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I'm an atheist. I'm also a good person I think. Yet I still fear going to Hell when I die. Is this normal and, more importantly, how should I deal with it?
You're an atheist.
When you die, you're body will rot into your ground, you have no soul.
Maybe you should reevaluate your stance as far as religion goes. I wasn't raised in a Christian household though. I used to be an atheist too, fuck organized religion, religion is the tool that the ignorant use to feign control over destinies that are really controlled by mathematical probability and the hands of rich white men etc. but no matter how many books I read, no matter how much pro-atheist argument I took in, I could never convince myself that there was no God and that everything that has happened to me in my life was simply a coincidence, that I was only attaching meaning to it.
And then I realized... atheists that bitch about ignorant Christians and Christians that bitch about immoral atheists are just the same, self-righteous people but on two different extremes. I can be myself, I can be intelligent, and I can be spiritual too. I'm not going to bind myself to someone else's logic just because I feel that it's all I can do. Life isn't always 100% logical, as you're learning right now. In the end, it doesn't matter how much fucking logic you can think of to make a situation make sense, it's about what you do with the hand your dealt. I learned that the hard way.
We don't all have to like the same thing man, I am not saying to go back to church. But if you believe that there is no God, if you honestly believe that you are nothing but bones connected by tendons held in a sack of skin with a few organs scrunched up in it, then maybe you should investigate these feelings. Don't let fear keep you from exploring life.
"Maybe you should reevaluate your stance as far as religion goes."
That's funny to hear from a Mormon (yeah, I checked OUT your profile). Mormonism is a SHAM if ever there was one. The Book of Mormon has got "charlatan" written ALL over it. Joseph Smith was a fraud, and you gullible sheeple actually believe all his immoral B.S. You're truly pathetic.
http://www.rotten.com/library/bio/religion/joseph-smith/
"But if you believe that there is no God, if you honestly believe that you are nothing but bones connected by tendons held in a sack of skin with a few organs scrunched up in it"
Quite ironic given the fact you speak about "being respectful" on your profile. Laughable. You DO make some very good points about life not always being 100% logical, and the tendency to believe in a God being very strong however, for which I thank you. In general you sound very judgmental and self-righteous though.
Good job attacking someone for practicing a religion you don't believe in.
I feel like in this day and age, we should all be above attacking people for practicing certain religions, but no... no, we still do that.
FYI, it's atheists like you who make all the other atheists look bad.
""Maybe you should reevaluate your stance as far as religion goes."
That's funny to hear from a Mormon (yeah, I checked OUT your profile). ""
How is that funny to hear from a Mormon? I am telling him that he might need to reevaluate his stance on religion. Maybe his beliefs are more pantheistic, maybe he likes what the Hindu religion has to offer, but if he is an atheist and he is having these feelings, then he needs to reevaluate where he is spiritually. I have done this and I found that I like the concepts that the Mormon church and Zen Buddhism have to offer. I hold the roots of my faith within the Mormon church as my official religion of practice, but I also hold the teachings of the Dao, Siddhartha Guatama (the Buddha), Confuscious and some of Mohammed's teachings with very much reverence. I enjoy all of the religions, but my walk of life makes the Mormon religion my preferred religion of practice. I'm not saying we should all convert to Mormonism, even though my church takes that stance. I'm probably going to remove that from my profile as well, if my own personal religion is going to continue to be used as a basis of attack for my arguments.
I have my own personal beliefs and standards. I don't expect others to hold the same ones.
"Quite ironic given the fact you speak about "being respectful" on your profile. "
I don't understand, how was I being disrespectful? I suggested to him that he reevaluate his spiritual stance. I'm surprised my comment offended anyone, but I was being respectful. That doesn't mean absolutely no one will be offended. That just means that I'm not going to purposefully attack anyone. Can't please 100% of the people 100% of the time.
I'm not ignorant of all of the controversy that comes with the Bible and the Book of Mormon.
There is controversy involved with every religious practice.
I prefer to draw on the lessons of the Bible and Book of Mormon rather than the actual historical facts and the corruption behind it, I take my own lessons as my life proceeds and I constantly compare and contrast them with lessons of other religious to seek out the truest truth in said lessons.
Don't worry about me, man. I know what I'm doing here.
your agnostic if your afraid of maybe going somewhere after death. your not atheist
That's the power of religion; it's essentially a program to control the minds of the weak with fear and lies. It's truly evil.
Then don't act that way. Resist their insidious influence.
(You're the OP, right?)
