What do Christians think of Atheists?

thedude! I can’t believe you said that…you couldn’t be farther from the truth.

God does not throw people into hell for not having a Bible for pete sakes! God knows each of our hearts. There will be many, MANY people in heaven who have never ever heard of God, but who know what is right and wrong and they choose to do the right thing.

God wrote His laws on our hearts and sent His Holy Spirit to teach us about God. He will not let one single soul be destroyed for such a trivial things as not having a Bible or speaking a certain lango.

The only people who will be destroyed in th Lake of Fire will be those who are completely selfish, devoid of goodness, evil and corrupt. There will be a lot of “fake” Christians in there too, because God doesn’t want any fakers in heaven.

If you are a sincere Christian then you will be in heaven, yes, even if you don’t have a Bible or speak a certain lango…

orion, thank you for that (not the Lake of Fire bit, but the one about people going to heaven who never heard of god). Exactly what I wanted from a Christian on this site: you don’t need to follow the bible (or the torah, or the Qu’ran, etc) to end up in the religious version of the “good” afterlife.

My whole point was that, and yep, you put it in a much nicer way, so thank you.

And given that good people are ending up in the religiously good place, posthumously…then why is any given religious text important?

Taking it a step further…we can communicate with god, directly. We don’t need a pastor, imam, priest or deacon to do it for us. So given that god is speaking to me, and I have a “good” sense of things…well, that should be enough.

What, then, are the religious orders for? Why, to promote those at the head of such order & give them wealth, power and control those who would forsake their own direct relationship with whatever they care to call the diety.

:) Of course, I’m never going to tell anybody to stop believing in something. I would appreciate it if more people would express themselves thus, orion. Thanks, truly, you made my day.

you must accept his only begotten son Jesus Christ as your savior and follow the ten commandments! on top of what every other christian in here said

So if I understand you (orion and flossheal) correctly, and anyone who’s never heard of christianity is judged on their own merits, but those that have heard of it are judged based only on if they convert or not, couldn’t a missionary who brings “the word” to a place that has previously not heard of it, but fails to convert many people, send more people to hell than they save?

Just because you choose not to believe in heaven or hell doesn’t make it so.

Atheists choose not to follow God, refuse to love or believe in His ‘love-letter- to mankind (the Holy Word, the Bible), so why would anybody think atheists would go to heaven? The would not.

There only two places to go at Christ’s second coming; to heaven or to hell. If you choose not to keep God’s laws and follow Him then by default you will be thrown into the Lake of Fire until you are destroyed.

Some believe that the wicked will burn forever, but this is not so. There are many verses in the Bible that tell us that the wicked will be destroyed.

I only pray sincerely that all who desire to know Him will give their hearts to God sincerely and soon because probation is closing and when it does, all who have not asked Christ to come into their hearts will be lost, forever.

arachnid are you a betting man? (or woman). If you are let’s just see whose odd are better yours or mine.

Let’s say that you are right and I am wrong, there is no God. You can live it up! I would have enjoyed a nice life. Then, when we die nothing happends we just turn to worm food.

But, If I am right and you are wrong, when I die I go to heaven and you are thrown into the Lake of Fire.

If you were a person who places bets on odds, which do you think is better odds?

trickynick, what I was trying to convey was that no matter where or who you are, who raised you, physical or mental limitations you may have that all have an equal chance to be in the kingdom. That’s all. I did not mean any disrespect of any kind.

thedude, :) I thank you for your compliment, but I fear I may not have made my point clear.

Some have never seen a white man, heard the name of Jesus, seen a Bible or heard a sermon. But they can be in the kingdom by choosing to do good instead of bad. The Holy Spirit is sent to those who desire to know Him, to follow Him.

Those who are educated, have access to Bibles, go to church or listen online, radio, tapes, videos…for these people, they will be held accountable for not seeking Him. They have no excuse not to seek God.

Men inspired by God wrote the Holy Bible. God wanted to tell us how much He loves us and wants us in the kingdom with Him forever. That is why religious text is important; not for some or a few, but for all of mankind.

Pastors are God’s instruments along with the leaders, deacons, elders…to help us understand God better. That is why going to church and having Bible study is very important. When people study together it brings up ideas others may not have understood.

thedude said: “So given that god is speaking to me, and I have a ‘good’ sense of things…well, that should be enough.” It really isn’t. If you were in the deepest, darkest parts of Africa, maybe, have the opportunity able to read His word and make a life changing commitment to Him.

