Why would God send someone to hell over suicide?

[Amaris]

Not being sure of whether or not God exists is being agnostic. If you're trying to stick it to God, yeah pretty clear example of a atheist. A agnostic, someone who is a theological fence sitter or maybe has never heard of God, but who has lived according to God's law - without ever hearing about them - they're just a plain good person, might get in to heaven. If you're anti-theistic, anti-church, anti-morality, as I understand it, yes excluded from heaven. If you're in the middle ground between those two positions, gets complex.

I am an atheist. I do not believe God exists, because there is no evidence, there are many religions that conflict, and that if the God of the Bible is the one to be followed, then my ethics and morals are superior to that particular God. Why should I, someone who doesn't lie, steal or murder, be judged by one who has murdered innocent men, women and children? It would be like Charles Manson telling me I'm not worthy to live up to his code of ethics. There's just no way anything that cruel or vindictive can possibly exist and still call itself a god. The straw has finally broken the camel's back.

That's not even getting into the many ideas of what god is, each one being considered the "true" god.
All kinds of assumption, and no evidence whatsoever to back it up. Faith is the catch all, and it's just not enough.

J.

 

[Shatmandu]

Why would someone who is really sad be punished futher in the afterlife for something they did to themselves.

Jason

It's very simple: God doesn't exist, and things that don't exist can't do anything to anyone.

Joe, simply

 

[Flying Spaghetti Monster]

I agree with Shatmandu, and I think Mr. Lazer Beam is a nut, no offence. Here's what he said

I will concede that *religion* was invented by man, but God was not. Religion is our attempt to impress God.

He's automatically assuming that the claim that there is a god is justified. Yet no claim that anything supernatural has ever been justifed. He later said that taking Jesus as your savior is not a big deal, not too much to ask. To that, I have to paraphrase Hitchens: "I have a meek and mild saviour with a supernatural offer for you, and if you don't like it, you will burn for eternity. This is the language of fascism and I will not be spoken to in that way."

Also let's be clear on something folks: if you are agnostic, you are also an atheist, because if you don't know if any god claim is true or not, you cannot believe that it is (which is what a theist is, and atheism covers everything else.)

Is that clear?

 

[The Castellan]

What I never understood was that if Hell is home to the Devil, and he's evil...and bad/evil people go there....why are they going to be in agony and torment for eternaty? Would they not be showered in riches and concubines if they did stuff the Devil would be proud of?


See, I gots my questions.

 

[Chaos Descending]

Wait, is J. Allen now officially an atheist, or is he doesn't the "devil's advocate" thing again?

 

[Mark de Vries]

The criticism of Hitchens and others like him seem horribly presumptuous to me: I don't like the tone of your voice, or I don't want to be spoken to in that way, so I'll hate you with all I have. That shows a lack of understanding, and even a lack of a desire to understand.

I have become a Christian later in life (I was 27 when I was baptised and accepted into the Catholic Church) and take it from me: faith is not something you attain by reading a few leaflets and thinking about them for a few minutes. It's hard work, and the basis is trust. Trust that what you read and consider and believe is a good thing and that it will guide you to a better future, in this life and beyond. Will there be complete certainty? No. Faith is not science. Human life is not sience. We don't function based on facts. We are not robots.

Is the salvation that God offers truly such a burden as some people portray it as? Is the promise of eternal life, beyond simple and temporary creature comforts, really such an imposition? On the contrary, I consider it a beautiful gift, even if it bars us from certain temporary 'pleasures'. salvation is about the big picture, the greater context.

In that context, suicide is not about the easing of pain, but about the destruction of a human life, of something we have no right to destroy. Of course, there is little we can say with 100% certainty about the mental state of people who commit suicide, certainly not in the exact moment of their life's end. That is why the Church has rightly changed its thoguths about it, and no longer buries the victims in unhallowed ground: we can't say how this person met his or her death, and so we can't attach conclusions about his being in heaven or hell to it.

And that takes me far away enough from the topic of this thread (my apologies). Hell, I believe, is greatly influenced by human concepts of it: fire, brimstone, devils with pitchforks. Will it really be like that? I doubt it. I don't know what it will be like, except that God will be absent, for all eternity. Looking at western society, I think I already see a hint of life in His absence, and I don't much like it.

 

[Gepard]

I am an atheist...

J.

Wait, what the fuck. When did this happen?

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

I'd prefer utter extinction to an eternity spent fluttering like a demented butterfly around a deity singing halleluiah and hosanna.

 

[RJDiogenes]

I agree with Shatmandu, and I think Mr. Lazer Beam is a nut, no offence.

Yes offense. Please don't make comments like that about fellow Posters.

 

[Amaris]

Wait, is J. Allen now officially an atheist, or is he doesn't the "devil's advocate" thing again?

I am an atheist, and it's been a long time coming, I think.

I am an atheist...

