Judaism, if I'm not mistaken, doesn't believe in a hell at all. Islam, everyone but them burns, I imagine. Christianity ... depends on who you ask. You could get many different answers to your question. Ranging from "hurr durr the earth is only 6000 years old" to "there is no hell", to "yes everyone burns" to "nah, God made an exception" or some other drivel.
Judaism doesn't believe in heaven or hell, nor does it believe in proselytizing, hence why there are 2 billion Christians and 2 billion Muslims on Earth compared to 16 million Jews.
I was under the impression that Jews have either strongly discouraged, or even forbade conversions to Judaism, depending on the year and the group in question. Most of the people I know who call themselves Jews are atheists, because it is treated almost like a race of people as well as a religion.
Hi, someone who studies non theocratic Jews for fun here
Yes,
It's basically atheism with a cultural flare
A lot of "the religious" end up following toxic gods because they like the feeling of culture, strong values and close family ties
Sortve similar to how cults do it
So non theocratic Jews are just people who want the flavor text without the madness
And real Jews don't care because they could actually give a fuck if you're "saved" or not since that concept doesn't really exist in the ways it does in other monotheistic faiths
Yeah one of my Jewish friends from work admitted she thought religion was ridiculous, didn't believe; however, she had her daughter bat mitzvahed and said she did it for the cultural and group belonging aspect
Apologies, but taking part in rituals just for the sake of community involvement is cultish, no?
I was baptised, but grew up atheist. My dad gave me the same reasonings, but I've read and seen enough about cults to see the connection
Every culture has traditions, that is part of what makes up a culture, cultish would be renouncing all prior beliefs to follow THIS specific belief undyingly, and cutting ties with those who don’t. Celebrating an age milestone (and in those cultures a sign of maturity) is not cultish, but cultural.
Except that these features of the culture have a distinct and celebrated connection to the faith.
I get your underlying point, but the faith aspect is still very present, even in those without faith.
Seeing as how I have no interest in group anything or belonging, except to my own small family group that is something I wouldn't do.
Maybe she changed her mind after she adopted her daughter and there was family pressure?
My indifferent mother had me baptized (12), sent me to catechism and Confirmation and Confession at the insistance of my *non-religious* grandparents.
I even sent my son to Catholic school not for religious instruction but because I felt it would be a better education and he wouldn't be able to get away with not doing his school work as he tended to do. I was relieved to learn that he had a lay person and not a nun as a teacher.
My husband was also indifferent and the thing was I wasn't worried about my son being indoctrinated, because it wasn't going to be reinforced in the home.
So people have a myriad of reasons I guess. Back then it wasn't so publicly in your face as it is now, at least where I lived (blue states). I'd probably think twice about it now.
Not the person you responded to so I can’t speak for them but I’m another atheist Jew. I actually still practice Judaism (not uncommon for atheist Jews). So you could just refer to me as an atheist if you want. That label isn’t wrong. But I still practice a religion.
FWIW, people can convert to Judaism. It happens all the time, mostly because of marriage, but nobody is recruited. If you say you want to convert they gently try to dissuade you, but that's just a test to make sure someone is serious about it. Converts are accepted with full status.
It isn't necessarily that simple. I recall a bit of a scandal surrounding the conversion of Ivanka Trump. Her conversion was not accepted by the relevant religious authorities in Israel until after Donald Trump was elected President. The Rabbi who did her conversion was rejected as being too liberal or something like that.
Judaism is decentralized. There's no pope. No central authority figure dictating rules. There are many groups with different levels of adherence. What might be fine for one group is not enough for another.... so it goes.
It depends on the denomination, Ivanka had a modern Orthodox conversion which is very strict, but the Israeli Rabbinate is chareidi/ ultra-Orthodox and often does not accept American conversions, there's a lot of tension about it.
It definately depends, there is some (miniture amount) conversion, but it is not encouraged.
There are some groups of Jews that do actively seek conversion (of a sort) from non-practicing/other sects of judaism to their more strict belief system.
Being Jewish has both religous and ethnic/tribe conotations. It is its own set of unique cultures that are intresting to be a part of.
In the US there is a large population of non-practicing atheist jews.
It isn't discouraged, just not encouraged. The process is really long too, takes about 2-3 years if memory serves.
>It is treated almost like a race of people as well as religion.
You're right on the money, Judaism is an ethnic religion. Every "ethnic" Jewish custom is tied to Judaism so some people choose to keep the customs but lead a secular lifestyle.
Race is a construct whose rules differ depending where and when you are. Jews are a tribe or multiple tribes. We consider ourselves to be descended from a common ancestor and preferentially marry within the group (tribal groups tend to have tribal religion/language/culture/original homeland/self identification/external acknowledgement of tribal identity, all of which we also have). Some tribes/ tribal religions in the world accept converts in specific instances, some accept none, different groups of Jews follow different rules about that. A lot of religious Jews have limited contact with non-Jews, so you're more likely to meet non-religious Jews if you aren't Jewish, which is pretty standard for insular groups.
There is an entire conversion ritual in exodus i think. Before the destruction of the 2nd jewish temple they actually did prosletize. Its evsn menrioned in the bible. Has jesus sayin "be not like the street preacher on the corner. .."
Judaism does not forbade conversion. The most legendary historical rabbi is a convert, Rabbi Akiva - you can encounter him in the primary Jewish texts outside the books of Moses such as the Talmud, Ethics of the Fathers, Midrash, etc.
I have encountered people that were in the process of converting to Judaism, and in practice, a rabbi told me the procedure is to reject a person three times but if he is determined to convert then the process can begin. People undergoing these trials are expected to follow all the customs of their rabbi, and if it is an Orthodox rabbi, following Orthodox laws, rituals, and customs is exceedingly difficult - reform and conservative Judaism are relatively more historically recent phenomena and are less strict. A statement by a rabbi then will be delivered and a person will have to go to a court of three rabbis that will determine if he is a legitimate convert. Interesting side point, there are nationality stakes as then you could get an Israeli passport.
If you are an American, and generally this will play out similarly in other English speaking countries, the vast majority of Jews are going to be Ashkenazi ethnic background. Ashkenazi Jews have large, secular communities, and the majority are atheist, agnostic, or otherwise mostly removed from Judaism, with the exceptions of perhaps holiday making and cultural legacies like your mother's matzo ball soup, a few Yiddish words, and being able to tell people you've had gefilte fish, the hot dog of the sea.
>But let people and animals be covered with sackcloth. **Let everyone call urgently on God**. Let them give up their evil ways and their violence.
Jonah 3:8
Seems like proselytizing to me. In the story they didn't become cultural Jews, that was for the offspring of Abraham via Issac and his son Jacob, but if the king commanded everyone to call upon the Jewish God, how is that not proselytizing?
The identical concept existed in the New Testament with Christians, where Paul said the Greeks didn't need to become Jews, just call urgently upon God. Proselytizing, no?
Proselytizing is about converting people. Paul was trying to convince Greeks to become Christians.
The Ninevites were descended from the tribe of Ashur and already believed in Yahweh.
Assyrians weren't insiders.
If you look at the history in the Bible, it was the Canaanite (Phoenician) idols and gods that Israelites kept returning to when they turned away from their god, indicating they were of Canaanite (Phoenician) origin, as also evidenced by the fact that proto-Hebrew (before Hebrew took on block Aramaic) is a Phoenician script.
While Aramaic before block letters also had Phoenician script as its origin, Assyrian did not. Assyrians used Cuneiform.
I think you are confusing Jewish culture with worship of God.
The Assyrians of Nineveh weren't required to convert to Judaism, that covenant was between God and the bloodline of Abraham which they were not, just like the Greeks were not, but Jonah makes it clear that part of their wickedness was their worship of idols and in the verse I quoted, their king commanded that they call upon God, not their idols.
How is that any different than Paul?
Well, other than it didn't actually happen as far as we can tell, thus there's no corpus of letters teaching them to be collected like we have with Paul.
But conceptually it isn't any different.
The Israelites were henotheists before they were monotheists, sharing (much of) the Assyrians’ pantheon but disagreeing on how to prioritize their gods.
Considering that the Jonah myth only provides his side of the story, and that stories get distorted across time and cultural shifts, I’m not sure we can say if the Assyrians would have considered Jonah a proselytute for an entirely different religion, or an eccentric co-believer pushing for *relatively* more attention to Yahweh’s instructions.