God wants us all to be in heaven, but that’s impossible since the fall of man. He wants us to love Him and do as He says, that’s it. Think of God as a parent. If you told your child not to eat your prescription meds, you did it out of love, because you knew that he would die. Same with God. He loves us so much that He tells us what we should do to live. If we don’t do it, well, we die. Because sin cannot live in the pure holiness of God.

thedude: “ to promote those at the head of such order & give them wealth, power and control those who would forsake their own direct relationship with whatever they care to call the diety” <<< this is not a true Christian. Anybody or organizational group who forsakes God are not Christian, but living a lie to get rich. I can think of half a dozen religious leaders in our world right now fall under that category.

There are some religious orders who are projecting Christ, who are living by what God has asked His children to do. They are few, but they exist. It is our duty to do what we can to follow God, keep His holy laws, and love each other.

I hope this helps clarify.

This was my answer to a question about a month ago. The question was:’ Do you have to be saved to go to Heaven?’, so it’s not exactly the same, but the answers should be similar. The questioner was Jewish, rather than atheist, so I slanted the answers according to her questions:

*Jesus said: ‘I am the Way, the Truth and the Life. No one can come to the Father except through me’. So, for Christians, the SURE way of getting to God in life and in death (death being the heaven part) is to come to Jesus. Turning from going your own way and giving Jesus your life is what being ‘saved’ means to a Christian. Amblesed’s answer describes this in more detail.

Later on in the New Testament it is written that we are to be judged on what we have known. So Moses and the Ancient Hebrews are judged according to the Jewish Law that God gave them. A person living in circumstances where they never hear the news about Jesus will also be judged according to their own standards.

But the question is, how many of us meet our own standards? We sometimes feel we have let ourselves down, let alone God. This is why having Jesus to bring us to God is described as ‘saving’ us, because being judged according to our own moral laws usually leaves us looking pretty bad. Christians believe only Jesus is perfect, so only He can save us.

Maybe other people do get to Heaven following judgement according to what they have known - the Bible implies that this is possible. But I believe Jesus whe He says He is the Way.*

And Orion, thanks for your answers. Just one point - Jesus isn’t/wasn’t ‘a white man’ and many missionaries in many countries are Asian or African! Bro_kwame on this website is an African evangelist. Christiainity isn’t a one-race religion, and I’m sure you didn’t intend to imply it was.

Unfortunatly, they do =(

If you believe in god ,, God says “ as you die me on earth I will deny you in heaven”

which in terms to day means you you say im not real and refuse to have apart of me I will do the same when you die

No, because hell doesn’t exist.

And even if it did, appeals to atheists based on fear of hell aren’t going to work too well, since we don’t believe it exists.

As there are dozens of languages, for those following along, that do not have the bible translated into their native tongue, it is simply impossible for them to get the “truth” as silverwings put it.

So the way that the Christian God designed this diety inspired distribution system put all those people into hell. Permanently. Because they can’t get the Bible.

I don’t know about you, but that’s a cold, hard way to look at things. Would you damn to hell somebody because they spoke a different language than you do?

Perhaps you wouldn’t, but the way I understand it, that’s what the Christian god had in mind.

orion please clarify “Some have never seen a white man, heard the name of Jesus, seen a Bible or heard a sermon. But they can be in the kingdom by choosing to do good instead of bad. The Holy Spirit is sent to those who desire to know Him, to follow Him.”

it implies that you believe that “whites” carry the word of the Lord and that no one of color does. this couldn’t be what you meant to say… but I must say that I agreed with your statement “The only people who will be destroyed in th Lake of Fire will be those who are completely selfish, devoid of goodness, evil and corrupt. There will be a lot of ‘fake’ Christians in there too, because God doesn’t want any fakers in heaven.”

thank you, orion.

I’ve been thinking carefully about being judged - my quote is about being judged on ‘what you know’, not ‘on your merits’. To me there seems a significant difference.

I feel that, for atheists, what they know may include the facts of the Gospel (lots of atheists here are very informed about the Bible) but it also includes the Christians they know/have known and any good or bad experiences they have of the Christian church. So some of you seem to have been pretty badly hurt in the name of ‘Christianity’, and my feeling is that this is surely taken into account!

It’s possible to turn away from Christ for many reasons, but if Christians are the reason for that turning, then the judgement falls on ‘us’, possibly even more than it falls on ‘you’.

It says it in the bible, so nealry all Christians and Catholics believe that way.

flossheal, wow. thank you, thank you, thank you.

well god does not believe in athiests and it says it in the bible

You gotta believe before you can enter the Gate, And even then it’s no guarantee. . . .

not neccessarily. message me if you want to talk about it.

An Atheist to me, is someone that has not yet encounterd the truth.

So, is an agnostic.

“Just because you choose not to believe in heaven or hell doesn’t make it so.”

I can turn that around - just because you choose to believe in it doesn’t make it so. I know which possibility I consider by far the more likely.