Why don't you believe in God?
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Anonymous
| I do believe in God, but NOT in the Bible. |
Anonymous
Why? |
Anonymous
DP here. They are two different things. God -- the supreme being, is not just Christian or Jewish (iw, the Bible), but is god for many different religions. Plus, you don't have to belong to any religion to believe in God. You can just believe that there's something "up there" looking over us, without being part of an organized group of worshippers of any particular god. |
Anonymous
I understand everything you posted but that does not address the question. So I will ask you also: Why? Why do you believe this? Not what, but why? |
Anonymous
I don't believe it, just trying to explain why some people might. an additional answer might be: Why not? I find that a lot of people who believe in god figure that SOMETHING must have "started it all" or they just have a feeling that they are born with, or noticed along the way -- that something is watching over them. |
Anonymous
| I don’t need false comforts to me a good human. |
Anonymous
Good humans don’t think they are better than others, nor do they consider themselves superior to their fellow man. |
Anonymous
Some religious people think they are better than people who don't believe in god. They think that non-believers are evil, misguided and are going to suffer in hell for eternity |
Anonymous
People don’t post those things here. Religious people here are respectful of other people. |
Anonymous
Many are. As are many atheists here. But not all, of either position. |
Anonymous
You can be respectful and still think people are evil and misguided. Some Christians (not all) are taught that people who do not accept Jesus as their savior and who do not follow certain rules of the church will go to hell. |
Anonymous
The hell of Swahili mythology is called kuzimu, and belief in it developed in the 7th and 8th century under the influence of Muslim merchants at the East African coast. It is imagined as a very cold place. In Serer religion, acceptance by the ancestors who have long departed is as close to any heaven as one can get. Rejection and becoming a wandering soul is a sort of hell for one passing over. The souls of the dead must make their way to Jaaniw (the sacred dwelling place of the soul). Only those who have lived their lives on earth in accordance with Serer doctrines will be able to make this necessary journey and thus be accepted by the ancestors. Those who can't make the journey become lost and wandering souls, but they do not burn in "hell fire.” According to the Yoruba mythology, there is no hellfire. Wicked people (guilty of e.g. theft, witchcraft, murder, or cruelty) are confined to Orun Apaadi (heaven of potsherds), while the good people continue to live in the ancestral realm, Orun Baba Eni (heaven of our fathers). With the rise of the cult of Osiris during the Middle Kingdom the "democratization of religion" offered to even his humblest followers the prospect of eternal life, with moral fitness becoming the dominant factor in determining a person's suitability. At death a person faced judgment by a tribunal of forty-two divine judges. If they had led a life in conformance with the precepts of the goddess Maat, who represented truth and right living, the person was welcomed into the heavenly reed fields. If found guilty the person was thrown to Ammit, the "devourer of the dead" and would be condemned to the lake of fire. The person taken by the devourer is subject first to terrifying punishment and then annihilated. These depictions of punishment may have influenced medieval perceptions of the inferno in hell via early Christian and Coptic texts. Purification for those considered justified appears in the descriptions of "Flame Island", where humans experience the triumph over evil and rebirth. For the damned complete destruction into a state of non-being awaits but there is no suggestion of eternal torture; the weighing of the heart in Egyptian mythology can lead to annihilation. The Tale of Khaemwese describes the torment of a rich man, who lacked charity, when he dies and compares it to the blessed state of a poor man who has also died. Divine pardon at judgment always remained a central concern for the ancient Egyptians. The hells of Asia include the Bagobo "Gimokodan" (which is believed to be more of an otherworld, where the Red Region is reserved who those who died in battle, while ordinary people go to the White Region) and in Dharmic religions, "Kalichi" or "Naraka". According to a few sources, hell is below ground, and described as an uninviting wet or fiery place reserved for sinful people in the Ainu religion, as stated by missionary John Batchelor. The Sumerian afterlife was a dark, dreary cavern located deep below the ground, where inhabitants were believed to continue "a shadowy version of life on earth".