Based on several interactions I’ve had with christians I’ve reached the conclusion that, for many believers, atheists represent a fundamental problem in christian theology. It all comes down to whether a good God would torture people eternally simply because they didn’t believe that God existed. Of course God technically punishes people for their sins, but if he only saves those who believe then really it’s the same thing as punishing someone for not believing. While some have managed to make excuses for God in this regard, most recognize that it would be wrong to punish someone for genuine disbelief only. But God wouldn’t do something immoral, so believers must find some way to justify God’s salvation policy.
If a christian does confront this problem head on, he or she can really only come to two conclusions that fit with their existing beliefs. Firstly they could try to get over their moral instincts and tell themselves that anything God does is good, by definition. This is the definition of might makes right and renders morality meaningless. Alternatively, they could say that the people who are sent to hell actually deserve it. One way this argument could be made is by claiming that everyone actually believes in God, and that atheists and those of other religions have made a concious choice to reject him. This solves the contradiction, and actually has some biblical backing, however it lacks any real world evidence. Furthermore it is incredibly offensive to think that anyone who isn’t christian is lying about their religious beliefs. This position is so offensive and weak that I was shocked when I first heard it. Unfortunately it is a somewhat popular belief. In fact, it’s popularity with people who should know better was what made me realize that atheists were such a problem for christian theology. We essentially back them into a corner, because if a christian admits that moral, genuine atheists exist he or she must recognize that God is immoral, which is a contradiction. Perhaps this is the reason why so many christians are uncomfortable with and around atheists, and why interactions between the two often turn sour. But atheists should be hopeful, because if I’m right one of the best ways to show people that christianity is false is to simply live your life as a good person who doesn’t believe in God. Atheists are a walking, talking refutation of the christian God.
I would like to respectfully disagree and let you know what my Bible says about God and punishment. God doesn’t Punish us, he disciplines us. Just like if I robbed a bank, the consequence would be jail. My discipline would be that I have lost my freedom as a citizen and hopefully, I would have learned from being disciplined to NOT rob another bank when I have served my time. There is a different between discipline and punishment. He doesn’t punish anyone for not believing, he simply is unknown to the unbeliever, so they would not be joining other Christians in heaven. God does nothing immoral, nor does he ever contradict himself. God is loving and he wants to teach me and discipline me. The Bible says if you believe and accept your Lord Jesus Christ, you will be joining him in heaven. If you do not believe in God, why would you think there is a heaven to go to? And why is this an issue to you? I have the holy spirit within me and I do believe in God and heaven and how to get there. I’m not against you for not believing, it would be hard to believe in God without the holy spirt in the first place, so I understand why things in the Bible confuse many. Honestly, it’s like a foreign language without the Holy spirit to guide you to understanding the Word of God. If you renounce God and the Holy spirit, you will not have that understanding.
Cyndi Lu, I have a problem with your reasoning. If your god is the creator of everything and is all knowing how would you claim he has no knowledge of the unbeliever?
If he creates all, he must be responsible for how we turn out. What stopped him from creating man who wouldn’t disbelieve him.
To claim one needs the holy spirit to understand the bible and believe in god is specious. Why wouldn’t an all powerful god spread this holy spirit to everyone? You still don’t succeed in rescuing this god from being an utter failure!
And what is the holy spirit? So there must be unholy spirits as well and where do you draw the line?
What is the point in punishing/ disciplining someone for acting according to his nature which he/she got from this same god. It’s like a teacher feeding his class wrong input and then punishing them for giving him the same answers! You can’t have it both ways, either god exists and is responsible or he doesn’t and we are responsible!
I believe she said the unbeliever has no knowledge of God, because you’re right, it wouldn’t make sense the other way round. The Holy Spirit is part of the trinity, one of the three parts of God. As far as I remember the HS inspires and empowers people to do God’s work. Cyndi, if you’re reading this check out my other comment. I meant to leave it as a reply to yours but it looks like I messed up.
You bring up some good points, thanks for reading!
Just wanted to clarify so that God’s word is clear… Anyone can read the Bible and understand the words they are reading, but to interpret it and accept it as God’s truth, and apply it to you life with no swaying, that is the Holy Spirit. God wants all of us to accept the Holy spirit. It’s your free will and you are not controlled by anyone. You can choose to accept it or not. Yes, I do believe in unholy spirits. Here’s where I draw the line, accept Christ =Holy spirt, renouncing Christ= no Holy spirit.