No. The Israelites were Canaanites (Phoenicians) before they formed into Israel, Canaanites had a completely different pantheon of gods than the Assyrians.
This is evidenced to in their own writings, by how often Israelites kept returning to the Canaanite's gods when they turned away from their monotheistic god.
Ahh, I see. I understand that Israelite fables (Nimrod as founder of Nineveh etc) could simply be rooted in “that city must have been founded by someone, maybe it was that guy” — but is there any evidence that supports even a distant kinship between the Assyrians and Canaanites?
The Jonah fable seems to assume both that Yahweh would send a prophet to warn Nineveh rather than just sending a righteous army to smite them, as he’d done to other evil foreigners; and that the Ninevites could be persuaded to accept Jonah’s scolding on Yahweh’s behalf.
At this point christianity is whatever you want it to be in your own headcanon, so long as it includes women being subservient homemakers and that there's only one god (probably bearded white dude) and jesus was him incarnate.
Hell, even that last part is fading fast. More than once has a coworker or acquaintance told me they believed they were the second coming of jesus
If the Quran is dictated directly by God, and the Hadith is written from the recollections of mortals who were not prophets, then the latter would be secondary to the former. One is from God, and the other is from human beings.
To be a suni Muslim you have to believe in the Quran AND el sira el nabawea(the prophet mohamed bahavior and sayings and life and the sahaba (group)),not just the Quran
>Judaism, if I'm not mistaken, doesn't believe in a hell at all.
Christianity didn't always believe in it either, the concept came decades after Jesus's supposed death. Christianity took the lake of fire called Tartarus from Greek mythology, and it evolved over time into the concept of Hell.
I haven't heard this before. I do know Hell was allegedly mentioned by Jesus in the book of Mark but I also know Mark was written \~70CE
Here's the verse I remember:
>^(47) And if your eye causes you to stumble, pluck it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into hell, ^(48) where
>“‘the worms that eat them do not die, and the fire is not quenched.’^(\[)[^(a)](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Mark%209%3A47-48&version=NIV#fen-NIV-24587a)^(\])
Yeah Mark was written decades after Jesus supposed death. And in the original Greek text of Mark 9:47-48, the word that was translated as "hell" in English is actually "γέενναν" (Gehenna). Gehenna is derived from the Hebrew "Gehinnom," which refers to the Valley of Hinnom, a location outside Jerusalem historically associated with child sacrifice to pagan gods and later as a garbage dump where fires burned continuously. Over time, the concept of gehenna and tartarus from Greek mythology were combined to create the concept of hell that we know.
In islam those that did not know about islam do not get punished, and depending on interperatipn either get judged on virtues, just need to figure out god exists, or return to earth. Islam kinda prides itself on being a "fair" religion atleast where Im from so most people will quote the first interperation.
Yeah, I’m an ex-Muslim and we were taught the same thing. Anyone who never had the religion introduced to them will not necessarily be punished. They would be given another chance after they died.
>”And We would never punish ˹a people˺ until We have sent a messenger ˹to warn them˺.” Quran 17:15
Here is a quote from the classical Islamic scholar Ibn Taymiyyah:
>"Textual evidence in the Quran and Sunnah indicates that God does not punish anyone until the message of Truth reaches him, as brought to him by a Messenger from God. Those who have not received the message of Truth or received a distorted or incomplete version of the message will not be punished.”
Which makes Islam an Info Hazard that by sharing, damns people who do not agree.
If you believe in it you should actively hide the information to prevent the destruction of eternal souls. Ethically, provoking this information is monstrous beyond measure, representing, as best, annoyance and at worst eternal torment applied to mass populations. The average value is of course, infinitely bad and do anyone who proselytizes this information while believing in it is truly evil or incredibly ignorant.
Yeah, there's a quote in the Bible that says that only people who know that only one true god exists, yet choose to not follow him wont get into heaven. Nothing in the Bible says that non believers go to hell though, at least from what a couple preachers have explained to me.
Yeah, Judaism has historically flip flopped on either nothing after death, or a place called Sheol which is the destination of all humans, regardless of actions taken during life. It’s a dark, cold place of nothing.
People in this sub have a real hardon for the term Abrahamic, especially when referring to something that applies to Christianity and Islam but not Judaism. And different Jews and different groups believe different things about an afterlife, but there's no 'eternal damnation' option.
I think I heard once that they didn't get the choice so they're exempt. It's only if you know about Jesus and not too follow him then you're in trouble.
Most Jewish people do their best to just leave everyone alone but there are the ultra-orthodox guys who take everything a bit far.
I hope *Never Again* is a promise that is kept **forever.**
Eskimo: 'If I did not know about God and sin, would I go to hell?' Priest: 'No, not if you did not know.' Eskimo: 'Then why did you tell me?''
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/327890-eskimo-if-i-did-not-know-about-god-and-sin
I believe Mark Twain (a Hawaii visitor and enthusiast for the culture) made a similar observation about the indigenous people there.
Just found it...
>**How sad it is to think of the multitudes who have gone to their gaves in this beautiful island and never knew there was a hell.**
It's maddening. I remember some years back visiting the house of a person who I'm not really friends with anymore (because he went off the right-wing loony cliff) and when I got there, I asked him what he was reading. He said, "Oh, I'm reading about how people lived to be 800 years old back in the bible." I don't even know how you answer that - it's just so profoundly stupid and clearly magical thinking over reason. But it gets better. The huckster who wrote the article in question concluded that people back then lived to be 800 years old because they "only ate meat and didn't get cellphone cancer." More right-wing lunacy mixed in with religious stupidity.
I wonder if the reports of super old people were being measured in lunar cycles, in which case an age of 800 would be about 65 years old. Definitely less impressive but much more believable.
I've heard that theory, and it makes sense. So much of the bible (and all old religious texts) is layers of questionable translations filtered through the lens of countless political agendas over centuries. It's insane that people pretend it's literal and accurate when a modern game of telephone loses the plot after a dozen people.
I once heard that "40" was a stand in for a big number or "long time" in biblical times. So "40 days and 40 nights" is like saying "many days and nights". Same with "40 years in the desert".
Most of the time divide by 12 to get something close to the real number. 12 was an important number in judaism, and as a religion it has a lot of numerology type things. So, one way to emphasize the importance of a character, or maybe make the stories more fantastical to outsiders while the insiders knew what was up, was to multiply ages by 12.
You're 900? 77. Or 65 for 800. Both properly old ages, and still reasonable for a human to live to, while keeping the rule of 12.
Another thing, consider the age the bible thinks we're supposed to comfortably live to, 120. That's just 12 ten times, so clearly they didn't mind using 12 as symbolic number for ages
Dunno where you get 120 years from. The bible says 70 years is allotted to men. (Three score & ten).
I've heard of the 'rule of twelve' before, but it doesn't stack up. Abraham would have been 8 years old when Isaac was born.
Lunar cycles, errors in converting said lunar cycles, incomplete record keeping, and simple exaggeration. There are people today who are supposedly hundreds of years old according to the locals and themselves, but if you dig through the evidence enough you find they're doing the immortal descendant shtick only in reverse - moving out of the village and returning decades later as their grandparent.
My whack job mother in law believes that crap too, but she just thinks God took it away from us over time because of sin or something. Have had to carpool to work lately because of car issues and force fed this mental piss. If it's not this crap she'll see a plane flying by and think the government is controlling the weather in order to kill off our population, or McDonald's are devil worshippers because they flipped their M upside down to make it the end of a pitchfork and not just made it a W for celebrating woman.
Interesting. My grandpa believes that people in olden days also lived for multiple century but by living as vegetarians, we're hindu. But credit to him, he understood that the average age limit for most of the time was like 10
Yep, some do.
According to early Christian belief, Jesus descended into hell, also known as Hades, between his death and resurrection to rescue the souls of the righteous, including patriarchs and prophets who died before Christ's sacrifice. This event is called the "harrowing of hell" and is a major theme in the Eastern Church
Yeah it depends on which version of Christianity you are speaking about. Some straight believe the earth was created 6000 years ago and others believe it to be a metaphor since “to God a day is like a thousand years”. Some believe God created a “mature earth” and some even believe god put the dinosaur bones in the ground so that “unbelievers may have something to believe in”.
As you likely know, they are all just excuses to keep the “flock” inline.
