Are there atheists in hell?

[catsmate]

Indeed, if I discovered there was an afterlife I would look first for a natural explanation before reaching for a supernatural one.

Peter F Hamilton's Night's Dawn Trilogy describes a natural (and absolutely horrific) afterlife.

Or Farmer's Riverworld. Complete with synthetic 'souls'.

 

[TragicMonkey]

You're right, of course. What I should have said was that if you find yourself in the Christian heaven or hell, then it follows that the Christian god exists.

Again, not necessarily. The Christian god could have existed, created a heaven and a hell, then died. Another god or non-god entity could be masquerading as the Christian god. The afterlife could be malleable to the expectations of those present and the Christians have temporary control of the bit you've arrived in. There are a lot of possibilities even if you don't bring in wacky magical stuff that might exist in a post-life reality. The only thing that would prove the existence of a particular god would be proof of the existence of that particular god, not proof of the existence of something claimed to have been made by him. That toy beneath the tree on Dec 25 didn't prove the existence of Santa Claus. For that you'd need to locate, capture, and vivisect Santa himself.

 

[bruto]

You're right, of course. What I should have said was that if you find yourself in the Christian heaven or hell, then it follows that the Christian god exists.

Not if the Christians just guessed right, or said it in a way that is close enough for us to fill in the spaces and say they were right.

Isn't assuming that an afterlife requires a god a bit like the fallacy that leads religious people now to assume that a life requires a god? Because we presume that an afterlife is itself a religious artifact, we fall into the trap of reinventing a god of the gaps to explain it.

 

[Darat]

Indeed, if I discovered there was an afterlife I would look first for a natural explanation before reaching for a supernatural one.

Peter F Hamilton's Night's Dawn Trilogy describes a natural (and absolutely horrific) afterlife.

I heard him say many years ago at book reading that the horrific afterlife was his idea of purgatory from the likes of the RCC (remember people could and did pass right through the horrible bit, only some people were trapped in the horrible bit) - awareness but without stimulus nor change.

 

[Darat]

In some Christian narratives, the nature of hell is that it is completely cut off from God's (otherwise omni-) presence. The torture isn't devils poking you with pitchforks, it's being separate from God and thus bereft of the presumable warm fuzzies inherent thereto. In that case, atheism would be kind of the expected condition there. And arguably, atheism itself is already hell.

(See also: Azkaban)

Yeah that was my lots view, the converse being heaven was some sort of mind-meld with god for all eternity.

Mind you that Jesus bloke apparently sort of died but didn't die to forgive us all things so in the end god forgives us all. We all end up in one eternal mindmelded orgy no matter how wicked or good we have been.

 

[eerok]

As I get older, the world seems stupider. The last thing I want is an eternity of that crap.

 

[Fast Eddie B]

Of course, the odds that anyone making this claim follows the right kind of religion are small, so the question could be expanded. After all, if you're a believer, did everything according to your faith and then ended up in hell because it turns out you followed the wrong kind of faith, you'd be in the same position as an atheist.

I always saw this as the major flaw in Pascal’s Wager.

 

[Scorpion]

Indeed, if I discovered there was an afterlife I would look first for a natural explanation before reaching for a supernatural one.

If and when you do discover there is an afterlife. You will realize that consciousness is not a product of the brain but is the immortal spirit.

That would be supernatural, wouldn't it?

 

[abaddon]

If and when you do discover there is an afterlife. You will realize that consciousness is not a product of the brain but is the immortal spirit.

That would be supernatural, wouldn't it?

Sure. Just like ouija boards, or tarot cards, or spirit mediums, or dowsing, or...whatever.

The time to believe any of that is when actual evidence shows up and it hasn't.

Oh and having had an NDE I find the wild claims amusing. Been there, tunnel, light at the end, OOBE, the lot. It's all a load.

 

[Pixel42]

If and when you do discover there is an afterlife. You will realize that consciousness is not a product of the brain but is the immortal spirit.

Not necessarily. Not, for example, in the Hamilton novels referred to above, in which a 'soul' is a sort of recorded copy in another dimension of the consciousness produced by the brain.

That would be supernatural, wouldn't it?

Not if it isn't contrary to the laws of nature, no.

 

[LarryS]

If and when you do discover there is an afterlife. You will realize that consciousness is not a product of the brain but is the immortal spirit.

That would be supernatural, wouldn't it?

It would take 2-3 more afterlifes before I'd start thinking I was immortal. Last time I was squirted out of the womb of a cow - but as far as I can tell that was my first.

