Will Atheists really be sent to Hell?

Question

Consider two very religious people, a Pastor and a Teacher. One day the pastor loses the plot, gets drunk, smokes weed, sniffs some white powder, then enters into a total rage of madness. Drives off into town, breaks into a house where a teacher and his family were saying their evening prayers before retiring for the night.

The pastor knocks out the teacher, rapes the wife, kills the children, steals their money, heads off down the road and is caught by police. The pastor is put on trial and receives the death penalty.

Before execution, the Pastor once again finds and renews his love for God and repents. The teacher on the other hand loses all faith and belief in God, and hates God for letting his family be killed by the wicked pastor. The teacher becomes Atheist.

Why would any good God welcome the wicked pastor to Heaven and banish the good teacher to Hell?

Answer 1

EXCELLENT question! The teacher is probably thinking, "There MUST be a god because SOMEONE is out to get me." LOL!

My answer, though, lies in the belief that there is no heaven or hell. The pastor is an evil man, regardless his profession or his professed re-conversion (or re-brainwashing, however you want to look at it). He is not an otherwise good man who just made a few mistakes. He should die a slow death for causing so much hurt to so many people.

And the teacher... I'd welcome him with open arms into my house, commune with him and discuss how the world is what we make of it. He got handed a bad hand and I feel for him. Assuming his wife is still alive, I'd help them to make some sense of the crime and help get them into therapy. I would NOT take them to a church and have them pray for anything. That would be adding salt to the wound.

Heaven and hell... pah. LIFE is what is important here and whatever the teacher ends up believing, he needs help healing his LIFE.

Answer 2

Brenda's World,
"Why would any good God welcome the wicked pastor to Heaven and banish the good teacher to Hell?"
In God's view, there is none that are good. As soon as you turn away from Him, you are no longer covered by the sacrifice. The teacher really never had faith though. What Might have been called faith was actually based upon his wonderful life going his way. The pastor was striken with insanity. He didn't see himself as righteous after it was all said and done. And that is what Jesus accepts as repentance. True Christians do not see themselves as righteous. In fact, they see themselves as unrighteous sinners that are rebellious and prideful. True humility.
False humility being yet another way we can be a fool.

So I know that it's popular to think that it's not fair. That the "good people" are not considered worthy to be saved. But the truth is, righteousness is so far from us, that none in the history of the world have been able to comply with the law that the Jews had that instructed them in what it took to become righteous, except Jesus. That's why He's the most important person in history to so many people. Through His death, we escape death.

Answer 3

I don't think you have the right idea about Christianity. Now, mind you, I don't believe a word of this, but let's get our arguments right.

As far as I know, no major Christian denomination claims that God punishes people by sending them to hell. Instead, the idea is that we either choose to be with God in heaven, or we choose not to be with God, and therefore have chosen to go to hell. In other words, in your scenario, the wicked pastor has chosen to do what he needs to in order to go to heaven, and the good teacher has not. God doesn't make the choice, and it's not a matter of God evaluating the "works" of the two people:

"For grace are ye saved through faith, not works, lest any man should boast"
(I think I'm getting that right - I'm sure someone who still follows that stuff can correct me if not).

Now, again, I think it's all simply not true - there is no god, nor heaven, nor hell - but if we're going to argue with the Christians, let's not put up strawman arguments, but instead make the effort to understand what they're really claiming.

Answer 4

Basically because the church does not care if you are a good person, only if you accept their doctrine. Organized religion, especially christianity, is not about spirituality, but control. If the wicked pastor finds and renews his love for God, he returns to his role as a pawn of the church. The teacher, having renounced his faith, can no longer be influenced by the dogma of the church, and will actually start to think for himself and make decisions based on his own personal morality. The church definitely doesn't want that to happen.

Answer 5

All is vanity and a striveing after the wind.
As all are dieing and there is no hell and he returns to the dust and all his thoughts die with him.
ecc 9:5 The living are conscience that they will die but the dead are conscience of nothing at all.
Luke 13:24 Luke asked Jesus if those being saved are few and he said yes. Go in through the narrow door because many will seek to get in but will not be able.
The earth was full in Noahs day and one family survived
Sodom and Gomorrah Only Lot was saved out of a whole string of cities. So probably they both returned where they came from the dust of the earth.

Answer 6

how to answer this. how about this

for the rape the pasture is shunded but is able to go to heaven. for the killing of children sense that is a greater sin (this is debateable) the pastor is going to hell no matter what. as for the teacher he may or may not go to heall. saying he hats god means jack squat. if he says he hats god and then goes and teaches many children to be geed people and enlightes this students of his then he will go to heaven. but if he curses god and does not do hos best as a teacher (this is assuming he is still mentaly capable too) then he will go to hell for possably making the lives of many children worse.

Answer 7

The only way God would do this would be if he were a fundamentalist Christian. Luckily he's not. In fact, God created hell just to get the fundamentalist Christians even farther away from Him. Everyone else goes to heaven.

Answer 8

Gotta love the "love all and sundry" coverage that gets thrown down the drain.... I even have won a lot of emails from Christians bashing me and any evaluations i will have. i will each and every so often respond yet frequently I in basic terms delete them. I even have despatched a pair messages, yet they have been actual questions asked in a specialist way. no longer in basic terms mindless rambling approximately how stupid they are.

Answer 9

There is no real Hell, so your question is academic. You seem to have a point. People who say you don't understand Christianity don't understand it themselves. I'm not one to quote Bible verses in arguments. Even if I was religious, I'd say that is a misuse of it. You seem to understand all too well to suit some people who blind themselves to anything that casts a bad light upon their beliefs.

Answer 10

your a idiot. everyone is given a choice do you want to turn on your stove and be burned or not. do you want to live a good life and worshup god or the devil. to you choose to kill people and steal. you have a choice only you will decided if you will go to hell or not not by other peoples choice or gods descion. do the right thing . why would the police send you to jail? dont lsiten to everything some joe says. you must decided what is right and wrong. no one nos who goes to heave and who goes to hell if they say they do they are lieing only god knows.