You Are Going to Hell If…
2009 July 11
We atheists are often confronted by Christians claiming that we are going to Hell. Needless to say, atheists do not believe in Hell or Christian mythology, but I thought I would post a few other “sins” that will send you to Hell. Some of them are often ignored or would require a real test of faith.
(often ignored)(Luke 16:18)
(often ignored)
(Matt. 5:22)
(often ignored)
(Matt. 19:24)
(This list is New Testament-based and NOT of my opinion.)
What other sins will send you to the mythological “lake of fire”?
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WOW you go to hell if you do not cut off your hand after committing a sin with it?
If we all did that all men would be missing a hand by the time they reached sixteen.
But what about picking your nose. Surely that is a mortal sin?
Schismism
Actually you only go to hell if you don’t accept Jesus as your savior. All those things are considered sin, but sin does not send you to hell because we are all powerless over sin without God. That is the cornerstone of the Christian faith and to criticize Christians without knowing that makes you look ignorant. You don’t have to accept those beliefs, no one is pulling your arm. But how about you show some class.
I guess I just made up the verses right?
If your God is also the God of Judaism, then you are saying that Jews will not enter Heaven.
It seems rather ironic that his “chosen” people aren’t invited to the Christian elitist party in the sky.
Again, you miss the point. You can point out hundreds of verses that talk about sin. But a single sin does not send you to hell. And whether Jews get to heaven is actually a concept that Christians debate. I don’t pretend I know what God plans are. I don’t pretend I have all the answers. I know there are a lot of Christians that have no idea what they are talking about, but don’t judge the whole philosophy on the actions of some. I know some atheists that don’t know what they are talking about, does that mean all atheists are stupid? There is room for different beliefs in this world, I’m just saying to guide your attacks fairly.
You want fair? Do you realize that Christianity has attacked minority groups over and over throughout it’s invasive and corrupt history? Ask a Jew or a Native American or a Muslim or an atheist or a gay.
Christian philosophy dictates that only believers in Christ will enter Heaven.
Am I right?
How is it that the same God of Jews and Christians would create Heaven for only Christians to enjoy, but exclude his “chosen”?
If your God is one that loves all, why would he only invite the least disciplined, greedy bunch to his kingdom?
The New Testament was compiled to be biased against Jews. You can thank Paul and the Roman Catholics for hijacking your religion.
Paul never met Christ and was a self-appointed apostle.
My conscience is my guide and my conscience is cleared every time I speak out against the oppression of Christianity.
I just can’t seem to find anything I wrote that says, “All Christians…….”
Also Mark, Jesus wasn’t saying that you go to hell if you don’t cut your hand off. He also wasn’t saying that it’s a sin to not cut your hand off.
He was speaking in figurative language. He’s saying, cut the thing off that causes you to sin out of your life. For instance, if you have a friend encouraging you to do drugs, then stop hanging around that friend, or at least stop agreeing with him.
These scriptures you’ve given were all taken out of context.
It’s called “figurative language” when it doesn’t mesh with modern Christian living.
Does the story of Adam and Eve also use “figurative language”?
Does the story of the resurrection of Christ use “figurative language”?
How convenient.
Well, Mark used the Bible as the argument, do you consider it invalid?
What’s yours?
That’s funny, your Jesus never worried about “class” or appearance.
Was “throwing out the moneychangers” a class act?
By the way, my knowledge of Christianity exceeds many of it’s followers.
“If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life maimed than with two hands to go into hell, where the fire never goes out.”
” And if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into hell,”
literalists would contend that just as there is a literal physical body resurection that is taken to heaven (instead of just a soul entering heaven) these passages also are literally true.
just because YOUR brand of Christianity does not accept these things does not make it that ALL Christianity does not believe these things.
to criticize an atheist without knowing that makes you look ignorant.
Ouch! Watch out!
going over the list…with the “brand” of christianity i was taught as a child i can only see three sins listed and the title being the 4th, but many christians would easily say all of them are sins
they definitely believe in an eye for an eye, although if it were taken literally many would be blind by now lol
glutony is a sin… tell that to the many overweight christians lol
pride also…. eeeks
There are many other sins listed.
I was trying to emphasize the sins that condemn you to Hell and are in the New Testament, which gives a Christian less excuses. Therefore, less loopholes.
“Going to Hell” or being “condemned to Hell” is rarely seen in the Old Testament, Jews do not use this threat to convert. Only their greedy, invasive counterpart, Christianity threatens.