J.

Wait, what the fuck. When did this happen?

Some time ago.

J.

 

[Gepard]

I am an atheist.

Eh. I give it two months.

No, seriously. Welcome to the Dark Side, J. Glowing red eyes and lightsabers are in the closet to the left.

 

[Scout101]

God HAD to outlaw suicide (or at least, the creators of Christianity did), otherwise the whole system falls apart. Without the penalty for killing yourself, if you were a true believer in Heaven, you'd be STUPID not to off yourself and skip right to that. Why stick around and sin, roughing it on Earth, when there's an eternal paradise that you could be hanging out in in about 10 seconds?

 

[Rusty phaser]

Ah hell .... the concept with which the religious power keeps it's pawns in control.

To me it's quite weird that anyone would even believe that such an obvious human creation designed as a control mechanism could possibly be real.

That they also believe that a good and loving God would punish anyone with eternal torture is just beyong me. I mean - what Hitler did to the jews is far nicer than what the christian god suposedly does to non-believers (temporary pain and then death as compared to death and eternal pain).

There simply is no crime that could warrant a punishment of eternal torture. Especially not the "crime" of not believing in the suposed awesomness that is the egomaniac christian god.

I'd rather spend eternity without such an evil god than suck up to him because of the terror he punishes dissidents with.

Personally I have no problem with the non-existens that will be me after I die. I did not exist for the billions of years prior to my birth so why should I after my death?

 

[Amaris]

I am an atheist.

Eh. I give it two months.

No, seriously. Welcome to the Dark Side, J. Glowing red eyes and lightsabers are in the closet to the left.

Well, there are some things which I change from time to time as I learn new information, and my faith was one of them. Over the years I became more and more open, and as I studied the many religions, I started realizing that they were all the same on a basic level. My mind is always working, and for a long time I just ignored how I felt about the faith, once I faltered (you recall when that was), and thought I had picked it up again, but that, I believe, was the final push, and it was only a matter of time before I completely let go of what I now consider to be nothing more than fictional stories made for the benefit of the social order of humankind.

For years I had great conflict about my faith, and it would keep me up at night as I fought to understand. Finally, I realized the reason I couldn't reconcile it is because none of it truly made any sense, and so let it go. I slept peacefully.

J.

 

[JustKate]

Ah hell .... the concept with which the religious power keeps it's pawns in control.

I don't mean to pick on Rusty phaser here (cool screen name, BTW) even though I'm going to reference his use of the word "pawn," and the reason is that even though he used that particular word, other posters have used the same concept repeatedly in this thread, and I think that's a concept that we need to consider more carefully.

Can we please, please, please discuss a religious topic without referring to some posters as "pawns" or assuming that they can't think for themselves? Please?

Can we not see that calling someone a "pawn" is just as offensive as saying "If you don't believe, you're going to buuuuuuurn"?

Because it is. Trust me. I agree that the latter is presumptuous in the extreme, and is in addition contrary to my religion, which tells me that I'm to judge not lest I be judged. But can't you see that that "pawn" stuff is just as presumptuous? You have no idea how someone came to his or her faith, so is there anything more presumptuous, more offensive, than assuming you know allllllllll about it, and it was some sort of mindless act that took no thought at all?

There are lots of choices in the world today, at least in many parts of the world, including the Western world - lots of choices in religion, in denominations within a religion, in other forms of spirituality, in anti-religion, in agnosticism, in atheism. So why not assume that any adult who professes a certain believe system, be it religious, atheist, or somewhere in between, thought about it first? Most people do, you know.

If someone tells me that he is an atheist, I assume he has good reasons for taking that stance. I disagree, but that doesn't mean I can't respect his reasons.

All I'm asking for is the same courtesy.

Why not be respectful of individuals even if you can't respect the religion? And no, you cannot be respectful of someone you consider a pawn or a mindless sheep. It's just not possible.

 

[iguana_tonante]

Also let's be clear on something folks: if you are agnostic, you are also an atheist, because if you don't know if any god claim is true or not, you cannot believe that it is (which is what a theist is, and atheism covers everything else.)

Is that clear?

I don't want to derail this thread in another theological fuckfest, but I'm not sure I agree with this assessment. It's been said and said: philosophically speaking, agnosticism is a position about knowledge, not belief.

You may be an agnostic ("I don't know there is a god") and still a theist ("but I think there is"). It may not be a rational belief, but rationality is not the end of everything and all (and I say that as an hardcore materialist atheist).

People may believe in a deity not due to a strict positivist belief ("I believe there is a god because I saw him"), but also due to some emotional reasons ("believing there is a god over the uniiverse makes me feel good, maybe it's not true but I still like it").