God doesn’t teach us wrong information, He is always right in His teaching. We as humans have freewill to choose to act according to his will or not. We have a choice in what we say, believe, how we act, etc. I’m not good at doing everything that I’m taught, I wish I was, but I fail the test, daily.
I am not uncomfortable with those not of Christian belief and I have enjoyed learning from your blog. Thank you
I thank you for your respect, I’m well aware of what the Bible says though, I was a very serious christian for most of the time I’ve been alive. I don’t get your distinction between discipline and punishment, especially not in this context. You say unbelievers would not be joining Christians in heaven, so in other words they would go to hell, which is a punishment, and they’d be going there because they didn’t believe. Right?
Discipline implies that there is some kind of purpose to hell, that it helps correct people’s thinking/behavior. But since Hell is a permanent sentence, this can’t be it’s purpose. And punishment without purpose could be more accurately described as torture. No matter how much evil a person does in his life, no one could deserve an eternity of punishment.
I don’t think there is a heaven or a hell to go to. When people tell me I’m going to hell the only thing that concerns me is that so many people seem okay with that and think we deserve it. But I’ll tell you what inspired me to write this post in the first place, there is something I take issue with. I got in a conversation with the wife of a friend, and in it she revealed that she thought I was being dishonest, that I actually believe in God. As I said in this post, the only reason I could think of for her believing that is to justify the idea that I’d be going to hell. Frankly it is aggravating that people who I count among my friends must think less of me in order to have their beliefs make sense.
You only get the Holy Spirit once you already believe, so are you saying you need to believe something before it makes sense to you? And if it is like a foreign language to those without the holy spirit, then can we really be blamed for not becoming christian? You almost seem to be hinting at predestination.
I, like you, think it is important to have discussions with those I disagree with. I do this because I might see a new argument or new evidence that might change my mind. Even so, I would not like posts that I disagreed with. I find it strange that you do so. Anyway, thanks for reading and taking the time to share your thoughts.
I’m NOT ok with this part of what you said, “When people tell me I’m going to hell the only thing that concerns me is that so many people seem okay with that and think we deserve it.” There are hypocritical Christians out there that would say this and feel justified in doing so, I believe that is who you have been talking to.
I’m just clarifying, I wasn’t clear before about discipline/punishment, I was referring to our mistakes/trials. I was making the point that God disciplines us when we rob a bank or lash out towards others. If I went to jail for robbing that bank, that was my consequence/discipline and was my free will choice. It’s not black and white to try and explain in a short paragraph. However the Bible does back up this point.
You get the holy spirit, once you Choose to accept Christ. God promised to give us freewill, and it’s your choice to believe or not, which is what you and I are doing, choosing with our freewill. I went many years without the holy spirt of God and I can tell the difference in my understanding of His word. I stepped out in blind faith and accepted Christ. It’s a choice.
I agree with you here… “Frankly it is aggravating that people who I count among my friends must think less of me in order to have their beliefs make sense.” We have freewill to believe and act as we choose, our friends should love us regardless if we have different beliefs. I’m hurt by that as well.
You can believe it before it all makes sense to you. Faith is believing without seeing. Just as an airplane flies off in the distance, I know it’s there, but I cannot see it. I did it, I stepped out on faith and accepted Christ, immediately I felt my life changing and I understood things I didn’t before. There wasn’t a big fireworks show and the earth didn’t rattle, but I could tell a difference in my peace and knowledge of God after I accepted him as my Lord and savior.
I do understand where you are coming from, with what you are saying. It makes me sad that there are Christians out there hurting you and accepting and acting fine that they think you would go to hell. From what I believe, that makes me horribly sad. I know you are not because you don’t believe, but I do believe and it does make me sad. I don’t know much about the “hell” part of it, honestly, but I know a lot about heaven and God and what he has said about hell. I don’t know where it is or who is there, but I do believe in it and the description of it is in the Bible. I understand that I would not invite a person in my home that didn’t accept me. That doesn’t mean if you don’t agree with me, but accept me. That wouldn’t be safe for me or anyone in my home.
Thanks for having this discussion with me. It seems we could go on all day about it. I do enjoy talking/debating with people I disagree with, it’s a weird part of my personality. I appreciate that we are different beings.
Thank you for the conversation. And thank you as well for giving me your definition of faith. I’ve always understood it to mean that as well, but people have recently tried to make faith mean something else.
If I could just ask you a question before you go…Do you think it’s fair that God selects the people he does? By your own admission, the difference between me and you is that you took a leap of faith and believed in something before you understood it. In other words you believed in something before you could possibly have known that it was true. Do you think that faith is a virtue?