No, they completely ignore reality and believe that the Earth is only about 5,000 or 6,000 years old so ...... "problem solved" as far as they're concerned.
It's been my anecdotal experience that most of them believe every single word in their little book but it is amusing to see how many of them pick and choose which "words of god" (including their commandments) they choose to adhere to.
That is just considering modern humans. The genus homo, of which we are a member, goes back nearly 3 million years. Then our Hominin ancestors go back roughly 8 million years. Did those individuals not have a "soul"?
Yes lol that's why I just asked for the modern humans bcoz like there are so many species of our genus who got extinct. I wonder if say those homo Neanderthals had religions but then again to form religion nd be religious they needed to have higher cognition and development of some sort of language to spread the word and their knowledge around, which if I'm not wrong is only a trait of homo sapiens. But i also wonder that about animals too like we all animals and i choose to believe that if god exists he ain't discriminatory so where would those animals go considering they don't have the neural connections needed to form any opinion
As I understand it, many animals exhibit consciousness. They play, they mourn the dead, they use tools, they solve problems, and so much more. In my opinion, if there is something that you might call a soul, many animals have it. I am not talking about a supernatural soul though.
I asked that of an evangelical preacher, he claims unless you're saved and accept Jesus, you go to hell. So I said, what about stillborn babies, what about childhood cancer, crib death etc. Innocent children who don't have the chance to be saved? He said, they'll have the chance when they pass to accept Jesus. So I said, so if I can just wait until I pass to accept Jesus, what the hell am I wasting my time in church for? He was speechless for the first time in his life, lol
If I remember in The Inferno there was a place in hell for like…dead babies and maybe foreigners who had never heard of Jesus. Where it was boring but not painful. Am I dreaming this up?
>do Abrahamic followers think humans that lived for 299,998 years, before those religions were invented, all went to hell?
Many do, yes.
A classic source on this is Dante, who imagines that Hell has nine circles, getting progressively worse. The First Circle, where the "virtuous Pagans" are, isn't very bad - it is just basically very boring, plus the certainty that it is never going to get any better.
Other Abrahamists also have other views about this topic.
.
The short answer is: everyone gets a chance to accept Jesus.
Now, that's confusing, right? yes, yes, it is.
But, they say that all the human are given a chance, either in this life or after death. So, for example, you lived in China in the year 500 bce. You never heard about Jesus or god. you dead now. Then, your soul just takes a nap. Then Jesus dies on the cross while a solar eclipse and an earthquake happen in the same time and place. (a solar eclipse is an act of god,ok? it's not just a shadow coincidence) Jesus comes back to life, does some stuff, the Holy Spirit comes down on the believers, and Jesus says I'm out. Gotta go make heaven. I'm busy.
Then, at some point......which may have not even happened yet....Jesus gathers the souls that were asleep, and basically does a preacher revival alter call, and they either say yes or no. (I mean no faith needed at that point, it's just pure evidence. Hey, this here God thing is real. Come on down!)
The other answer is that we don't know, and no.
The Catholic church is big on original sin. That will be an issue if you die before you are baptized. But, they kind of waffle that fence with the Virgin Mother Mary. She is basically the 3rd party arbiter between God and Jesus, so she's up there getting the babies in.
So yeah, those souls just had a sleeping curse.
Hell wasn't taught in the Old Testament or by Jesus. Neither heaven nor hell was a part of Jewish tradition and Jesus was a Jew after all. Most of the passages that some denominations try to use as a reference to hell in fact don't.
Whereas in Islam hell is described in great detail and describes some of the punishments that would happen.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBA2aFpcqUU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBA2aFpcqUU)
Some of them think the world is only 6000 years old and anything that proves it's older is a trick by the devil. My uncle runs a cult with those and even older beliefs.
>Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't it true that abrahmic religions think that anyone not a follower of their religion gets direct ticket to hell no matter
You're not correct. Not all Abrahamic religions even believe in a hell, and the Old Testament (Hebrew Bible) actually doesn't even contain the ideal... Everyone goes to sheol (the grave).
The base claim also definitely doesn't apply to young earth creationists who think the earth is only 6,000 years old to begin with. Best you could argue for there is 4,000 years and BC/BCE times.
>Question, how do they explain the existence of dinosaurs?
How does who explain that? YEC, probably? Yeah... They're really absurd on that and basically say that they were all vegetarian until either original sin or the flood, and that the impossible global flood is the answer to basically all of everything in geology and the fossil record. So... They explain it and everything else with complete BS, basically.
It's really disappointing to see how many people in this sub apparently are convinced that all Christians are young earth creationists. This is very much not the case.
I'd have hoped my fellow atheists were better informed.
I believe hell is the real heaven, and Satan is really god in disguise. It's a test to see who is just sucking up and who is legit.
Atheists are the chosen ones.
Depends on the individual and their denomination.
The official doctrine of the Catholic and Orthodox churches for one says a person doesn't even need to be a Christian to go to heaven, but that being a Catholic or Orthodox respectively is the only way to guarantee it.
Thinking all non-christians will go to hell seems to be mostly a US or evangelical thing.
As far as I know there are no verses to support someone *needs* to be a christian to be saved. There are a few verses that say people can be saved only "through Jesus" but to my knowledge this doesn't mean Jesus will only save christians.
There are in fact a few verses that say the opposite, i.e. not all people who call themselves followers of Christ will be saved.
Matthew 7:21-23
>"Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?' And then will I declare to them, 'I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.'"
Also, this is one of my favorites, because it says if god was real then so many of the Republican types would be screwed. Matthew 25:41-46:
> Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ Then they also will answer, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to you?’ Then he will answer them, saying, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’ And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.
Edit: note that in the verses before this it says the exact opposite, e.g. the people that did these things (clothed/fed the poor etc) will go to heaven. No mention of them having to be "christians".
> The official doctrine of the Catholic and Orthodox churches for one says a person doesn't even need to be a Christian to go to heaven
I wonder how they arrive at that conclusion given [John 14:6](https://www.biblegateway.com/verse/en/John%2014:6) where Jesus says "... No one comes to the Father except through me."
Ther's also something in thessalonians about bringing vengeance on all who don't know god. But that's an apocalyptic war at the end time, not the judgment of those long dead.
They deny that there's any history before Adam and Eve and take the Bible stories literally so that any kind of talk of what happened before isn't valid to them.
Good question; the bible actually answers this question at Acts 24:15; it says: "There is going to be a resurrection of both the righteous and the unrighteous". What is this scripture saying? Once the great resurrection occurs, God will resurrect from the dead those who practiced good things as well as those who practiced bad things or were around before religion became established. This includes those who in ignorance, died without knowing anything about God and his righteous ways. These ones will be resurrected and given a chance to know God and serve him. For more information, please visit jw.org.
from my understanding at least in the catholic faith, everyone prior to Jesus dying "for our sins" went to hell as humanity was cursed with Original Sin (eve eating the apple) so his death wiped the slate clean as it where, which is why many of the rules from the old testament were no longer necessary to follow (why Kosher is a Jewish thing and not a catholic thing)
This is gonna sound silly, but it's true. I'm not this creative. Here goes. Way back in the day, when I was a christian, I was taught that Jesus saved everyone in hell at the time of his death. I don't remember which bible verses this preacher cited, but he explained that when Jesus died, he descended into hell for 3 days. And during those 3 days, he preached the gospel to everyone in hell, and they all got saved. And yes, before Jesus, no one got into heaven. They were all sent to hell. Because they all "fell short", and without a "savior", no one could be in the presence of god in heaven.
Lately tho, American Christians are hell bent on insisting much lunacy: Earth is flat and has a “dome holding up the waters above firmament “ , dinosaurs lived at the same time as humans Becuase the Earth is 6,000 years old, or Satan has place dinosaur bones in the earth to trick people away from Jesus.
The sect of Christianity I came from (atheist now) just didn’t believe that people existed before 5-10 thousand years ago. No matter the evidence against this, they believe that Adam and Eve have a direct lineage to current day with nothing before so this isn’t an issue. Science/satan lying to prevent people from believing yada yada yada.
The question they had was the condition for salvation is Jesus, so what about the people that lived before jesus? In that case, my church taught that that people who believed Jesus would come and die were saved and those who didn’t, weren’t.
