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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I guess I’m more agnostic than true atheist since I’m holding out that 1% hope there is something more.

But what I’ve told my kids is that religion is how people explained the world around them before we had science, and where you were born affects which religion you were taught.

We’ve also spent a lot of time talking about the creation of the universe 300B years ago, how crazy it is that matter turned into conscious life, the statistical improbability that the earth was made to support life and that they were born as them, etc.

You can still look at the science and appreciate the “miracle” of it all. And my kids know that I don’t have any more answers to the unknowns than they do. 1 kid is practical and even questioned Santa from a young age. He’s had a pretty skeptical outlook on God from early on. Whereas my younger kid is much more creative/spiritual and open to the unknown existing. He will talk about maybe God is like X or like Y.

I support both of them in coming up with their own thoughts on the matter. I think indoctrinating them that there is no God is just as harmful as shoving religion down their throats. What they believe is up to them.[/quote]

I don’t think raising your own children in your family’s faith tradition is “shoving religion down their throats.” Children are part of a family, and most families have traditions and beliefs. Parents have the responsibility to raise their children in the manner they believe is a responsible and appropriate.

If a parent does or doesn’t have faith or religious beliefs or traditions, raising children without faith or religious traditions is how their family works, for lack of a better term.

When the children are adults, parents should accept whatever their child and their child’s own family (spouse and kids) decides they want to believe, or accept that their adult child and their adult child’s family is undecided about such matters, or does not have any religious or faith beliefs or traditions.

No one should tell other people how to raise their children. Parents do not have to stop practicing their religion once they become parents, that’s absurd. Parents don’t have to stop being atheist or agnostic once they become parents, but that’s absurd.

People need to stop believing they have any say or authority in the lives of other people’s children. They have zero input into the decisions parents make for their own kids. 
[/quote]

I agree with much of what you say, but not all.  Personally, I think it's crazy to encourage anyone to be religious in a world in which more and more can be explained by science.

Also, I think we do have say and authority over other people's children right now, in that beating your children can and should send you to jail.  I think and hope the time will come when it's not considered OK to fill children's mind full of silly superstitious stuff like, for instance, that if they are good,God will redeem them and send them to everlasting life in heaven .[/quote]

Beating other people is against the law. Police officers can arrest people who are suspected of breaking the law. The accused gets competent legal representation and must be afforded a fair trial. If they are convicted of child abuse, they can be sentenced by the judge based on state sentencing guidelines.

That is not the same as random strangers having responsibility/authority over children. The school nurse has to contact parents to administer otc pain relief medication to children; that’s how little authority even a school professional who works with children has over children.

You don’t sound open minded at all about the Christian faith, yet judge people who aren’t open minded about atheism or other religions as hypocritical bigots. You are just as close minded and bigoted as they are.

You also are incorrect about Christianity; God doesn’t “send people to heaven if they are good.” That’s probably something someone indoctrinated you into believing, something that is false.

Pot, meet kettle.[/quote]

Pp did not say that God sent people to heaven if they are good.  They said that some people believe that.  Maybe you don't.  Good.[/quote]

“when it's not considered OK to fill children's mind full of silly superstitious stuff like, for instance, that if they are good,God will redeem them and send them to everlasting life in heaven.”-pp

Can someone post scripture from the Christian bible that says people have to be good so God will send them to heaven? Who believes that? No Christian I know believers that?

Who do you know that believes that, pp?[/quote]

Even if they don't say exactly that, it's an implied message.  A more overt message is the one that states that bad people (subjectively bad, though, because for some people being bad means people that don't BELIEVE a certain thing) will go to hell.  Evangelicals describe it as a lake of fire...for all eternity.   Young children actually believe this message, are shown pictures, and if you don't think that is child abuse,  coercive control, then I don't know what to tell you.   The threat of hell follows people their whole lives, even torturing people that leave the faith long after they no longer believe in a god.  They still have emotional reactions to the thoughts of it because the message was laid down in their brains when they were small children.  
[/quote]

How can a loving God send someone to hell?

To address the question of how a loving God can send someone to hell, we need to define a few terms and, most likely, correct a few assumptions. We must first define the term loving. Our culture tends to think of “love” as a completely non-confrontational, tolerant approval of whatever the loved one wants to do. But that is not a biblical definition. Love, according to the Bible, is goodwill and benevolence shown in self-sacrifice and an unconditional commitment to the loved one. Love is action promoting the well-being of another person.

