybody has an idea on what “good” is, and in my opinion, it most definately exists. So the quotes are there to show that “good” is merely a concept. I simply wanted the word to be more flexible, rather than factual.

Everything you said makes sense, and it doesn’t seem to have any fallacies, but the intial question is still lingering.

I have definately commited every sin on your list, and I am far from the perfect being.

:evilfun:

Sure, and that actually goes to the problem. If we’re assuming that God exists, and that God is going to judge us as good or evil, then what does it mean if we have to admit we all have a different idea of what “good” is? Since God isn’t wrong, the only possibility is that we’re all flawed, and can’t tell good from bad.

So, the initial question was, will God send you to hell for not believing in Him. The answer is no, He won’t, because there’s plenty of other good reasons to send you to hell. However, Christianity teaches that there is an escape from Hell, a cure to the falling that’s going to send you there. You would have to believe that God existed in order to take part in that cure, but believing in God isn’t all it is.

EDIT: One final thing. YOu say you’re a good person, but also that you’ve committed every sin on my list. Does this mean that you don’t really think there’s anything bad about the things on my list, or does it mean that when you say you’re a good person, you mean you aren’t as bad as some really bad person you have in mind? Or something else?

Mostly the second. I’ve done bad things that I’m sure millions have made, but I consider myself a good person because I’m strict on myself to strive to be a compassionate person who tries only to help and heal, and try to keep destruction to a minimum. I don’t want to seem pretentious :smiley: .

The problem with this fundamental teaching of Christianity in a typical church is that it is not based on anything Jesus actually said, its completely man made and has a severe flaws because of this. The problem is that no one really knows what believing in God requires or exactly how you do this, most Christian churched have stumbled over this from the beginning and later added some things you must do to prove that you do believe in God. Things like accepting the name of Jesus as your savior and repenting all your sins to God and asking forgiveness. Then the Holy Spirit is supposed to move into your heart and guide you by conscience to act as Jesus did (as much as you let it). Of course the problem here is that when many observe Christians this Christ Like action is rarely present, and to further complicate things many will notice that professed Atheist will have the very virtues that Christianity claim you will have once saved. This confusion turns many away for m the idea of God and salvation and rightly so.

The problem is that the religions put words in Jesus mouth as he never said anything about taking his name literally and believing on it to receive forgiveness, he did say to repent which is to abstain from sin but no one can complete this task perfectly so we are still in danger of reaping the wages of sin. IMO, this lie that most Churches base their plan of salvation on is the real problem and why people are driven away from the idea of God and the need for salvation, most just don’t get what it is and what’s required even though the clue is in what Jesus said about himself when he was asked who he was.

I have laid out my idea of what salvation is and how to acquire it but it is evidently too simple and boring as nobody is interested so I wont bother to do it for the tenth time and it will simply fall on deaf ears. If someone really is interested I sure a simple search will find at least one incident where I explain it.

BTW, I don’t see any logic in the idea that hell is a place or that you are cast into hell because of what you do, it’s contradictory. But there must be a separation and this is what hell is, separation from God.

How can we ever be separated from god, who is the source of everything and who everything is a part of?

And why do I have to believe in god to be ‘healed’? Can’t I have a “medicinal relationship” with something besides god (like my own conscience)?

kingdaddy, I might be tempted to respond, but if I do show you where Jesus talks about hell, aren’t you just going to say that that part of the Bible isn’t trustworthy, or if worst comes to worst, that Jesus was just some guy so it doesn’t matter even if He does mention Hell? I don’t know that the Christian has a proper response to you, you don’t have any common assumptions with us.

This doesn’t answer his question, though. All it does is introduce another level of complexity. Since God made the rules according to which all have sinned and all are deserving of Hell (absent God’s grace), then we still have God sending people to Hell for reasons that are essentially capricious, since He could have made either the rules or us differently and avoided this situation. There is really no getting around it: God as described in traditional Christian theology is a monstrous and abominable tyrant. One of many reasons I find it impossible to believe in THAT God.

I can’t speak for Mikey, but by any REASONABLE standards – as opposed to a standard deliberately designed to be beyond anyone’s ability to meet – I am a good man, yes.

Navigator:

Mikey’s question was whether or not God sends people to Hell for not believing in Him. The answer is ‘no’, and that’s the answer I gave. You’re asking something new here. Let me look at it.

 You're assuming way too much here. First of all, plenty of Christians don't think God 'made' these rules. They may be extensions of His nature.  What I mean to say is, if God is eternal, and God is good, then goodness is itself immutable- right and wrong are necessary truths in that case. Secondly, the rules I stated aren't capricious, at least as far as me and mikey are concerned.  He agreed with me that the things on my list are immoral, and he agreed with me that [i]he's done them anyway[/i]. That's a problem, and Christian theology didn't make that problem up. If you think the wrongness of stealing, lying, murder and so on is capricious and something God made up that we're free to ignore, then that's certainly fine- the first step to seeing the logic of Christianity is seeing that onesself is an immoral person, and one has to have morals in order to see that. 
As far as God creating human nature differently, that's a lot more complicated, and again you've taken a lot for granted- First, that free beings without the ability to do wrong are possible.  Second, that even if they are possible, that they would be [i]desirable[/i].  You would have people here who would tell you that that even if the ability to do wrong is not required for [i]technical[/i] free will, that it IS required for the best, or most desirable set of free will. 

I really don’t see how this comment was designed for me to respond to at least not in any philosophical way. I’ll take it as editorializing.

EDIT: Can you give me an example of the reasonable standards you have in mind?

I don’t remember any of the red letters mentioning anything about hell in any detail that might give an idea as to what it is, I do seem to remember the parable of Lazarus though and it was just that, a parable, not literal. However I would still be interested in any passage you might want to site and wont automatically reject it. Although just to be clear, I said Jesus didn’t say anything about using his name for salvation, the hell part was my own opinion outside of what the bible said, I didnt realize the bible had much to say about hell.

Sure I do, I believe in a God and God incarnate in a body and in consequences after the grave and salvation and separation (hell) and many things that are the same, I just don’t base my beliefs on the bible, and since I haven’t found any contradictions yet with the red letters of the NT I accept them as either perfectly inspired or the properly recorded words of God/Jesus himself.