Damnation became much more apparent in the New Testament, since Christianity is for less disciplined people who need constant herding. History proves this.
true, i had a christian judge and damn me once
then i told him judge not lest ye be judged and
he who judges has already been judged
cant remember if thats the whole quote
Since they are from the bible they were likely made up and anyways it is all bullshit.
I understand why you ‘joke’ about Christians. We’ve brought it on ourselves. We profess to be followers of Christ. But instead…we really just follow our own desires. How sad. Not ’sad’ for us…the Christians…we deserve it. But how sad for the gentle being whose nature is LOVE. We find it hard to understand that there exists a real emotion that is selfless, giving, desires only good for ALL, and has to….absolutely has to…give that LOVE away. Love, when its real, cannot remain within itself. It HAS to be given away. The precious heavenly Daddy, after He made us, then honestly and generously allowed Eve to meet Lucifer….the destroyer…the one whose heart and nature is HATE. The event concluded with Adam, Eve, and all descended from them throughout all generations…because they now know both ‘good’ and ‘evil’…..having the freedom of choice. We ‘know’ in our hearts that this perfect creature known as man…is more than happenstance. We are part of something so explosive….it can’t be stopped. Life is real. And death is real. We are given by God this incredible POWER of CHOICE. How sad that we professing Christians have not done what was purposed for us by the precious Daddy….to simply be bearers of His goodness. And to freely GIVE His LOVE to a hurting world. How very sad.
Man is not a perfect creature (as you say)….and hearts don’t know anything. It’s for pumping blood, not thinking.
And the creation story is a myth, not fact.
@ internet elias – I don’t understand people who troll these sites commenting anonymously? Just seeking out ways to be offended. Allowing their self-righteousness and condescension to seep into their words.
Just love the humor.
American Christianity has gotten a free ride of honesty and respect in our society for so long that they do not realize what questioning their belief system is. Questioning to them is a threat. Freethinking is a threat to the society’s religious majority.
Someday they will not be the king of religions, mostly due to the hypocrisies they commit.
If all I talk about is “God’s love”, but my works are of hatred….thinking people get tired of it will move on.
Atheists are coming out of our closets and theists are leaving their churches/denominations and redefining themselves as “non-religious”. This is happening due to hypocrisy, anti-gay sentiment and just plain common sense.
The churches are becoming more aggressive in compelling new members by introducing new ideas of evangelism and trying to get more of their rhetoric into legislation.
Amen brother. Er, I mean great post Mark!
Boggartblog, I assume that you are referring to the “sin” of masturbation here, you might be interested to know that this practice is nowhere condemned in the Bible. The nearest thing to condemning it is in the story of Onan who’s brother died without leaving an heir. Under the Jewish customs of the time, it was Onans duty to impregnate his brother’s widow to provide his brother with an heir. Onan lay with his brother’s widow but withdrew at the last moment and spilled his seed on the ground, for this piece of naughtiness God struck Onan dead. It is easy to see how religious folk could adapt this story into being about masturbation but it clearly is not. As for wasting seed, anyone who knows anything about biology will realise that it is impossible not to, every male, in his life time, produces enough sperm to re-populate the entire planet to its current level from scratch. Oh and Biblically, you girls are completely in the clear.
Yeah, I’ve always wondered why the bibles published in America haven’t simply deleted Matt. 19:24.
Or…
! Timothy 6:10
being rich isn’t a sin. Loving money is a sin. It’s written there in plain English.
Mark 10:25
THAT pretty much sums it up, doesn’t it?
@ Mark:
Well… not if you pureed him first
Uhh. Scrub that
. I meant to say the camel would pass through okay if you pureed it (passed it through a blender) first.
As per Galatians 5:
19Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness,
20Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies,
21Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.
—–
In Christian churches, sedition, strife, envy, revellings, and hatred are quite common. If there is a God and a hell, most Christians will meet there.
BTW, what the heck is “variance?” Are all statisticians going to hell?
Lorena,
KJV translates “variance” as discord, so presumably it means to vary in your position from that of the church leader/pastor/deacon/dictator/whatever. So if you are in “variance” you will have to go to hell, as well, it seems. It seems that only perfect, robotic, unthinking beings will be allowed into heaven. Which would probably explain why heaven would be a perfect place, but not necessarily a desirable place to be at.
Also women can be saved for just having babies. So, it follows that a woman not having children will go to hell.
Good point!