I'm trying to, but it isn't always very easy. Maybe it has something to do with my Christian upbringing, which may still subconsciously affect me, I don't know.
Anyway, burning forever IS a pretty terrifying idea regardless, but I guess I shouldn't let fear rule me.
And yes, I'm the OP.
From my perspective I would go with not normal, but from the general perspective, I would go with normal. Although it is a little confusing since your atheist.
I'm really confused. You say you don't have any religious orientation, but you also say you believe in the Christian God, so which is it? Are you a Christian or not?
You also say that you'll burn in hell. Why? Surely you don't deserve that (I don't think ANYONE does btw).
I honestly think this is one of the most outlandish messages I've ever read, but I'm glad you don't think I have anything to be fearful of! ;)
^_^
I'm not religious by any means and I do NOT and never have believed in ANY of the man-made fairy tale bullshit of any "God", "Jesus", "Heaven" or "Hell" nor of what any of the religious books full of lies, hearsay and contradictions, like the alleged "bible" have to "say", but I try to leave those who are weak minded and believe in that complete nonsense and garbage alone. If you believe there is a Hell than your probably NOT an Atheist since you do believe there is something. I think you would be more of an Agnostic since you believe in something, like a "Hell" but your not really religious.
Burning in hell for eternity makes no sense. Combustion means the carbon and hydrogen in organic matter combine with oxygen and give off light and heat. once your body is burned and converted to co2 there will be nothing more to burn. You would no longer be aware in the first place. Religion is pure non-sense and scare-mongering so you behave.
If you're afraid of going to hell, you're not an atheist, bro. Don't be obtuse.
I think the problem here is fear. There is darkness in your own sense of mortality thats giving you reason to fear death and the eternity that follows it.
This whole thing was funny. It is not overly strange for anyone who has a Christian background to have an underlying fear of going to hell. Shit they slammed it into me when I was a kid. I'm an atheist now. When I first decided to renounce my faith I had fears about hell too. I just remembered why I made my decision and researched it more. DO NOT make a decision out of fear. Only advice I can give you.
It's a completely irrational fear. Damnophobia, if you will. But you probably have the phobia anyway because religious nutbags frightened you so much as a child that you still bear the emotional scars.
If you fear going to hell, then you're not 100% atheist. I'd say you're either agnostic or agnostic atheist...
You get conditioned with the idea of heaven and hell when you're young and it can sometimes be hard to separate them all when you come to the realisation you're an atheist later on in life. The fear of going to hell is used as a tool to keep you in the flock, ie follow the rules we tell you or horrible, unspeakable things happen to you. It can be hard to make a clean break.
So you don't believe in a god but you fear that you will go to a place of punishment after you die because of it. That makes sense. I too am an atheist and I also have pondered upon the thought of a hell. There does not need to be a god for there to be a hell.
Consider yourself lucky that you feel that way. That's the Holy spirt calling you to convert to Christianity. You would make a wonderful addition to His holy kingdom after you die. What you are experiencing is conviction, you have reached the "age of accountabilty." Which means you have reached the age when God reveals himself to you or compels you in some way to come to him. After you have reached this point in your life, you are susceptible to "White Thrown Judgement" when you are judged by God to either spend an eternity in Heaven or an eternity in Hell. Everyone on the planet reaches the age of accounatblity and those who die before they reach that age gets to go to heaven. So basically this is your chance to decied where you will spend an eternity after you die, so don't blow it, accept Christ, thank him for calling you to him, and live happily ever after on Earth and in Heaven!
Maybe change your status to agnostic and eventually pick a religion. Baby steps.
I take a bit of offense when you refer to agnosticism like that. I consider myself to be agnostic, and what I see it meaning is I neither believe nor disbelieve religions (though I may find them unlikely) but I simply think it is impossible for me to know what the truth is. And I am not searching for a religion, and am firm in my unknowing. Wow that sounds like a huge rant, like I said only a bit of offense. I'm not mad or anything just wanted to set the record striaght
I don't understand what's offensive about that. It's religious limbo. If you're offended by that, you might not want to look at 95% of the other stories on here.
Religious limbo would imply that I am undecided about what I believe. I am not, I do not think it is possible for me to know what the truth is. I am not trying to figure it out, and am at peace with not knowing. I think when the time comes Ill know whats really out there. I guess what I find a little offensive it the suggestion that my belief is not firm as you would say others are. It is somewhat demeaning of my belief system, suggesting it is not a viable way to think about the world and that I must be searching to find something when I am content not knowing. ugh I hate that I always write so much, I think it makes me sound angry. I'm not I'm just trying to get my point across.