My wife likes to bring up dinosaurs when Christians talk about the Bible. When did "God" make those? It's funny that they're not mentioned in the Bible, yet they clearly existed.
My mom likes to defend the shit in the Bible with them having a different calendar. Yeah, but bitch, that doesn't explain the *millions* of years that are completely ignored by religion.(I hate my mom, so it's OK to call her a bitch.)
In Catholic theology there is also a concept of [Limbo](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limbo#Limbo_of_Infants).
This is the place where for example un-baptized babies go. They can't go to heaven, and they do not deserve to go to hell because they committed no sins yet.
The way religious beliefs form are not through thinking things through, but typically more of unconsciously concluding that something must be true because everyone around them says it’s true.
Eternal torments is acceptable doctrine only to certain believers of Abrahamic faiths.
Colossians 1:
16 because in him (Christ) the all things created, those in the heavens, and those upon the earth, those visible, and those invisible, whether thrones, whether lordships, whether principalities, whether authorities; all things through him, and for him, have been created, ... 20 and through him to reconcile the all things to himself—having made peace through the blood of his cross—through him, whether the things upon the earth, whether the things in the heavens.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Christianity/comments/1cu31kn/acts_321_colossians_120/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=2
I had to study a little Catholic theology in teacher training college (90% of Irish primary schools are Catholic).
We were told that the effect of Jesus' death and resurrection transcended time, because heaven exists outside of time.
Even if you believe every word of the New Testament, you would have to accept this is pure guesswork. The Bible has a lot to say about how to get to heaven, nothing on the actual mechanics.
I don't really care if someone can't explain answer this one, I'd be far more sceptical of someone who claims they can.
I like the logical attention to nonsense. It really brings out how incredibly stupid most religious beliefs are. This nonsense should be reserved for fandoms- such as “How many Orcs did Legolas kill at Helms Deep for real?” But sadly- a majority of our neighbors believe, (or at least claim to believe) in the nonsense.
Someone asked me: “why do you care what others believe? Shouldn’t you ignore it like people who are really into a fiction you aren’t interested in?” I wish it was that easy- the people who believe in religion tend to pass laws that are based on their made up nonsense. So sadly- we all have to know about their fandom.
From what I understand as long as you were not made aware of Jesus Christ you got in on a technicality. It's like the old joke where the missionary tells a guy that he has to accept Jesus as his Lord and Savior he's going to go to hell and the guy ask him what would have happened if you had never told me and the missionary tells him that he would have gone to heaven
"Then why did you tell me?"
The Mormons are tweeking the story and fixing that They are baptizing everyone, so no worries!! It's all just a silly game with major plot holes anyway.
My understanding is that no humans are believed to have existed prior to Adam and then Eve. They were pure until the original sin of eating the forbidden fruit. That original son has been passed down to all of their descendants. Prior to Jesus coming to save us all, you could atone for original sin for doing things like sacrificing an animal or a spare child to appease the almighty. Then Jesus came to die as compensation for all of the sins of everyone who existed from then on.
The religious people I know? Yes. That's what they tell me. They say we all deserve to go to Hell, so we should celebrate that ANYONE was allowed to escape that fate.
Edit: I can get reddit quotes of people telling me as much.
It has no practical impact on today, so religion doesn't need to give an answer. It's like asking how dilithium crystals work. However you want them to, it doesn't change the episode scripts.
Also a lot of them think only humans existed 4,000 years before Christianity. From what I remember growing up as a Christian, many also believe that people went to heaven before Jesus by believing that he would one day come.
I asked my mom and brother about 5 years ago. "Even if the earth is 6,000 years old, there are people in south America who had no clue who Jesus was until the Spanish conquests in the 1500s, so did everyone in America pre-1500s just go to hell?"
Their response was "yes, they're cursed people."
Such love. Much mercy. Wow.
Ah yes, the concept of "The Virtuous Pagan" was one of those things hotly-debated theological issues that I would give christians credit for, and the only reason I still consider CS Lewis acceptable to give to young children to read. It seems less-well accepted in the modern age. If a church does not have an acceptable answer on the topic of "The Virtuous Pagan" it's a hate group.
(Note: historical atheists that christians cannot deny the worth of are lumped into "The Virtuous Pagan" by christians, and since it's a technical term they invented for internal use as an identifier to debate theological issues among themselves, I use it as they defined it, even though technically we shouldn't be considered pagan by a wider reading of that term)
This question sorta betrays a major ignorance of what those very diverse groups of religions actually believe. They don’t all believe in Hell, and the ones that do don’t all believe that Hell is permanent, not even within just the mainstream Christian denominations.
For example, some branches of Christianity believe that nobody went to Heaven before Jesus kind of “opened the way”, but that once he did, the souls in Hell got “rejudged” and the virtuous souls were redeemed. Others believe everybody will be reborn at the end of the world and have a final chance to be judged again. And on top of that, Catholics (just one example) officially believe in a complex Hell/Purgatory system where virtuous people can be redeemed and go up to Heaven.
Point is that there are a huge range of beliefs about this… mainly because “what happened to those people before” isn’t a core part of the belief system.
Anyone who worships a being that tortures people for eternity for something they did during a short human lifetime isn't going to care about it torturing people who never heard of it.
Some of them think everyone goes to Hell. Some of them think the Earth/the Universe is only ~6000 years old. Some of them think that if you haven't had the chance to hear about Jesus, then you automatically go to heaven. Some of them don't believe in the concept of Heaven/Hell.
Even though they all think something really stupid, they are like any other large group, not a monolith.
As a former evangelical Christian, these were my old beliefs:
1. Young earth creationism: the universe and the earth is only 6,000 years old
2. During the Old Testament period, God used the system of animals sacrifices as a temporary stand-in for the blood of Jesus which was eventually coming to be the perfect sacrifice
3. The animal sacrifices stopped being needed after Jesus died
4. The people outside of the line of Noah, Abraham, and later the 12 tribes of Israel, were pagan tribes and generally they went to hell when they died
I always wonder about the uncontacted tribes and similar groups from the past. I understand missions and spreading the word but it seems really flawed for an omnipotent being to leave it up to his flawed creations to know about him and to spread the word, or go to hell. “I’m too lazy to present myself so, millions of souls must go to hell”
Ill give you the ol' Baptist answer. There's a place called Paradise in the center of the Earth,and next to it across a great chasm, is Hell. All believers in Christ waited there in Paradise until Jesus died on the Cross, went to Paradise, fought and defeated the Devil, and then took all those waiting in Paradise to Heaven. Then Hell consumed all of Paradise taking up the entire Earth's core.
The Universe was created old around 6000 years ago. For a supernatural God this is easy. Just cause Big Bang, skip forward until 6000 years ago and start from there. Do some editing along the way.
If you accept a supernatural God, anything is possible. Nothing is random. Everything is intentional. And for the best. Free will is not a contradiction of this, for an all-knowing supernatural benevolent personal God for all.
It is a major plot hole. The apologists have developed various excuses in an attempt to plug the hole. Most of the excuses are pretty thin, so they get holes poked in them as well.
They believe in Adam and Eve and do not think people started before 6000 years ago. Those were monkeys or something and not people.
But theologically you would say that God can make his determination for the afterlife, but he has mapped it out in his religions. So prior to that there was no map.
Judaism, if I'm not mistaken, doesn't believe in a hell at all. Islam, everyone but them burns, I imagine. Christianity ... depends on who you ask. You could get many different answers to your question. Ranging from "hurr durr the earth is only 6000 years old" to "there is no hell", to "yes everyone burns" to "nah, God made an exception" or some other drivel.
Judaism doesn't believe in heaven or hell, nor does it believe in proselytizing, hence why there are 2 billion Christians and 2 billion Muslims on Earth compared to 16 million Jews.
I was under the impression that Jews have either strongly discouraged, or even forbade conversions to Judaism, depending on the year and the group in question. Most of the people I know who call themselves Jews are atheists, because it is treated almost like a race of people as well as a religion.
Can confirm, am Jewish atheist from a whole family of Jewish atheists.
doesnt that just make you regular ass atheist?
