A non believer cant genuinely ask God for forgiveness.

Yes, I am aware of the concept.

It's always struck me as pretty cynical, honestly. So I can just do whatever I want as long as I repent the second before I die?

If you consider the Christian belief that you must accept Christ as your savior or it's the lake of fire for you, then God would still be condemning BILLIONS of souls to an eternity of torment for their lifetime of sins, regardless as to how long that lifetime was (minutes or 100 years), how good you were (and while surely none can measure up to the perfection of morality that God establishes, I think most would agree that the average person sins less egregiously than, say, a drug dealing pederast murdering rapist), or whether or not you had even heard of God or Christ.

To me that suggests that either God is not all-loving, or not all-knowing, since there is no way I would create something if I knew that it was going to punished in such a heinous way. What parent (if you consider God as a parent and the human race as a child) would punish equally for a wicked thought or a lie as for murder?

Which circles back around to the Bible as metaphor discussion. It was only recently I learned that the modern Christian concept of hell is not, in fact, in the Bible (I mean, they talked about it in church all the time, so it's got to be in there, right?). If you consider the Book of Revelations as metaphor and parable only, then the concept of what happens after death (if anything) becomes much more hazy.

I understand there are many religions, and also many people who believe in a God but not in the concept of hell. However, I'm personally coming from a religious tradition where hell was considered a literal place you could go after you died. I'm certain anyone here who was raised in that faith tradition, if they were being honest, can recall being terrified as a child that this might happen to you or someone you loved, saved or not.

Ask God for forgiveness before dying or after we die and stand in front of God?

Along with The Holy Trinity™

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comma_Johanneum

It does not appear in the older Greek manuscripts, nor in the passage as quoted by many of the early Church Fathers. The words apparently crept into the Latin text of the New Testament during the Middle Ages

"crept in"

Or if you don't have ballz, some crazy delusion will be enough.

Going to church 39 times a week has made you think too much about his greatness. Stop going to church for a few months,you will come to your senses.

I did. I started a thread with the title Logical Theism. It is covered in detail there.

It probably took me a year before I was able to just honestly ask myself "What if God doesn't exist" because of this sort of fear. I thought the question was so bad I dare not ask it. But then I realized that if I can't contemplate that question with honesty, then my belief is pretty worthless in the first place.

Don't feel like people are pressuring you or trying to peg you as a soon-to-be atheist. I think just because most people who post here are atheists, and because most of those atheists have gone through a similar place to where you're at now, it's easy to just talk like you'll be one soon. But questioning doesn't have to result in atheism. You might just alter your beliefs some, or become a deist. It's just that from our perspective, once our absolute faith in scripture was broken, suddenly our reason to follow that religion just evaporated, and we were left like we are now. Sad souls with no morals or reason to live on a bullet train to hellfire.

Still waiting for a response... RLK

LOL.

I hope I haven't come across as if that's my perception of atheism or atheists. I happen to know one or two atheist or agnostics individuals, and with that small sample size I conclude that atheists are capable of being nice, decent people.

Morality and religion are not one and the same, although they are often lumped together.

You started it and pretty much got destroyed by many, not sure why are you claiming that your claim stands and somehow "The assumption of God is logically sound".

I think you hit on it when you say, "god is either not all-knowing, or not all-loving."

Or, he doesn't exist at all. I think anyone with any bit of reasoning ability must come to one of these 3 conclusions.

I can tell by your thought process which one of these 3 options your own rational mind is pointing you towards.

As to hell... I think after you think on it for a while longer, you'll realize that it is such a ridiculous concept that only man could have dreamed it up. It's a boogeyman to scare kids and keep them in line, nothing more.

I dont believe there is a God. If thats the case then mankind is prety evil in itself. so your atheism is a really enjoyable place, where you experience transcendent joy, happiness, meaning, love, empowerment, etc... *Clap* *Clap* *Clap* .......so what?

If the objective goal is to "feel" that way, then some religious people are already feeling that way.

Not true. The premise was not refuted.

Please cite where you see eternal torment or the 6,000 year figure literally in the Bible, because I can't find either of them there.

Jesus said... the Kingdom of God is inside you, and all around you, not in mansions of wood and stone. Split a piece of wood... and I am there, lift a stone... and you will find me.

I have lost faith in "religion" but not in God.

Questioning your beliefs is necessary and important. That in no way means you have lost faith in God but that you have questions that are seemingly impossible to answer.

"Hey, you know what's scarier than not believing in God? Believing in him. I mean, really believing in him. It's a ****ing terrifying thought."

It can be terrifying to believe in God with all the questions it poses it's way easier to dismiss him.

Maybe you're pressuring yourself a little to get it "all right" so you can be a good parent for your children. You'll figure it out, that's what moms do. First have faith in yourself the rest will follow.

As if that's the only place in the Bible that refers to the Trinity.

My experiences and feelings don't necessarily have to have a deeper meaning than that. My purpose in sharing them in this thread is because they run counter to the narrative that religion enjoys an exclusive monopoly on these things; I submit that for somebody who is questioning their beliefs the fact that they can experience empowerment on a path to atheism may be of value to them. I am not trying to say atheism enjoys an exclusive monopoly either, btw.