Implied in the question “how can a loving God send someone to hell?” is the assumption that sending someone to hell is unloving on God’s part. But God’s very nature is love (1 John 4:16). He cannot do anything that is unloving because His every action and every thought is an expression of His nature. God alone loves in the highest sense of the word; He loves with perfect freedom and objectivity.

If we say that God is somehow wrong to punish unrepentant sinners in the manner He has chosen, then we have declared that we are more loving than God is—and wiser and fairer and more righteous. But it is impossible for us to be more loving than Love Himself. And our feeble notions of what is “wise” and “fair” will always fall short of God’s perfection.

Another assumption we must guard against in asking the question “how can a loving God send someone to hell?” concerns the word send. Yes, God is the one—the only one—who sends people to hell (Luke 12:5; Revelation 20:15). However, when someone is sent to hell, it is not a unilateral action on God’s part, and the person being sent is not a passive victim of circumstance. God has given human beings freedom to participate in their life choices and eternal destinations (John 3:16–18). God has entrusted personal responsibility to each of us. And, in His love, God sent His only begotten Son into the world to save sinners. “God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8).

“How can a loving God send someone to hell?” Romans 1:18–20 lays the foundation for the answer: “The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse” (emphasis added).

There are several key points in this passage. First, people actively “suppress the truth.” Everyone has been given enough truth to know about God and surrender to Him, but they willfully refuse to accept the truth. They love darkness rather than light (John 3:19). Dr. Thomas Nagel, an atheistic professor of philosophy and law, has said, “It isn’t just that I don’t believe in God and, naturally, hope that I’m right in my belief. It’s that I hope there is no God! I don’t want there to be a God; I don’t want the universe to be like that” (The Last Word, Oxford University Press, 1997, p. 130).

Second, Romans 1:19 states that God has “made [the truth about God] plain to them.” In other words, the Creator took the initiative to make His truth obvious to everyone. History has proved this since time began, as every culture and civilization has sought an understanding of a Creator to whom they owe allegiance. The innate understanding that God exists is due to our being created in the image of God (Genesis 1:27).

Third, Romans 1:20 says that people “have no excuse for not knowing God” (NLT). There is no defense, no justification for continuing to reject God’s offer of salvation in Christ. In love, God gave each of us enough truth to turn toward Him rather than away from Him.

When considering the question “how can a loving God send someone to hell?” we must not try to separate God’s love from His justice and righteousness. God’s attributes exist together, and they cannot be plucked out and made to stand alone. God is love, and that shapes His justice; at the same time, His justice affects His expressions of love. Justice requires adequate payment for crimes committed; love requires the extension of grace to the criminal. The cross shows both justice and love. As Jesus died on the cross, He bore the punishment for sin that justice demanded, and He extended the grace of forgiveness to sinners. Thus, both the justice and love of God were at work. “Mercy and truth have met together; Righteousness and peace have kissed” (Psalm 85:10, NKJV).

The question “how can a loving God send someone to hell?” has a logical counterpart: “how can a just God send someone to heaven?” The answer to both questions is, again, the cross. For those who believe in Christ and accept His loving sacrifice on their behalf, God’s justice falls on Jesus. For those who turn away from Christ and reject His sacrifice, God’s justice falls on them.

Hell was originally created for the devil and his angels (Matthew 25:41). When humans joined the devil’s rebellion against God, hell became their fate, too. But God, in His love, provided a way of escape. He proved His love at the cross of Christ. Those who are in Christ have been forgiven of their sin by the grace of God. But those who reject Christ are spurning God’s love and refusing His offer of salvation. If we decline the payment offered by another, we must pay the price ourselves, and “the wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23). Sinners are sent to hell, in spite of God’s love, because they reject God’s loving provision of a Savior.

Jesus revealed the heart of the Father when He lamented those who spurned salvation: “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing” (Matthew 23:37; see also Isaiah 5:1–7 and Hosea 7:13). Hell does not negate God’s love any more than heaven negates God’s justice. “So we are Christ’s ambassadors; God is making his appeal through us. We speak for Christ when we plead, ‘Come back to God!’” (2 Corinthians 5:20, NLT).

https://www.gotquestions.org/loving-God-send-someone-hell.html

^this is what Christianity teaches. If you don’t believe in Christianity and don’t believe in God, you do not believe this.

People have a right to believe this, and people have a right not to believe this. If you don’t believe it, you also don’t have to worry about people who do believe it.

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