Hi, someone who studies non theocratic Jews for fun here Yes, It's basically atheism with a cultural flare A lot of "the religious" end up following toxic gods because they like the feeling of culture, strong values and close family ties Sortve similar to how cults do it So non theocratic Jews are just people who want the flavor text without the madness And real Jews don't care because they could actually give a fuck if you're "saved" or not since that concept doesn't really exist in the ways it does in other monotheistic faiths
Yeah one of my Jewish friends from work admitted she thought religion was ridiculous, didn't believe; however, she had her daughter bat mitzvahed and said she did it for the cultural and group belonging aspect
Apologies, but taking part in rituals just for the sake of community involvement is cultish, no? I was baptised, but grew up atheist. My dad gave me the same reasonings, but I've read and seen enough about cults to see the connection
Every culture has traditions, that is part of what makes up a culture, cultish would be renouncing all prior beliefs to follow THIS specific belief undyingly, and cutting ties with those who don’t. Celebrating an age milestone (and in those cultures a sign of maturity) is not cultish, but cultural.
Except that these features of the culture have a distinct and celebrated connection to the faith. I get your underlying point, but the faith aspect is still very present, even in those without faith.
A birthday party or quinceanera isn't necessarily religious or even "cultish." A bar mitzvah doesn't have to be either.
I personally see them as very different. Please highlight the similarities.
Seeing as how I have no interest in group anything or belonging, except to my own small family group that is something I wouldn't do. Maybe she changed her mind after she adopted her daughter and there was family pressure? My indifferent mother had me baptized (12), sent me to catechism and Confirmation and Confession at the insistance of my *non-religious* grandparents. I even sent my son to Catholic school not for religious instruction but because I felt it would be a better education and he wouldn't be able to get away with not doing his school work as he tended to do. I was relieved to learn that he had a lay person and not a nun as a teacher. My husband was also indifferent and the thing was I wasn't worried about my son being indoctrinated, because it wasn't going to be reinforced in the home. So people have a myriad of reasons I guess. Back then it wasn't so publicly in your face as it is now, at least where I lived (blue states). I'd probably think twice about it now.
Jewish is an ethnicity as well as religion, so Jewish atheists tracks
I had no idea.
Not the person you responded to so I can’t speak for them but I’m another atheist Jew. I actually still practice Judaism (not uncommon for atheist Jews). So you could just refer to me as an atheist if you want. That label isn’t wrong. But I still practice a religion.
So you are the antithesis of the Jewish theist dogma
FWIW, people can convert to Judaism. It happens all the time, mostly because of marriage, but nobody is recruited. If you say you want to convert they gently try to dissuade you, but that's just a test to make sure someone is serious about it. Converts are accepted with full status.
I know a dentist that converted for the jokes.
I forgot to mention the jokes.
It isn't necessarily that simple. I recall a bit of a scandal surrounding the conversion of Ivanka Trump. Her conversion was not accepted by the relevant religious authorities in Israel until after Donald Trump was elected President. The Rabbi who did her conversion was rejected as being too liberal or something like that.
Judaism is decentralized. There's no pope. No central authority figure dictating rules. There are many groups with different levels of adherence. What might be fine for one group is not enough for another.... so it goes.
It depends on the denomination, Ivanka had a modern Orthodox conversion which is very strict, but the Israeli Rabbinate is chareidi/ ultra-Orthodox and often does not accept American conversions, there's a lot of tension about it.
It definately depends, there is some (miniture amount) conversion, but it is not encouraged. There are some groups of Jews that do actively seek conversion (of a sort) from non-practicing/other sects of judaism to their more strict belief system. Being Jewish has both religous and ethnic/tribe conotations. It is its own set of unique cultures that are intresting to be a part of. In the US there is a large population of non-practicing atheist jews.
It isn't discouraged, just not encouraged. The process is really long too, takes about 2-3 years if memory serves. >It is treated almost like a race of people as well as religion. You're right on the money, Judaism is an ethnic religion. Every "ethnic" Jewish custom is tied to Judaism so some people choose to keep the customs but lead a secular lifestyle.
Race is a construct whose rules differ depending where and when you are. Jews are a tribe or multiple tribes. We consider ourselves to be descended from a common ancestor and preferentially marry within the group (tribal groups tend to have tribal religion/language/culture/original homeland/self identification/external acknowledgement of tribal identity, all of which we also have). Some tribes/ tribal religions in the world accept converts in specific instances, some accept none, different groups of Jews follow different rules about that. A lot of religious Jews have limited contact with non-Jews, so you're more likely to meet non-religious Jews if you aren't Jewish, which is pretty standard for insular groups.
Sammy Davis Jr converted.
There is an entire conversion ritual in exodus i think. Before the destruction of the 2nd jewish temple they actually did prosletize. Its evsn menrioned in the bible. Has jesus sayin "be not like the street preacher on the corner. .."
I seem to recall Israel encouraged conversion at one time to recruit more settlers... but that was more politics than religion.
Judaism does not forbade conversion. The most legendary historical rabbi is a convert, Rabbi Akiva - you can encounter him in the primary Jewish texts outside the books of Moses such as the Talmud, Ethics of the Fathers, Midrash, etc. I have encountered people that were in the process of converting to Judaism, and in practice, a rabbi told me the procedure is to reject a person three times but if he is determined to convert then the process can begin. People undergoing these trials are expected to follow all the customs of their rabbi, and if it is an Orthodox rabbi, following Orthodox laws, rituals, and customs is exceedingly difficult - reform and conservative Judaism are relatively more historically recent phenomena and are less strict. A statement by a rabbi then will be delivered and a person will have to go to a court of three rabbis that will determine if he is a legitimate convert. Interesting side point, there are nationality stakes as then you could get an Israeli passport. If you are an American, and generally this will play out similarly in other English speaking countries, the vast majority of Jews are going to be Ashkenazi ethnic background. Ashkenazi Jews have large, secular communities, and the majority are atheist, agnostic, or otherwise mostly removed from Judaism, with the exceptions of perhaps holiday making and cultural legacies like your mother's matzo ball soup, a few Yiddish words, and being able to tell people you've had gefilte fish, the hot dog of the sea.
What about the Jewish story of Jonah traveling to Nineveh?
IIRC, Yahweh sent Jonah to Nineveh with a warning to repent of their wickedness or be destroyed. It wasn’t proselytizing for Judaism.
>But let people and animals be covered with sackcloth. **Let everyone call urgently on God**. Let them give up their evil ways and their violence. Jonah 3:8 Seems like proselytizing to me. In the story they didn't become cultural Jews, that was for the offspring of Abraham via Issac and his son Jacob, but if the king commanded everyone to call upon the Jewish God, how is that not proselytizing? The identical concept existed in the New Testament with Christians, where Paul said the Greeks didn't need to become Jews, just call urgently upon God. Proselytizing, no?
Proselytizing is about converting people. Paul was trying to convince Greeks to become Christians. The Ninevites were descended from the tribe of Ashur and already believed in Yahweh.
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Paul didn't require those he converted to honor that covenant either, in fact he specifically said they didn't have to.
That’s the point. Paul was converting outsiders. Jonah was scolding insiders, which is not proselytizing.
Assyrians weren't insiders. If you look at the history in the Bible, it was the Canaanite (Phoenician) idols and gods that Israelites kept returning to when they turned away from their god, indicating they were of Canaanite (Phoenician) origin, as also evidenced by the fact that proto-Hebrew (before Hebrew took on block Aramaic) is a Phoenician script. While Aramaic before block letters also had Phoenician script as its origin, Assyrian did not. Assyrians used Cuneiform.
I think you are confusing Jewish culture with worship of God. The Assyrians of Nineveh weren't required to convert to Judaism, that covenant was between God and the bloodline of Abraham which they were not, just like the Greeks were not, but Jonah makes it clear that part of their wickedness was their worship of idols and in the verse I quoted, their king commanded that they call upon God, not their idols. How is that any different than Paul? Well, other than it didn't actually happen as far as we can tell, thus there's no corpus of letters teaching them to be collected like we have with Paul. But conceptually it isn't any different.
The Israelites were henotheists before they were monotheists, sharing (much of) the Assyrians’ pantheon but disagreeing on how to prioritize their gods. Considering that the Jonah myth only provides his side of the story, and that stories get distorted across time and cultural shifts, I’m not sure we can say if the Assyrians would have considered Jonah a proselytute for an entirely different religion, or an eccentric co-believer pushing for *relatively* more attention to Yahweh’s instructions.
No. The Israelites were Canaanites (Phoenicians) before they formed into Israel, Canaanites had a completely different pantheon of gods than the Assyrians. This is evidenced to in their own writings, by how often Israelites kept returning to the Canaanite's gods when they turned away from their monotheistic god.
