Comments on: An Eternal Life For Everyone — Including Atheists

By: Mike Whyte

Mike Whyte — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 00:18:38 +0000

God is not religious, and only He is good! People tend to overlook the fact that mankind is highly infected with SIN, which eventually results in death and separation from God who is in heaven – a place that is free from SIN. We can’t earn or buy our way into heaven. We need to be SIN free. Even in our own world, people with highly infectious diseases are kept isolated from the general public. Whether we are ‘good’ or ‘bad’, we are still infected with SIN and only He can free us from it. God has provided a FREE cure for SIN which relies on our choice of either accepting or rejecting it. If we seek Him with our whole heart, we will find Him, the cure, and eternal life.

By: Rachel

Rachel — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 17:48:09 +0000

Marc:

I’m looking at Matthew 25:31, and I’m having a little trouble finding any reference to beliefs… think you could point me in the right direction?

By: Marc Mullinax

Marc Mullinax — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 11:20:23 +0000

It is better to be merciful in the name of [choose your deity or religious leader], than hateful in the name of Christ.

As Matthew 25:31ff suggests, it is better to act correctly than have “correct” belief. This is the overwhelming message of all religions, except for a segment of Christendom.

By: Richard Wade

Richard Wade — Sat, 27 Dec 2008 23:29:21 +0000

Think about it. If eternal life means being you, you know, the person you’re used to being, with your particular consciousness, your focused awareness, your sense of identity and with your separate personality, then no matter how pleasant it is, after a hundred quintillion years or so you would be so bored, so extremely, extremely “been there, done that,” that you’d be wanting annihilation and oblivion more than anything.

Eternal awareness as an ordinary human mind would be unbearable unless your consciousness was somehow profoundly altered, expanded and “universalized” to be able to go beyond the limits of your human “self.”

But if that were the case, then you wouldn’t be “you” anymore, would you?

By: hoverFrog

hoverFrog — Sat, 27 Dec 2008 21:29:02 +0000

That’s a lot of “ifs” Greta. Assuming the Christian heaven is one where we all sit about praising the big guy then you’d need to drag me there, unless everything I’ve read is false. However you imagine heaven to be is really secondary to how anyone else imagines it. It’s not as if there’s an agreed standard idea for heaven.

By: Greta Christina

Greta Christina — Sat, 27 Dec 2008 21:09:51 +0000

Nearly half also thought that atheists could go to heaven — dragged there kicking and screaming, no doubt…

I realize this is a bit of a tangent… but why would an atheist have to be dragged kicking and screaming to heaven?

Speaking for myself: If, when I die, it turns out I was mistaken about the existence of heaven — but I’m still going there because I was a good person — I see no reason to kick and scream. If there really is a god, and he’s somehow magically figured out how to make an eternal afterlife genuinely blissful and not either a crashing bore or a robot zombie army in which we’ve all lost our personalities, and he’s also somehow magically figured out a way to either have everybody go to heaven or have it be okay that they don’t… then fine. I’m game.

By: Cris

Cris — Sat, 27 Dec 2008 19:21:35 +0000

Frankly, I’m not really surprised by this at all. I’m an atheist at a Catholic high school which, while mostly Catholic, has plenty of students from other Christian denominations. In religion classes and any time religion is brought up in other classes, it’s kind of just assumed that to get to heaven, you have to be a good person. No Jesus required. Perhaps this is because it’s a Catholic, not Protestant school, but with most of my religious friends, this seems to be the prevailing belief. Many of my Christian friends would cite Gandhi as an example of how a good, moral person should act if they want to go to heaven. I know Christians who would disagree with that, but they are not the majority.

By: SnugglyBuffalo

SnugglyBuffalo — Sat, 27 Dec 2008 19:14:09 +0000

I don’t necessarily disagree, but I was only pointing out that “people of no religious faith” is not synonymous with “atheist.”

Whether the survey respondents understood that is just idle speculation without more data.

By: Lynx

Lynx — Sat, 27 Dec 2008 17:57:41 +0000

“People with no religious faith” would likely include deists and the various “spiritual-but-not-religious” types, so the distinction between that and atheism is significant.

Though I see this as a valid distinction I personally doubt that most respondents had that in mind in their answers. Most people are woefully ignorant about people of different faiths and thanks to the bigotry that permeates American society “atheist” is a loaded term. I think it’s much more likely that in questions where people were asked about “people of no religious faith” they thought it sounded harmless enough but in questions that include “atheist” they attached all the unfair negative connotations that come with the term. The very separation of “atheists” from “people of no religious faith” implies that atheists are more than just people of no faith, reinforcing the idea that atheists share other distinct characteristics, ones that almost everyone is taught are very negative.

By: SnugglyBuffalo

SnugglyBuffalo — Sat, 27 Dec 2008 17:17:12 +0000

Nearly half also thought that atheists could go to heaven — dragged there kicking and screaming, no doubt — and most thought that people with no religious faith also could go.

Do tell me that I’m not the only one who found that sentence redundant.

Apparently Atheists are only a little bit worse than people with no religious faith… oh wait! Same thing.

“People with no religious faith” would likely include deists and the various “spiritual-but-not-religious” types, so the distinction between that and atheism is significant.