Steve00007 is pretty obviously bs-ing.

I'm not surprised at all. When your idea of a Christian is delivered to you by CNN, and consists of marginal, nominal and extremist elements on the fringe of Christendom, who all thump their Bibles, beat their wives and chew straw all day long, you would rather burn than be that, for sure.

Somehow "compassionate" has become synonymous with liberal secularism. I know exactly how this happened. It's all politics. The church, in its battle for influence, has been forced to align itself in many quarters with libertarian/conservative political elements.

I say "forced" because, though Christian intentions may align with the compassion-based intentions of the left, the left supports a huge, secular government program, and a big government not only weakens the influence the church has, but in recent times, offers an alternative psychical program.

Personally, I think Christians need to re-evaluate our associations and begin to talk about where we should stand regarding political movements.


From the Didache:

I've heard it, too. But usually it's a very flippant comment. The picture in their head is the heaven of harps and boredom, and hell is "fun" because you can do what you want.

FYP. I'm familiar with this sort of jokey response e.g.



But this is very different from steve0007's claim. He says that "most" atheists would knowingly choose eternal torture in hell, even with his attempts to explain how bad that would be. I call bs on that claim.

I thought if Christainty is true hell is just non existence in a trash dump outside Jerusalem. That sounds better then what those crazy angles do praising God over and over and over.... for eternity. I guess if i didnt have to do that id chose heaven but id still want an off switch since no one seems to know what its like for humans. Tough call. Non existence or eternal who knows what.

Maybe we're reading it differently. In the first sentence, I read a flippancy in it. For example, we've had lawdude who make various arguments along the lines of "Even if heaven were real, it would be stupid." For example:

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/13...oring-1365625/

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/13...awful-1156795/

A quick google search reveals links like:

http://www.atheismresource.com/2010/...f-it-were-real

http://freethoughtblogs.com/greta/20...eaven-is-evil/

It's not quite explicitly claiming that they "they would rather burn in Hell for all eternity than become a Christian" but it's an explicit rejection of heaven if it were real for reasons pertaining to the nature of heaven.

The second sentence reads similarly to me. Being "unimpressed" sounds more to me like rejecting the idea that hell would be a certain way, and instead substituting a different picture in place of it.

I could easily be reading my own experiences into that.

With respect you are just getting further and further off the subject, which is a bit odd given I've already explained the difference between your claim and steve's. Again, "Heaven sounds boring/evil" and/or "Hell might not be that bad" is not the same claim as "Hell is the worst thing imaginable but I would choose it over heaven".

Also, did you actually read those blog posts? Greta Christina's, for example, doesn't even touch on a "rejection of heaven if it were real", but is a criticism of using the promise of heaven as a tool for social control.

As I said, I could be reading my own experiences into it. When I read it, I don't take the characterization as being intended as strictly literal. I quoted the post that I thought was being referenced (which incidentally did not include "most" or "eternal torture" as part of the description).

Here's the way those conversations play out in my mind:

Christian: But if you don't become a Christian, you'll go to hell and be burned for all eternity.
Atheist: Whatever. It's not like heaven is all that great, either.

I have serious doubts that the atheist in the conversations Steve might be referencing has truly accepted the characterization of hell as part of the conversation.

No. I spent 30 seconds searching and grabbed the first two links whose titles seemed relevant.

It's funny seeing Norm Macdonald in that picture after what happened with him on twitter earlier this year when he admitted to reading the bible. I can't find a link, but he got in an exchange with many people regarding his belief in God. He broke the golden celebrity rule of not exchanging words with twitter followers, and many laughs were had.

Also couldn't help to notice they snuck Patton Oswalt in there. Remove him Seth Green and Harry Potter and then you've got something.

I didn't make any assumptions like that.

I did not say most atheists hold this position. I said I've seen many atheists say that. I've seen so many statements from atheists online that "many" could easily be far less than 50 percent (or it could be more obviously; there's no way I could guess what the percentage would be).

I don't think it's a position that's uncommon.

Seem pretty literal. Here's his direct quote:

This wasn't some throwaway non-literal sentence, but two full paragraphs of anecdote spending some time confirming exactly what he meant.

Well, ok, technically he said "many" not "most" but are you seriously saying that "burn in hell for all eternity" (his exact words) isn't a direct synonym for "eternal torture" (my words)???

I see.

That's the response I usually read on this forum. But another response I've seen around the internet is choosing Hell is the right thing to do because the atheist thinks God is so horrifying. When people hold that position, it's hard to get them to admit that choosing Heaven would be the better choice. They will argue that they are doing the right thing when they reject God.

Edit: These people often make other claims like "Heaven would be Hell" and they might also say that they can't fool God anyway, so they would go to Hell.

My experiences are different from Aaron's. And yes, I'm talking about Hell with fire and torture for all eternity. I actually wasn't expecting people to be surprised with what I said.