Once again you fail to understand what you’re reading. Having children isn’t the thing that saves you.
1 Timothy 2:14 – “she shall be saved in childbearing, if they continue in faith and charity and holiness with sobriety”
It’s not saying that the childbearing will save her, it’s saying that continuing in faith and charity and holiness with sobriety will save her. The childbearing refers to the fact that womens punishment for her sin was to experience painful childbearing.
I’ve had two kids, so I guess I’m heaven-bound.
Oh, shit. There’s no heaven.
I can’t have kids. I guess I’m going to hell.
That would be the case if I believed in heaven. That would mean I would have to believe in god, and I don’t. So there is no heaven, there is no hell.
When I die, I become dust and old bone. My consciosness ceases to excist.
Mark wrote: “Someday they will not be the king of religions,…”
And when that happens watch how the conservative church-state separation-deniers get all liberal about the true intent of the founders as they complain about the tyranny of the new majority!
Oh Christians already are complaining about being oppressed by the dominant culture in places where the dominant culture is not them. They always have. The evangelicals are whining about being oppressed in Mexico (remember, people who profess some form of Roman Catholicism are not Christians). There is the oppression of Christians in many Muslim countries (cry me a river).
And of course they are horribly put upon (eye roll) in China which very sensibly bans proselytizing by foreigners outside of Hong Kong and Macao and attempts to keep the existing Chinese Christian community on the mainland on a pretty short lead. One thing that most non-Christian civilizations have learned, often too late, is that you ignore the Christians at your own peril and you never ever trust them.
As for as which is worse, Christianity or Islam, I don’t see much to choose between them. Really, up until the Enlightenment societies in the West were often characterized by by a degree of theocracy that would not seem out of place in the modern Middle East. And in the kind of Christian, God-based society that Fundamentalists envision for America the way women, gays, atheists, and religious minorities would soon be treated would probably be little different than the way they are treated in Iran.
Wow! I thought this was a wonderfully funny post but the road down to reply ville was laden with some very upset peeps! For me, not having a sense of humor while bopping around on this planet is hell personified.
I always find it interesting that the religious visit this site and then become upset…what in the world are they hoping to find? And what are they hoping to accomplish by becoming so very angry about another person’s way of living/thinking/being?
Intolerance runs deeper in Christianity than any other religion. Islam takes second place.
That photo looks familiar…. that’s a still from Orgazmo, isn’t it?
I don’t know. I just found it and gave it a silly caption.
As a believer, I appreciate your tough questions, Mark.
If more believers were willing to get past being offended and actually do some soul searching, they would find that their relationship with the Infinite would be expanded and enriched by not taking their faith at face value. Faith doesn’t have to be blind.
Doing so, however, requires a willingness to get out of your comfort zone about one’s beliefs about God. Not everyone is willing to do this, yet it is what Jesus taught (for those who believe he existed, of course). Unlike many of his followers, Jesus advocated keeping an open mind.
Anyway, keep it up.
Peace be with you,
Lee
http://www.amessagefromgod.org
P.S.: Have you given any thought to my other request for your take on The Big Bang?
Mark, unfortunately, ‘Christians’ are not taught tact and the ability to keep one’s mouth shut. It’s not about who is going to hell.
I do not teach that, nor do I allow those around me to say such things.
I’m sure everyone could use a little more tact in their way of communication, including myself.
–
I ask, WHY waste your time arguing with Programmed Religious Robots who do not even have a clue they were, much less they still are programmed?
Many, to most of the millions of Americans (and others) who WERE religious BEFORE we successfully De-Programmed ourselves now realize we really WERE programmed. Of course, we did NOT realize we had been, and were programmed until after we were able to De-Program ourselves.
Those PRR’s who come to Atheist website’s to give us crap are not interested in learning or they would be asking intelligent questions. Nope, they are here as they are so totally clueless they actually believe their very simple, illogical and irrational arguments will cause us to simply “see the light”
They do this as they wallow in the deep dark caves of ignorant religious belief with no idea how totally stupid the entire Christian story is to those of us who are no longer programmed.
And MARK, I also ask why YOU, & the other Atheists who post here, DO NOT CAPITALIZE the first letter of the words ATHEIST & AGNOSTIC?
The non-capitialization of these words is just another method the Christians (and others) use to put us down. Thus, I URGE ALL Atheists, Agnostics and others who believe in FAIRNESS to ALWAYS Capitalize Atheist and Agnostic!
THANK YOU!