Then you need to consider the various flavours of agnosticism, that is far from being a monolithic position: strong (or inherent) agnostics think that the knowledge of God in inherently unknowable, and that believing/not believing is only a matter of personal faith; soft (practical) agnostics think that, while they don't claim any actual knowlegde about the existence of God, admit the possibility of acquiring them (by whatever mean). There are then the ignostics, who claim that the question "does god exist?" is simply meaningless.

Lastly, there are many different theistic and atheistic position, with different view about the number, nature, scope, and interest in human affairs of the supposed deity. Belief (and disbelief) in a transcendent, singular, omnipotent but personal god is definitively not the only line of thinking.

As you see, there is more variety of interpretations than you seem to suppose in your statement.

 

[Rusty phaser]

Ah hell .... the concept with which the religious power keeps it's pawns in control.

I don't mean to pick on Rusty phaser here (cool screen name, BTW) even though I'm going to reference his use of the word "pawn," and the reason is that even though he used that particular word, other posters have used the same concept repeatedly in this thread, and I think that's a concept that we need to consider more carefully.

Can we please, please, please discuss a religious topic without referring to some posters as "pawns" or assuming that they can't think for themselves? Please?

Can we not see that calling someone a "pawn" is just as offensive as saying "If you don't believe, you're going to buuuuuuurn"?

Because it is. Trust me. I agree that the latter is presumptuous in the extreme, and is in addition contrary to my religion, which tells me that I'm to judge not lest I be judged. But can't you see that that "pawn" stuff is just as presumptuous? You have no idea how someone came to his or her faith, so is there anything more presumptuous, more offensive, than assuming you know allllllllll about it, and it was some sort of mindless act that took no thought at all?

There are lots of choices in the world today, at least in many parts of the world, including the Western world - lots of choices in religion, in denominations within a religion, in other forms of spirituality, in anti-religion, in agnosticism, in atheism. So why not assume that any adult who professes a certain believe system, be it religious, atheist, or somewhere in between, thought about it first? Most people do, you know.

If someone tells me that he is an atheist, I assume he has good reasons for taking that stance. I disagree, but that doesn't mean I can't respect his reasons.

All I'm asking for is the same courtesy.

Why not be respectful of individuals even if you can't respect the religion? And no, you cannot be respectful of someone you consider a pawn or a mindless sheep. It's just not possible.

I see your point and I didn't mean to insult anyone. However, I do find the word "pawn" to be somewhat relevant in many issues of hierarchical religiosity. What I mean is that there is no logical argument for hell existing, but still people fear it to such a degree that it affects their behavior - all because some religious authoritarian figure said it was so. That is the power of the religious ruling class and has always been.

Accepting such thinks that go against all reason to me somewhat warrants the word "pawn".
My main point of using the word, however, was to show that I look at the whole concept of hell as a control mechanism where the ruling elite hold a grip on their ... uhm, controllable people?

A pawn is a peon, or other powerless person. It is often a word used to describe someone or something that is used or manipulated. (Wikipedia)

 

[Amaris]

I see your point and I didn't mean to insult anyone. However, I do find the word "pawn" to be somewhat relevant in many issues of hierarchical religiosity. What I mean is that there is no logical argument for hell existing, but still people fear it to such a degree that it affects their behavior - all because some religious authoritarian figure said it was so. That is the power of the religious ruling class and has always been.

Accepting such thinks that go against all reason to me somewhat warrants the word "pawn".
My main point of using the word, however, was to show that I look at the whole concept of hell as a control mechanism where the ruling elite hold a grip on their ... uhm, controllable people?

A pawn is a peon, or other powerless person. It is often a word used to describe someone or something that is used or manipulated. (Wikipedia)

I know a few atheists who still struggle with that remnant fear of hell, so ingrained was it in their upbringing.

J.

 

[Brent]

He doesn't send anyone to hell. We send ourselves by not accepting His way of salvation that is only thru His Son Jesus. I don't believe committing suicide will send someone there. Samson killed himself and all that was with him and he didn't go there cause God knew what he was going to do and still gave him the strength to do it..Only an unsaved person goes to hell.

Yep, it is really simple, I don't know why people try to make it more complicated than it is.

 

[Brent]

Ah hell .... the concept with which the religious power keeps it's pawns in control.

To me it's quite weird that anyone would even believe that such an obvious human creation designed as a control mechanism could possibly be real.

That they also believe that a good and loving God would punish anyone with eternal torture is just beyong me. I mean - what Hitler did to the jews is far nicer than what the christian god suposedly does to non-believers (temporary pain and then death as compared to death and eternal pain).

There simply is no crime that could warrant a punishment of eternal torture. Especially not the "crime" of not believing in the suposed awesomness that is the egomaniac christian god.

I'd rather spend eternity without such an evil god than suck up to him because of the terror he punishes dissidents with.

Personally I have no problem with the non-existens that will be me after I die. I did not exist for the billions of years prior to my birth so why should I after my death?

I am no pawn, I have freely chosen to put my faith in Jesus.