Edit: Of course, there are many atheists that would also pick Heaven because they would feel like there is a gun to their heads, but that point is so obvious that I didn't think it was worth mentioning.

They are wrong but for a different reason. They wont get a choice.

If Yahweh is real. And i think the God of the bible is an ass. Ill be going to hell since God knows i dont care for him. I wont get a choice to pick the penthouse over the core of the earth.

Personally this is what i think they mean. Because its what i mean when i say it. But yeah..

Fair enough, you said "many" not "most" (I think I conflated that post with your response to heehaw).

But as someone who is active in many atheist communities and lives in a pretty secular country (I know virtually no IRL Christians) I've never heard anyone say they would choose a Dante-style hell over heaven.

One atheist told me that it would be like worshipping Satan for all eternity, and I think those people would reject the idea that Heaven would be full of unimaginable happiness.

Yes, I'm definitely sure they didn't mean that.


Sure, as a child you were happier. But as an adult, I don't think that believing in Santa Claus will make you as happy as the person that doesn't believe in Santa. You certainly wouldn't be as happy as the child that believes in Santa.

I hear those claims a lot but I don't think it's nearly that simple. There actually are a lot of people that delude themselves into believing things that are false, even when the evidence is against them. One example that we can both agree on is the religious person that agrees with many of the claims made by atheists, and decides that they are going to believe anyway because of their blind faith. Richard Dawkins spent some time criticizing those types of people in his book.

I've also seen many irrational comments from sports fans like "I think my team is going to win because I'm going to go with my heart instead of my head."

My point is this: When people change their views or hold on to their views, there is more to it than just looking at the evidence. A lot of people look at the same evidence and come to very different conclusions on a lot of issues.

You originally said:

Now it seems you are clarifying that they believe that rejecting the Christian god is morally correct, despite the consequences for their self-interest. If this is true, then your appeal to the negative consequences for their self-interest comes off as pretty morally repugnant tbh. Essentially, it seems like you are saying to them that self-interest should trump morality.

Here's one link where a few atheists say they would pick Hell:

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/in...5135520AAXUNuB

Here are a couple of responses:

Yahoo Answers? Really? So your sample is 13 yr olds?

I just clicked on the link for their "Religion and Spirituality" section and here are some of the questions on the first page:

• Evolutinists monkeys are having babies so how come people don't have babies like monkeys?
• If Evolution is true won't there be people in the Zoo? well?
• Would it have been simpler to put many gods on one table with camera crew and let them debate?
• Why does God make new people come from sex?
• Why did God communicate with a dice type communication called Urim and Thumim?
• Why do Christians think George Washington wasn't real?

Given that you acknowledge that RGT atheists (mostly 20-30 yr old graduates) don't hold this opinion and your go-to example is from a forum populated mostly by children, maybe you should consider better sources for understanding contemporary atheist thought.

Yes, that is their position.

If they are right that God is so horrifying, then to me both choices are immoral and it's a choice between the lesser of two evils. I constantly hear claims like "Only a monster would choose to torture people for an eternity," so it seems inconsistent to me for someone to say that choosing Hell is suddenly a good thing in this case, unless they had extremely compelling reasons to do it. Is there something wrong with that thinking?

All of this is irrelevant. Look at the quotes I showed and they don't look like quotes from little kids. And that was just something that popped up on the first page when I looked. The fact that people ask dumb questions on that site is irrelevant to how people would respond to this question. You're using fallacious reasoning when you imply that because the site is bad, then all the responses on the site are suddenly not worth reading.

I once started a thread on theologyweb about 4 years ago in the apologetics 301 section asking about this. The site seems to be down right now. If someone could somehow provide a link I'd like to search for it.

I think you're really overreacting over something that isn't even a big deal.

The compelling reason to choose hell, in this argument, is morality.

P1) One ought to do what is morally required, regardless of self interest.
P2) It is morally required to oppose those who torture others
P3) God tortures others
C1) One ought to oppose God.

Leaving aside any is-ought concern the conclusion follows from the premises, so which premise do you deny? Presumably P1?

I clicked on the same link and while there are some really stupid questions (and some I've even seen asked by adults), there are questions that aren't nearly as bad, and some of the questions look like questions I've seen on this site.

Oh, really.

The first quote you cited is by someone who also responded like this to the question "Lil wayne song title shorty wanna thug?"

The second person you quoted has his/her profile on private.

The third person ("GothGirl13) you quoted is a contributor to the following questions:

• Problem at new school?
• Why didn't he text me back.?
• Im gonna be the new kid?
• Is the tooth fariy real?

It might be fallacious if I had presented a deductive argument, but as I haven't you are just throwing around a term you don't seem to understand.

We get a lot of trolls in here, I've not seen you before, and you are making some oddball claims and backing them up with terrible sources.