I misspoke perhaps, and I already mentioned that hell is not explicitly mentioned in the Bible (although a lake of fire does appear in Revelations IIRC), the ~6000 year figure is what is generally cited as the believe of strict Biblical interpreters in regards to the age of the world, although I am aware it isn't explicitly stated either.

Both, however, were mentioned many, many, MANY times in sermons and Sunday school lessons and various other Christian youth learning situations I experienced growing up.

Ultimately, this is really only an example of what I was taught that I have come to question.

I'd settle for just not getting it egregiously wrong. As a human, though, I would not expect to really be able to understand the divine. Maybe I just hate not knowing the answers? But that's really nothing new, and doesn't usually cause me any significant distress or mental turmoil.

But thanks for the vote of confidence.

Later, the diverse references to God, Jesus, and the Spirit found in the New Testament were systematized into a Trinity—one God subsisting in three persons and one substance—to combat heretical tendencies of how the three are related and to defend the church against charges of worshiping two or three gods.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinity...from_Scripture

LOL, trying to play the "the bible dosen't say the earth is 6k years old" card is quite sad, if you follow the genealogy all the way back to adam and eve, you get a date of creation in appx the year 4004 BCE.

Trying to defend the bible is this regard is both futile and actually quite funny. If you are going to say, but it wasn't "seven literal days" blah blah blah, all I can ask of you is to please clearly define which parts of the bible are literal, and which are meant to be taken as metaphor? And also I would like to know how you as a human, can decide which of god's inspired writings are factual, and which ones are metaphorical?

So according to Concerto, not only is hell not a literal place where you go to burn when you die, but the bible advocates an old earth!

If god did create the universe 14.5 billion years ago, and earth 4.5 billion years ago, he sure took one hell of a nap before he sent his only begotten son into a barely populated stretch of desert to save humanity.

The translator should have of chose "become" from the list instead of "was".

Gen 1:1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
Gen 1:2 And the earth "was" without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.

H1961 "was"
היה
hâyâh
haw-yaw'
A primitive root (compare H1933); to exist, that is, be or become, come to pass (always emphatic, and not a mere copula or auxiliary): - beacon, X altogether, be (-come, accomplished, committed, like), break, cause, come (to pass), continue, do, faint, fall, + follow, happen, X have, last, pertain, quit (one-) self, require, X use.

Another way to see the translation was incorrect is that by using "was" it says God originally created the earth without form and void. The words "without form" is the same Hebrew word as the word "vain" use by Isaiah in Isa 45:18. These two verses would contradict each other if the word "was" is used.

Isa 45:18 For thus saith the LORD that created the heavens; God himself that formed the earth and made it; he hath established it, he created it not in "vain", he formed it to be inhabited: I am the LORD; and there is none else.

H8414 "without form" "vain"
תּהוּ
tôhû
to'-hoo
From an unused root meaning to lie waste; a desolation (of surface), that is, desert; figuratively a worthless thing; adverbially in vain: - confusion, empty place, without form, nothing, (thing of) nought, vain, vanity, waste, wilderness.

Okay though FYI the lake of fire and hell are two different things.

Revelations 20:14 And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death.

Yeah I've learned to questions things too. This of course must include, perhaps before anything else, one's own faculty for questioning.

Knowing what the Bible does and does not advocate requires an understanding of what it actually says. For example, its genealogies are not necessarily complete, so you can't just add up the lifespans of everyone listed to get the length of time covered.

Generally speaking, the metaphoric parts are the ones the authors of the Bible expected to be taken metaphorically according to the characteristic expressions of that culture. Understanding where this is happening involves comparing the Bible to other works of that culture and other parts of the Bible itself.

Hell is a literal place. It's the graveyard or equivalent.

In fact the Bible doesn't seem to take a position on the age of the earth one way or the other.

However long ago creation was, I don't think God was napping in the interim.

Once again you are leaving the task of interpreting god's word up to humans. Which does not seem to be on an even keel. You are also saying "the authors" like there isn't supposed to be just one. Either the bible is the inspired and direct work of Yahweh or it is a book of bronze age fables.

The bible mentions many animals, none of which appear on the earth prior to 6000 - 10,000 BCE. You know, like dinosaurs?

A great hypothesis for why not would be because the authors had no idea that dinosaurs even walked the earth, or anything about science and technology for that matter.

Or had any knowledge of anything outside of Palestine. The bible might not say the "earth was created in xx/xx/xxxx", but judging by what the bible does not say about most living organisms that are now fossilized, we can safely assume these primitive semi literate sheep headers and fisherman thought the world popped into existence ex nihilo sometime around the bronze age.

I often think that if the bible was indeed the direct works of a divine being, there would be no need to defend the book. I realize we are not reading the book in its original language, but I also realize the bible makes a little to few correct predictions about the earth and our universe. If anyone is going to nitpick around at Genesis, and try to say that it is somehow metaphorical and that the global flood never happened, adam and eve is a figure of speech and the garden of eden is gods allegorical way of keeping us in check, then you are now opening up the entire bible to be taken as nothing more then wish wash and fairy tales.

I don't intend to take "credit" for someone else's post, but that *does* sound like something I would write. In any case, I certainly agree with it. Congrats to the OP as well.