I thank you, for discussing this with me as well.
Do you think it’s fair that God selects the people he does? I have known people on their death beds who have accepted Christ and were saved. They went their entire life not believing, just like so many. There are many people right now as we speak that don’t believe, right now, but they will. I will have to ask God this question one day, but I think He chooses all of us, but we DON’T always choose him and I think the devil is celebrating about this one. God is sad when we don’t accept him, just like many humans are sad when they are not accepted. Of course God is much different than me, I was making a comparison for the purpose of my point. He is sad and my humaness was sad at times, when I wasn’t accepted. He released us to make that choice on our own. That’s my opinion from my belief and understanding.
By your own admission, the difference between me and you is that you took a leap of faith and believed in something before you understood it. ——Yes, I stepped out on faith, I didn’t ignore the possibility that God chose me. It was by my freewill and by faith alone that I CHOSE to accept him.
In other words you believed in something before you could possibly have known that it was true. ——-Yes, I believed before I understood everything.
Your last question about faith is a virtue, has got me thinking today, as I think it is very interesting and has so many points that could be made, but I will make it short. I don’t need evidence to know what I feel in my heart about God. Here are a couple of verses for my reasoning. “Jesus said to him, ‘Because you have seen me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen, and have believed.’” (John 20:29) & “For we are living a life of faith, and not one of sight.” (2 Corinthians 5:7 )
Reblogged this on myatheistlife and commented:
It is a beautiful thing when you manage to put things succinctly and in such a way that there seems no good argument against it.
Here’s some beauty for you… enjoy.
Good post. I think you’ve raised some great questions.
I can’t really think of anywhere in the Bible that talks about those who have sincerely searched and don’t find the arguments or evidence convincing etc. It seems to be there are only two categories of people. Personally I have to take people at their word and answer their questions according to what they tell me; only they can really know what they believe.
You also said “One way this argument could be made is by claiming that everyone actually believes in God, and that atheists and those of other religions have made a concious choice to reject him. This solves the contradiction, and actually has some biblical backing, however it lacks any real world evidence.”
Can you expand on what you mean by ‘lacks any real world evidence’?
I think you are right when you say it has some biblical backing – Romans 1 for example, but i’m not sure what you mean by it.
I think there is a misconception here that people are made right with God by their morality, something like do enough good works, or believe the right things. Christianity has already claimed that people cannot live properly in submission to God anyway, so morality is not the solution. We are inherently unable to live a good life by and to attempt to do so will result in moralism or legalism. Which Jesus also condemns (see the parable of the prodigal son. The older brother is the moralist/legalist who ends up outside the party).
Jesus taught that people needed a new nature, “you must be born again”, the object of which is to love God and love others which is a different thing from simply being moral. People need to repent of licentiousness AND of being moral for self-salvation. God’s salvation policy is based on God’s love, grace (unmerited favour) and mercy not our personal morality; it’s based on the righteousness of Christ and not the righteousness or right-ness of humans. And for those who haven’t had the opportunity to hear about Jesus, we rely on God’s grace and mercy and justice to make the right judgement.
Hi there. I said real world evidence to distinguish from biblical evidence (though I’m not sure I like to call it that). I don’t deny that there are verses in the Bible that support that point of view, and that if you already believe in the authority of the Bible you might consider that evidence. Apart from the Bible I don’t see any evidence that atheists and people of other religions are lying about their religious beliefs, I know I’m not.
I know that the Bible says people are saved by grace and not by works. What I’m trying to argue is that if God is good then salvation ought to be based on merit, and not belief. Especially since so many people believe only because it’s what their parents taught them and they’ve never questioned it, or believe without having done due dilligence. I’m not saying everybody believes for bad reasons, but even when I was a christian I noticed christians who didn’t ask questions. Look at my above conversation about faith, which is essentially believing in something that can’t be confirmed. I can’t help but see salvation as a reward for being credulous. And I know that the Bible says if salvation were based on merit we would all be screwed, but I have a more optimistic view of humanity. I think there are plenty of people who do more good than evil, and so make the world a better place. These people should not be punished, especially not for eternity. From this perspective I conclude that the way the christian God handles salvation is immoral.
also just to add to the conversation, there are just so many problems with the gospel message and sending people to hell. That only one who believes can get into heaven, so that even the utmost of citizens and good people can go to hell all because God allowed them to be raised in another religion. And that hell is an infinite punishment for an finite amount of sins.