I am not a believer but am curious as to how you would act if Christianity turned to be true and when you died, you’d go to hell. It wouldn’t make any sense but I find this funny to hear how fellow nonbelievers say they’d act.
Posted: February 27th 2011
donsevers www
How would you react in Muslim hell? Or when you reincarnate unfavorably a million times? If there is a Hell, the odds are it’s not the Christian one. As Bertrand Russell pointed out, by sheer odds, we’re all atheists (since no religion has a majority).
As Paula said below, the hell idea is the product of sick minds. We should note, however, how successful it has been. It means humans are easily manipulated. The good news is that we can fix our thinking, one mind at a time, through education and skeptical thinking.
We don’t have to fear baseless, cruel, medieval fantasies like hell any more than we have to worry about displeasing the Aztec gods.
Posted: March 10th 2011
logicel
I would be happy to be there, because that would mean the monster that Christians worship would not be anywhere near me nor would those groveling, spineless, weak-minded worshippers. As painful hell may be, heaven would be way worse.
Posted: February 28th 2011
Reed Braden www
There are as many versions of Hell as there are vengeful believers with overactive imaginations, so it really depends on whose Hell I’m going to what my reaction will be.
If I’m going to the popular flame-and-torture Hell of Dante’s Inferno, my reaction would probably be to scream in wild agony as I’m cycled through multiple levels of Hell receiving horrific tortures for all of my sins. I doubt anyone could react in any way other than wild agony, really. I would most certainly be shocked that I—a relatively decent human being—was judged worthy of eternal agonizing punishment.
If Hell is more of a reformed protestant “complete separation from God” where nothing exists except void, I doubt I’ll notice the difference between that and what will happen to me anyway in the natural world. I’m fine with non-existence. This Hell doesn’t scare me.
I had a Christian from Singapore tell me he believes Heaven and Hell are just a state of mind at the time of your death. Like if you paused the last moment of your life and existed in that moment forever. Not so much in that if you were hit by a bus, you would spend the rest of eternity stuck to a fender, but if you had bliss at the time of death, you would feel that bliss forever. Those who reject Christianity will have fear or pain at the time of their death, and they will exist in that feeling for eternity. One wouldn’t be capable of reacting in this Hell, since one is no longer an entity but rather an emotion. All Hells are bullshit, but this Hell just brings a little special je ne sais quoi to the steaming mound.
I think the Hell i would want to go to—the one where I can really party like a rockstar for all eternity—would be the Hell my pastor used to wax ecstatic about when I was a churchgoing kid. He didn’t believe in Satan as a spiritual or physical entity: He saw Satan as an anthropomorphism of chaos and disorder. His Hell was just an infinite holding tank full of sinners, with no rules, order, or structure. He thought this would be a scary thing to keep the kids in church, but really, we all just wanted to go to Hell and snort coke with Kurt Cobain if that’s what Hell would have been like.
Posted: February 28th 2011
Dave Hitt www
First I’d visit all my friends. We’d have a few beers and say, “thank god we’re not in that boring-ass heaven.”
Then we’d go see some bands. All the good musicians are in hell.
Posted: February 28th 2011
brian thomson www
As I understand it, anyone in the Christian concept of “hell” is a passive victim of everlasting torture: you have no say, no power, you do not “act” in any sense of the word, you just suffer. So what was the point of the question? You are speculating about things for which you have zero evidence. (No, scriptures are not evidence, they are just words people wrote long ago.)
Posted: February 28th 2011
Paula Kirby www
I am always puzzled when people ask me this kind of question – and they do ask it surprisingly often. Why should they think I would give any thought whatsoever to how I would handle a situation that I do not believe for one moment is going to happen?
It is exactly like expecting someone to have given some thought to how they would react if they got home tonight and found a yellow tyrannosaurus rex with pink and white flowers in its mouth, standing in their kitchen and cooking them supper.
Actually, no: after all, we do at least know that tyrannosaurus rex really did exist at one time, and that pink and white flowers and mouths and kitchens also exist so my fictional scenario – ludicrous as it is – is considerably less preposterous than the hell idea.
Hell is an obscene concept dreamt up and propagated by those who choose to tyrannise people into believing the preposterous. It is disgusting. It is the product of sick minds. It does not deserve to be taken seriously for a single moment. It is the ultimate admission of defeat by those who try to bring others to belief: they know their claims are utterly ludicrous and unfounded, so they have to resort to the tactics of the tyrant in order to stand any chance at all of being taken seriously.
The scenario you are asking us to consider will not happen and is therefore not worth thinking about. There is no life after death, which means no bliss and no torture. Put such thoughts out of your mind and concentrate instead on living THIS life – the only one we’re going to get – to the full, and free from bizarre fears and sick fantasies.
Posted: February 28th 2011
SmartLX www
Concepts of Hell are too disparate for anyone to work out what they’d be able to do if they went there.
Maybe you go straight into the lake of fire and just writhe and scream. Maybe you have the opportunity to exercise more free will, and you spend eternity trying to escape. Maybe you embrace your fate and apprentice yourself to a demon, training for the battle at Armageddon.
Who knows? If Christians can’t agree on the nature of Hell, what makes you think that an atheist, who doesn’t even think there is one, would give a more coherent answer?
Posted: February 28th 2011