Ahh, I see. I understand that Israelite fables (Nimrod as founder of Nineveh etc) could simply be rooted in “that city must have been founded by someone, maybe it was that guy” — but is there any evidence that supports even a distant kinship between the Assyrians and Canaanites? The Jonah fable seems to assume both that Yahweh would send a prophet to warn Nineveh rather than just sending a righteous army to smite them, as he’d done to other evil foreigners; and that the Ninevites could be persuaded to accept Jonah’s scolding on Yahweh’s behalf.
Well there was also this guy in mid 1940s Germany
“Everyone burns” sounds like a good tool to fear everyone to convert into your religion
welcome to the evangelicals. so many denominations to choose from to cater to a god that hates the same people you do!!!11
Sounds like a pretty cool album name for a metal band. I think I'll store it away for my next one!
At this point christianity is whatever you want it to be in your own headcanon, so long as it includes women being subservient homemakers and that there's only one god (probably bearded white dude) and jesus was him incarnate. Hell, even that last part is fading fast. More than once has a coworker or acquaintance told me they believed they were the second coming of jesus
In Islam who didn't know about Islam won't go to hell
That is not really in the quran, though.
It's a Hadith
Yes, so just a secondary thing, and not part of what Muslims believe is the literal word of god.
No it's not a secondary thing at all if you are a suni(80%-90% of Muslims population)
If the Quran is dictated directly by God, and the Hadith is written from the recollections of mortals who were not prophets, then the latter would be secondary to the former. One is from God, and the other is from human beings.
To be a suni Muslim you have to believe in the Quran AND el sira el nabawea(the prophet mohamed bahavior and sayings and life and the sahaba (group)),not just the Quran
>Judaism, if I'm not mistaken, doesn't believe in a hell at all. Christianity didn't always believe in it either, the concept came decades after Jesus's supposed death. Christianity took the lake of fire called Tartarus from Greek mythology, and it evolved over time into the concept of Hell.
I haven't heard this before. I do know Hell was allegedly mentioned by Jesus in the book of Mark but I also know Mark was written \~70CE Here's the verse I remember: >^(47) And if your eye causes you to stumble, pluck it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into hell, ^(48) where >“‘the worms that eat them do not die, and the fire is not quenched.’^(\[)[^(a)](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Mark%209%3A47-48&version=NIV#fen-NIV-24587a)^(\])
Yeah Mark was written decades after Jesus supposed death. And in the original Greek text of Mark 9:47-48, the word that was translated as "hell" in English is actually "γέενναν" (Gehenna). Gehenna is derived from the Hebrew "Gehinnom," which refers to the Valley of Hinnom, a location outside Jerusalem historically associated with child sacrifice to pagan gods and later as a garbage dump where fires burned continuously. Over time, the concept of gehenna and tartarus from Greek mythology were combined to create the concept of hell that we know.
God sacrificed himself to himself to save his creations from something he created. Christian logic at its finest.
In islam those that did not know about islam do not get punished, and depending on interperatipn either get judged on virtues, just need to figure out god exists, or return to earth. Islam kinda prides itself on being a "fair" religion atleast where Im from so most people will quote the first interperation.
Yeah, I’m an ex-Muslim and we were taught the same thing. Anyone who never had the religion introduced to them will not necessarily be punished. They would be given another chance after they died. >”And We would never punish ˹a people˺ until We have sent a messenger ˹to warn them˺.” Quran 17:15 Here is a quote from the classical Islamic scholar Ibn Taymiyyah: >"Textual evidence in the Quran and Sunnah indicates that God does not punish anyone until the message of Truth reaches him, as brought to him by a Messenger from God. Those who have not received the message of Truth or received a distorted or incomplete version of the message will not be punished.”
The Queran verse sounds like it is referring to populations of people still on Earth.
It’s referring to anyone on Earth that never received the message.
Which makes Islam an Info Hazard that by sharing, damns people who do not agree. If you believe in it you should actively hide the information to prevent the destruction of eternal souls. Ethically, provoking this information is monstrous beyond measure, representing, as best, annoyance and at worst eternal torment applied to mass populations. The average value is of course, infinitely bad and do anyone who proselytizes this information while believing in it is truly evil or incredibly ignorant.
Yeah, there's a quote in the Bible that says that only people who know that only one true god exists, yet choose to not follow him wont get into heaven. Nothing in the Bible says that non believers go to hell though, at least from what a couple preachers have explained to me.
Seems like they shouldn’t proselytize then. More people would get in to heaven.
Heh, right? 😆
Yeah, Judaism has historically flip flopped on either nothing after death, or a place called Sheol which is the destination of all humans, regardless of actions taken during life. It’s a dark, cold place of nothing.
Yup had someone out loud say that to my fam and I when my kiddo wanted to play trivia and I was like no; just no.
People in this sub have a real hardon for the term Abrahamic, especially when referring to something that applies to Christianity and Islam but not Judaism. And different Jews and different groups believe different things about an afterlife, but there's no 'eternal damnation' option.
What about Baha'i Faith? The unknown fourth Abrahamic religion.
God made an exception made me chuckle
I think I heard once that they didn't get the choice so they're exempt. It's only if you know about Jesus and not too follow him then you're in trouble.
I love the apologetic gymnastics that gave us Last Thursdaysim [Omphalos hypothesis - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omphalos_hypothesis)
Most Jewish people do their best to just leave everyone alone but there are the ultra-orthodox guys who take everything a bit far. I hope *Never Again* is a promise that is kept **forever.**
Eskimo: 'If I did not know about God and sin, would I go to hell?' Priest: 'No, not if you did not know.' Eskimo: 'Then why did you tell me?'' https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/327890-eskimo-if-i-did-not-know-about-god-and-sin
Thank you mysterious benefactor!
Oh well that's understandable
I believe Mark Twain (a Hawaii visitor and enthusiast for the culture) made a similar observation about the indigenous people there. Just found it... >**How sad it is to think of the multitudes who have gone to their gaves in this beautiful island and never knew there was a hell.**
It's maddening. I remember some years back visiting the house of a person who I'm not really friends with anymore (because he went off the right-wing loony cliff) and when I got there, I asked him what he was reading. He said, "Oh, I'm reading about how people lived to be 800 years old back in the bible." I don't even know how you answer that - it's just so profoundly stupid and clearly magical thinking over reason. But it gets better. The huckster who wrote the article in question concluded that people back then lived to be 800 years old because they "only ate meat and didn't get cellphone cancer." More right-wing lunacy mixed in with religious stupidity.
I wonder if the reports of super old people were being measured in lunar cycles, in which case an age of 800 would be about 65 years old. Definitely less impressive but much more believable.
I've heard that theory, and it makes sense. So much of the bible (and all old religious texts) is layers of questionable translations filtered through the lens of countless political agendas over centuries. It's insane that people pretend it's literal and accurate when a modern game of telephone loses the plot after a dozen people.
I once heard that "40" was a stand in for a big number or "long time" in biblical times. So "40 days and 40 nights" is like saying "many days and nights". Same with "40 years in the desert".
Most of the time divide by 12 to get something close to the real number. 12 was an important number in judaism, and as a religion it has a lot of numerology type things. So, one way to emphasize the importance of a character, or maybe make the stories more fantastical to outsiders while the insiders knew what was up, was to multiply ages by 12. You're 900? 77. Or 65 for 800. Both properly old ages, and still reasonable for a human to live to, while keeping the rule of 12. Another thing, consider the age the bible thinks we're supposed to comfortably live to, 120. That's just 12 ten times, so clearly they didn't mind using 12 as symbolic number for ages
Dunno where you get 120 years from. The bible says 70 years is allotted to men. (Three score & ten). I've heard of the 'rule of twelve' before, but it doesn't stack up. Abraham would have been 8 years old when Isaac was born.
Lunar cycles, errors in converting said lunar cycles, incomplete record keeping, and simple exaggeration. There are people today who are supposedly hundreds of years old according to the locals and themselves, but if you dig through the evidence enough you find they're doing the immortal descendant shtick only in reverse - moving out of the village and returning decades later as their grandparent.
what?