 

[LarryS]

I began to read the article and this line struck me: ' The death of your physical body is the beginning of your eternal existence in either Heaven or Hell.' Struck me because as a teenager it was this notion that caused me to stop believing - I know what the words mean, but they don't add up to anything that makes sense.
I'm curious - is the above idea in the Bible?

 

[Thor 2]

I began to read the article and this line struck me: ' The death of your physical body is the beginning of your eternal existence in either Heaven or Hell.' Struck me because as a teenager it was this notion that caused me to stop believing - I know what the words mean, but they don't add up to anything that makes sense.
I'm curious - is the above idea in the Bible?

Well that nice guy Jesus had something to say about Hell:

Jesus Christ says in Matthew 25:41, "Depart from me, ye cursed, into EVERLASTING FIRE, prepared for the devil and his angels." In Matthew 13:42, Jesus says: "And shall cast them into a furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth." HELL IS FOREVER! All who enter hell — abandon all hope!

Didn't talk about heaven with the same degree of enthusiasm however. Mind you it's hard to describe a place with the same degree of intensity of pleasure, as another with an intensity of suffering.

The Islamic religion tries to tackle this problem with talk of abundant virgins being available. Not so good for the virgins however.

 

[Scorpion]

Not necessarily. Not, for example, in the Hamilton novels referred to above, in which a 'soul' is a sort of recorded copy in another dimension of the consciousness produced by the brain.



Not if it isn't contrary to the laws of nature, no.

I cannot see how you can talk of laws of nature without believing in a lawmaker . Without an underlying divine controller nature is just random chaos. There need be no laws of nature, or laws of physics. Every atom could fly apart at any moment, for no reason.

 

[Pixel42]

I cannot see how you can talk of laws of nature without believing in a lawmaker .

Very easily. The appearance of laws/design in no way implies the existence of a lawmaker/designer, as you would know if you understood how evolution works.

And if you do believe in a lawmaker, that just replaces the questions about the existence of the universe/laws of nature with the same questions about the existence of the lawmaker.

Without an underlying divine controller nature is just random chaos.

Wrong.

There need be no laws of nature, or laws of physics. Every atom could fly apart at any moment, for no reason.

Nope.

You do realise that, just because you don't understand something, or your intuition says it's wrong, that doesn't mean you can conclude it is wrong?

 

[Darat]

I began to read the article and this line struck me: ' The death of your physical body is the beginning of your eternal existence in either Heaven or Hell.' Struck me because as a teenager it was this notion that caused me to stop believing - I know what the words mean, but they don't add up to anything that makes sense.
I'm curious - is the above idea in the Bible?

According to the RCC it is.

But as ever with Christianity it ain’t simple. In summary when you die your soul is immediately judged and you enter into either heaven and hell. Then at some time in the future you will be yanked out of heaven and hell, your physical body resurrected and your soul placed in it, again. Then there will be a final judgement and you will again go to heaven or hell.

Yes I know it is totally stupid and lots of actual RCC theology tries to make sense of this mishmash using “reason” but in the end it all boils down to a rather big “because!”

(You can also throw in some of the Revelations stuff to mix it up even more.)

 

[catsmate]

If and when you do discover there is an afterlife. You will realize that consciousness is not a product of the brain but is the immortal spirit.

That would be supernatural, wouldn't it?

Or the effect of the Ethical's wathan generator.

 

[Fast Eddie B]

I cannot see how you can talk of laws of nature without believing in a lawmaker.

Argumentum ad lack-of-imaginatium.

 

[Fast Eddie B]

I cannot see how you can talk of laws of nature without believing in a lawmaker . Without an underlying divine controller nature is just random chaos. There need be no laws of nature, or laws of physics. Every atom could fly apart at any moment, for no reason.

And I cannot see how you can talk of God without believing in a Godmaker*. Without a Godmaker, everything is just random chaos. There (would be) no God or Gods. Every God could fly apart at any moment, for no reason.


*Ground touched upon by Olaf Stapledon in “Starmaker”, still on my bookshelf.

 

[abaddon]

I cannot see how you can talk of laws of nature without believing in a lawmaker . Without an underlying divine controller nature is just random chaos. There need be no laws of nature, or laws of physics. Every atom could fly apart at any moment, for no reason.

Go ahead and describe what a godless universe would look like. Bet you cant.

Go cross a street without checking traffic. Will some god save you from the oncoming bus? Of course not. You bet your sweet bippy that you look both ways before crossing that street. Were there a boatload of spirits just hanging around, you could serenely wander out into any street fully confident that nothing would hit you. And that demonstrates that you do not really believe the crap you post.