[34] This bleak domain was known as Kur, and was believed to be ruled by the goddess Ereshkigal. All souls went to the same afterlife, and a person's actions during life had no effect on how the person would be treated in the world to come. The souls in Kur were believed to eat nothing but dry dust and family members of the deceased would ritually pour libations into the dead person's grave through a clay pipe, thereby allowing the dead to drink. The hells of Europe include Breton mythology's "Anaon", Celtic mythology's "Uffern", Slavic mythology's "Peklo", Norse mythology's Náströnd, the hell of Sami mythology and Finnish "Tuonela" ("manala"). In classic Greek mythology, below heaven, Earth, and Pontus is Tartarus, or Tartaros (Greek Τάρταρος, deep place). It is either a deep, gloomy place, a pit or abyss used as a dungeon of torment and suffering that resides within Hades (the entire underworld) with Tartarus being the hellish component. In the Gorgias, Plato (c. 400 BC) wrote that souls of the deceased were judged after they paid for crossing the river of the dead and those who received punishment were sent to Tartarus. As a place of punishment, it can be considered a hell. The classic Hades, on the other hand, is more similar to Old Testament Sheol. The Romans later adopted these views. Judaism does not have a specific doctrine about the afterlife, but it does have a mystical/Orthodox tradition of describing Gehinnom. Gehinnom is not hell, but originally a grave and in later times a sort of Purgatory where one is judged based on one's life's deeds, or rather, where one becomes fully aware of one's own shortcomings and negative actions during one's life. According to Jewish teachings, hell is not entirely physical; rather, it can be compared to a very intense feeling of shame. People are ashamed of their misdeeds and this constitutes suffering which makes up for the bad deeds. When one has so deviated from the will of God, one is said to be in Gehinnom. This is not meant to refer to some point in the future, but to the very present moment. The gates of teshuva (return) are said to be always open, and so one can align his will with that of God at any moment. Being out of alignment with God's will is itself a punishment according to the Torah. Maimonides declares in his 13 principles of faith that the hells of the rabbinic literature were pedagogically motivated inventions to encourage respect of the Torah commandements by mankind, which had been regarded as immature. Instead of being sent to hell, the souls of the wicked would actually get annihilated. Christian Universalists believe in universal reconciliation, the belief that all human souls will be eventually reconciled with God and admitted to heaven. This belief is held by some Unitarian-Universalists. In Islam, jahannam (in Arabic: جهنم) (related to the Hebrew word gehinnom) is the counterpart to heaven and likewise divided into seven layers, both co-existing with the temporal world, filled with blazing fire, boiling water, and a variety of other torments for those who have been condemned to it in the hereafter. In the Quran, God declares that the fire of Jahannam is prepared for both mankind and jinn. After the Day of Judgment, it is to be occupied by those who do not believe in God, those who have disobeyed his laws, or rejected his messengers. "Enemies of Islam" are sent to hell immediately upon their deaths. Not just Christians believe in hell or a hell like place, that bad people are sent to after death for punishment. Why do only Christians get called out? You cannot speak for what Christians believe individually, as beliefs are personal and you don’t actually know what a person or church or denomination believes about these complex issues. Some people believe that only God knows who will be permitted in heaven and who will be sent to hell. And many people believe hell is not a place of fiery torment, but a separation from God. Not a lot of people think that hell is an underground torture chamber with fire and pointy horned demons poking people with pitchforks. If you are an atheist and don’t believe in God, why does this bother you? Are you not secure and confident in your belief there is no God? If Muslim people think I am doomed to their hell because I am Christian, that doesn’t bother me. I am not changing their minds, and I am secure in my beliefs. |
Anonymous
Internally inconsistent… “Ta Biblia” (the books) should never have become a “ton biblion” (the book) as it is used today… |
Anonymous
+1 I’ve been told to my face that I will go to hell. |
Anonymous
I may be missing a lot of posts where Christians are telling other people they are going to burn in hell, but honestly don’t recall seeing those posts here. I see posts from atheists relating that someone in their childhood or a stranger on the street said those words to them. But I don’t see such language here. |