My whack job mother in law believes that crap too, but she just thinks God took it away from us over time because of sin or something. Have had to carpool to work lately because of car issues and force fed this mental piss. If it's not this crap she'll see a plane flying by and think the government is controlling the weather in order to kill off our population, or McDonald's are devil worshippers because they flipped their M upside down to make it the end of a pitchfork and not just made it a W for celebrating woman.
At the church I used to go to, they taught that people didn't eat meat until after Noah's flood. Adam lived 930 years as a vegetarian.
Interesting. My grandpa believes that people in olden days also lived for multiple century but by living as vegetarians, we're hindu. But credit to him, he understood that the average age limit for most of the time was like 10
Yep, some do. According to early Christian belief, Jesus descended into hell, also known as Hades, between his death and resurrection to rescue the souls of the righteous, including patriarchs and prophets who died before Christ's sacrifice. This event is called the "harrowing of hell" and is a major theme in the Eastern Church
Yeah it depends on which version of Christianity you are speaking about. Some straight believe the earth was created 6000 years ago and others believe it to be a metaphor since “to God a day is like a thousand years”. Some believe God created a “mature earth” and some even believe god put the dinosaur bones in the ground so that “unbelievers may have something to believe in”. As you likely know, they are all just excuses to keep the “flock” inline.
Yes. That's why I said "some do".
And I was adding to your statement.
No, they completely ignore reality and believe that the Earth is only about 5,000 or 6,000 years old so ...... "problem solved" as far as they're concerned.
Either that or some BS about when a covenant was made.
Both a covenant and the ridiculously short history, actually.
I grew up in an evangelical household. This is the answer for our church community, and every church we were on good terms with.
AFAIK, young earth creationists only constitute a small minority among all Christians.
It's been my anecdotal experience that most of them believe every single word in their little book but it is amusing to see how many of them pick and choose which "words of god" (including their commandments) they choose to adhere to.
That is just considering modern humans. The genus homo, of which we are a member, goes back nearly 3 million years. Then our Hominin ancestors go back roughly 8 million years. Did those individuals not have a "soul"?
Yes lol that's why I just asked for the modern humans bcoz like there are so many species of our genus who got extinct. I wonder if say those homo Neanderthals had religions but then again to form religion nd be religious they needed to have higher cognition and development of some sort of language to spread the word and their knowledge around, which if I'm not wrong is only a trait of homo sapiens. But i also wonder that about animals too like we all animals and i choose to believe that if god exists he ain't discriminatory so where would those animals go considering they don't have the neural connections needed to form any opinion
As I understand it, many animals exhibit consciousness. They play, they mourn the dead, they use tools, they solve problems, and so much more. In my opinion, if there is something that you might call a soul, many animals have it. I am not talking about a supernatural soul though.
I asked that of an evangelical preacher, he claims unless you're saved and accept Jesus, you go to hell. So I said, what about stillborn babies, what about childhood cancer, crib death etc. Innocent children who don't have the chance to be saved? He said, they'll have the chance when they pass to accept Jesus. So I said, so if I can just wait until I pass to accept Jesus, what the hell am I wasting my time in church for? He was speechless for the first time in his life, lol
If I remember in The Inferno there was a place in hell for like…dead babies and maybe foreigners who had never heard of Jesus. Where it was boring but not painful. Am I dreaming this up?
I read The Inferno, and you are correct. The first level of hell, Limbo, was for the unbaptized and “virtuous pagans.”
Oooo I think I might just start describing myself that way instead of as an atheist. ‘Are you religious?’ ‘No, I’m a virtuous pagan.’
>do Abrahamic followers think humans that lived for 299,998 years, before those religions were invented, all went to hell? Many do, yes. A classic source on this is Dante, who imagines that Hell has nine circles, getting progressively worse. The First Circle, where the "virtuous Pagans" are, isn't very bad - it is just basically very boring, plus the certainty that it is never going to get any better. Other Abrahamists also have other views about this topic. .
The short answer is: everyone gets a chance to accept Jesus. Now, that's confusing, right? yes, yes, it is. But, they say that all the human are given a chance, either in this life or after death. So, for example, you lived in China in the year 500 bce. You never heard about Jesus or god. you dead now. Then, your soul just takes a nap. Then Jesus dies on the cross while a solar eclipse and an earthquake happen in the same time and place. (a solar eclipse is an act of god,ok? it's not just a shadow coincidence) Jesus comes back to life, does some stuff, the Holy Spirit comes down on the believers, and Jesus says I'm out. Gotta go make heaven. I'm busy. Then, at some point......which may have not even happened yet....Jesus gathers the souls that were asleep, and basically does a preacher revival alter call, and they either say yes or no. (I mean no faith needed at that point, it's just pure evidence. Hey, this here God thing is real. Come on down!) The other answer is that we don't know, and no. The Catholic church is big on original sin. That will be an issue if you die before you are baptized. But, they kind of waffle that fence with the Virgin Mother Mary. She is basically the 3rd party arbiter between God and Jesus, so she's up there getting the babies in. So yeah, those souls just had a sleeping curse.
Hell is a concept of some (arguably most) Christian sects. It is not a Jewish concept. I don't know if Islam has such a concept.
Islam has it on steroids.
Hell on Steroids I like it. Sounds like a 80s Heavy Metal album, maybe something Judas Priest would have done...
How so? It resembles alot of New Testament Bible.
Hell wasn't taught in the Old Testament or by Jesus. Neither heaven nor hell was a part of Jewish tradition and Jesus was a Jew after all. Most of the passages that some denominations try to use as a reference to hell in fact don't. Whereas in Islam hell is described in great detail and describes some of the punishments that would happen. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBA2aFpcqUU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBA2aFpcqUU)
That’s why I mentioned “New Testament”
I was taught that seeing nature was enough for anyone to come to the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ.
Judaism doesn't really have a *heaven* and *hell* as punishment and reward. That's really a Christian and Muslim thing, basically ridiculous.
Some of them think the world is only 6000 years old and anything that proves it's older is a trick by the devil. My uncle runs a cult with those and even older beliefs.
>Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't it true that abrahmic religions think that anyone not a follower of their religion gets direct ticket to hell no matter You're not correct. Not all Abrahamic religions even believe in a hell, and the Old Testament (Hebrew Bible) actually doesn't even contain the ideal... Everyone goes to sheol (the grave). The base claim also definitely doesn't apply to young earth creationists who think the earth is only 6,000 years old to begin with. Best you could argue for there is 4,000 years and BC/BCE times.
Ooh thnx for the clarification! Question, how do they explain the existence of dinosaurs?
>Question, how do they explain the existence of dinosaurs? How does who explain that? YEC, probably? Yeah... They're really absurd on that and basically say that they were all vegetarian until either original sin or the flood, and that the impossible global flood is the answer to basically all of everything in geology and the fossil record. So... They explain it and everything else with complete BS, basically.
It's really disappointing to see how many people in this sub apparently are convinced that all Christians are young earth creationists. This is very much not the case. I'd have hoped my fellow atheists were better informed.
Jews don't really believe in hell.
Some of them do. Some don't. Some don't even think about it. Religion and religious people are too inconsistent.
From what I remember, Christians think we’ve only been on the planet for about 6000 years or so
I believe hell is the real heaven, and Satan is really god in disguise. It's a test to see who is just sucking up and who is legit. Atheists are the chosen ones.
You can’t convert to Judaism in one day. It’s a whole year conversion process.
Abrahamic followers think that the world exists for only less than 6000 years in the first place...
Stop assuming American evangelicalism is universal. Biblical literalism is younger than the American civil war.
I have never heard if the Jewish religion accepts the 6000 year theory, as it is based on the Old Testament calculations of a Catholic bishop.
I don’t know a single Jew who believes that stuff and I know a *lot* of Jews.
Listen, god, in his infinite all-knowing wisdom, just hadn't thought of that part of the plan yet!
Depends on the individual and their denomination. The official doctrine of the Catholic and Orthodox churches for one says a person doesn't even need to be a Christian to go to heaven, but that being a Catholic or Orthodox respectively is the only way to guarantee it. Thinking all non-christians will go to hell seems to be mostly a US or evangelical thing. As far as I know there are no verses to support someone *needs* to be a christian to be saved. There are a few verses that say people can be saved only "through Jesus" but to my knowledge this doesn't mean Jesus will only save christians. There are in fact a few verses that say the opposite, i.e. not all people who call themselves followers of Christ will be saved. Matthew 7:21-23 >"Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?' And then will I declare to them, 'I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.'" Also, this is one of my favorites, because it says if god was real then so many of the Republican types would be screwed. Matthew 25:41-46: > Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ Then they also will answer, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to you?’ Then he will answer them, saying, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’ And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life. Edit: note that in the verses before this it says the exact opposite, e.g. the people that did these things (clothed/fed the poor etc) will go to heaven. No mention of them having to be "christians".