I think a distinction should be made between being a “believer” and being a “zealot.”
Not all Christians are zealots, and a number of them are both thoughtful and empathetic to the human condition. Mother Teresa comes to mind. As does Dr. Martin Luther King. By the way, if you haven’t read the MLK essay “A Tough Mind and a Tender Heart” you are TRULY missing out.
http://books.google.com/books?id=errxX4tzSMcC&pg=PA13&lpg=PA13&dq=a+tough+mind+and+a+tender+heart+mlk&source=bl&ots=__aVw2wwdf&sig=L-juCiqXMO3mG95Sx0xTURBwDOw&hl=en&ei=8EpbSuW9F46uMK2i_UI&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=8
Likewise, not all zealots are Christians. Some of the remarks here smack of zealotry. Athiests can be zealots, too.
We’re all human. We all should be able to get along. In fact, we HAVE to, if the species is ever to survive, let alone evolve. As the wise scribes of the hit show “LOST” write: “Live Together or Die Alone.”
Lee
http://www.amessagefromgod.org
Mother Teresa caused suffering to many in the name of religion because she wanted to believe but could not:
“Where is my faith?” she wrote. “Even deep down… there is nothing but emptiness and darkness… If there be God — please forgive me.”
From what I can tell, the theocratic right does not want the country to survive, so I think that you need to convince your peers to heed your advice about cooperation.
Mark, this is a highly uneducated attempt at disproving God. The guy told you already that sin DOES NOT send you to hell, only rejecting Jesus christ. You are showing yourself to be unintelligent. Sin is merely something that takes us further and further away from God. We must repent for them and move on. But sin does not send you to hell.
Re-read EACH of the scriptures you read, NONE of them say that those things will send you to hell, they just say that they are SINS. It is very low-class to pick and choose scriptures to make the Bible look bad, without even knowing what you’re talking about. You can do better.
Also, God wants the Jews to go to heaven. However, they rejected his son, Jesus, and claimed that he was NOT the son of God, and that the son of God was yet to come. However, Christians came from Judaism, so God’s chosen people ARE going to heaven, the ones that accept his son as their savior that is.
This is not an attempt to disprove God, but rather an attempt to point out Christian hypocrisy (as if it were not so obvious).
Islam was also from Hebrew roots. Are they included as “chosen”?
Christians gave up almost everything in connection with Judaism… dietary laws, Yom Kippur and took up idolatry(praying to graven images), gluttony and greed.
“The guy told you already that sin DOES NOT send you to hell, only rejecting Jesus christ”
So that guy is the one who makes the decisions about your religion? Remember, Jesus was originally a gift from God that never left the heavens. Mark was the first gospel and it was originally a parable. The rest of the gospels were based on Mark. The Pauline Epistles consider Christ as a heavenly being only and do not consider him to have a been a flesh and blood entity.
I’m a child abuse victim (teaching religion to your kids is child abuse no less than physically damaging them), but I had trouble believing all of the lies told to me. I originally wanted to believe. However, Jesus is fictional, so why should I believe in him and waste my time?
Well, Athensguy, it’s perfectly okay if you don’t believe Jesus existed.
However, his teachings (or the ones attributed to him in The Bible), are EXTREMELY practical when it comes to living a fulfilling life. Aside from any “after death cookies” one might get, there is a very practical reason to forgive. There’s a solid principle behind “as you sow, so shall you reap.” There’s a useful philosophy in being kind and helpful to the poor and downtrodden among us. These are good things to practice regardless of whether one believes in God or not.
Of course, Jesus was not the only one to teach these principles. He wasn’t even the first. But that doesn’t make them any less useful.
One other thing to remember about Jesus: According to the scriptures, Jesus himself wasn’t down so much with organized religion, as he felt it was being used to oppress people instead of to uplift them. In that regard, Jesus had a lot in common with many of the athiests who post here — including the ones who don’t believe he ever walked the earth.
Lee
http://www.amessagefromgod.org
I stumbled on your website while researching something else. You have taken bible verses and made them too simple. Some of the verses you quoted were examples of how to love and treat others while making sure you live the same way. It is not a sin to be rich. It is how you got your money and hopefully help others with it. God does not care how rich you are, who you marry or what job you take. It is all about how you live and what is in your heart. And even if you make terrible mistakes, He will forgive you if your heart is true. No one should confront you with “You are going to hell if……. Instead they can show you by example what it is like following God because it is not just here that matters. It is eternity.