> The official doctrine of the Catholic and Orthodox churches for one says a person doesn't even need to be a Christian to go to heaven I wonder how they arrive at that conclusion given [John 14:6](https://www.biblegateway.com/verse/en/John%2014:6) where Jesus says "... No one comes to the Father except through me."
Ther's also something in thessalonians about bringing vengeance on all who don't know god. But that's an apocalyptic war at the end time, not the judgment of those long dead.
They deny that there's any history before Adam and Eve and take the Bible stories literally so that any kind of talk of what happened before isn't valid to them.
They’re all either fools or scammers try to ignore the, M.
Good question; the bible actually answers this question at Acts 24:15; it says: "There is going to be a resurrection of both the righteous and the unrighteous". What is this scripture saying? Once the great resurrection occurs, God will resurrect from the dead those who practiced good things as well as those who practiced bad things or were around before religion became established. This includes those who in ignorance, died without knowing anything about God and his righteous ways. These ones will be resurrected and given a chance to know God and serve him. For more information, please visit jw.org.
from my understanding at least in the catholic faith, everyone prior to Jesus dying "for our sins" went to hell as humanity was cursed with Original Sin (eve eating the apple) so his death wiped the slate clean as it where, which is why many of the rules from the old testament were no longer necessary to follow (why Kosher is a Jewish thing and not a catholic thing)
Theres only 4 thousand years of total existence! Duhhhh
This is gonna sound silly, but it's true. I'm not this creative. Here goes. Way back in the day, when I was a christian, I was taught that Jesus saved everyone in hell at the time of his death. I don't remember which bible verses this preacher cited, but he explained that when Jesus died, he descended into hell for 3 days. And during those 3 days, he preached the gospel to everyone in hell, and they all got saved. And yes, before Jesus, no one got into heaven. They were all sent to hell. Because they all "fell short", and without a "savior", no one could be in the presence of god in heaven.
Lately tho, American Christians are hell bent on insisting much lunacy: Earth is flat and has a “dome holding up the waters above firmament “ , dinosaurs lived at the same time as humans Becuase the Earth is 6,000 years old, or Satan has place dinosaur bones in the earth to trick people away from Jesus.
There's some workaround I had explained to me once that made as much sense as anything else
The sect of Christianity I came from (atheist now) just didn’t believe that people existed before 5-10 thousand years ago. No matter the evidence against this, they believe that Adam and Eve have a direct lineage to current day with nothing before so this isn’t an issue. Science/satan lying to prevent people from believing yada yada yada. The question they had was the condition for salvation is Jesus, so what about the people that lived before jesus? In that case, my church taught that that people who believed Jesus would come and die were saved and those who didn’t, weren’t.
I imagine the trouble comes when one uses the word "think" in the same sentence to describe the actions of those that follow organized superstitions.
My wife likes to bring up dinosaurs when Christians talk about the Bible. When did "God" make those? It's funny that they're not mentioned in the Bible, yet they clearly existed. My mom likes to defend the shit in the Bible with them having a different calendar. Yeah, but bitch, that doesn't explain the *millions* of years that are completely ignored by religion.(I hate my mom, so it's OK to call her a bitch.)
In Catholic theology there is also a concept of [Limbo](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limbo#Limbo_of_Infants). This is the place where for example un-baptized babies go. They can't go to heaven, and they do not deserve to go to hell because they committed no sins yet.
The way religious beliefs form are not through thinking things through, but typically more of unconsciously concluding that something must be true because everyone around them says it’s true.
Eternal torments is acceptable doctrine only to certain believers of Abrahamic faiths. Colossians 1: 16 because in him (Christ) the all things created, those in the heavens, and those upon the earth, those visible, and those invisible, whether thrones, whether lordships, whether principalities, whether authorities; all things through him, and for him, have been created, ... 20 and through him to reconcile the all things to himself—having made peace through the blood of his cross—through him, whether the things upon the earth, whether the things in the heavens. https://www.reddit.com/r/Christianity/comments/1cu31kn/acts_321_colossians_120/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=2
I had to study a little Catholic theology in teacher training college (90% of Irish primary schools are Catholic). We were told that the effect of Jesus' death and resurrection transcended time, because heaven exists outside of time. Even if you believe every word of the New Testament, you would have to accept this is pure guesswork. The Bible has a lot to say about how to get to heaven, nothing on the actual mechanics. I don't really care if someone can't explain answer this one, I'd be far more sceptical of someone who claims they can.
What? They think the world is 6000 years old.
I like the logical attention to nonsense. It really brings out how incredibly stupid most religious beliefs are. This nonsense should be reserved for fandoms- such as “How many Orcs did Legolas kill at Helms Deep for real?” But sadly- a majority of our neighbors believe, (or at least claim to believe) in the nonsense. Someone asked me: “why do you care what others believe? Shouldn’t you ignore it like people who are really into a fiction you aren’t interested in?” I wish it was that easy- the people who believe in religion tend to pass laws that are based on their made up nonsense. So sadly- we all have to know about their fandom.
From what I understand as long as you were not made aware of Jesus Christ you got in on a technicality. It's like the old joke where the missionary tells a guy that he has to accept Jesus as his Lord and Savior he's going to go to hell and the guy ask him what would have happened if you had never told me and the missionary tells him that he would have gone to heaven "Then why did you tell me?"
I promise you 99% have never given this any thought because it would be too obvious their beliefs make no sense.
No, people are judged by what they knew
The Mormons are tweeking the story and fixing that They are baptizing everyone, so no worries!! It's all just a silly game with major plot holes anyway.
My understanding is that no humans are believed to have existed prior to Adam and then Eve. They were pure until the original sin of eating the forbidden fruit. That original son has been passed down to all of their descendants. Prior to Jesus coming to save us all, you could atone for original sin for doing things like sacrificing an animal or a spare child to appease the almighty. Then Jesus came to die as compensation for all of the sins of everyone who existed from then on.
I think many Christian arguments essentially boil down to “last Tuesdayism”.
Probably the most stubborn of them maybe?
They have some illogical loophole just like everything else.
The religious people I know? Yes. That's what they tell me. They say we all deserve to go to Hell, so we should celebrate that ANYONE was allowed to escape that fate. Edit: I can get reddit quotes of people telling me as much.
Abrahams bosom...or special creation 6k years ago. Depends on the individual.
It has no practical impact on today, so religion doesn't need to give an answer. It's like asking how dilithium crystals work. However you want them to, it doesn't change the episode scripts.
Dante put them in the nicest part of hell: limbo.
How low can you go?
Lol. Something like that.
Not only went to hell but sent there en masse by God during the great flood. For all being déplorables.
Nah they just think those people didn't exist . If it doesn't exist , it can't harm them right?
They don't think! They follow.
Maybe. But who cares what they think?
A lot of them do. And then there are the billions of fetuses which their god spontaneously aborted.
They think the Earth is 10,000 years old
Also a lot of them think only humans existed 4,000 years before Christianity. From what I remember growing up as a Christian, many also believe that people went to heaven before Jesus by believing that he would one day come.
I asked my mom and brother about 5 years ago. "Even if the earth is 6,000 years old, there are people in south America who had no clue who Jesus was until the Spanish conquests in the 1500s, so did everyone in America pre-1500s just go to hell?" Their response was "yes, they're cursed people." Such love. Much mercy. Wow.
No. They have a creation myth. To them everyone always knew and at one point they were chosen and at another point they were the choosers.
You’re wrong.
Ah yes, the concept of "The Virtuous Pagan" was one of those things hotly-debated theological issues that I would give christians credit for, and the only reason I still consider CS Lewis acceptable to give to young children to read. It seems less-well accepted in the modern age. If a church does not have an acceptable answer on the topic of "The Virtuous Pagan" it's a hate group. (Note: historical atheists that christians cannot deny the worth of are lumped into "The Virtuous Pagan" by christians, and since it's a technical term they invented for internal use as an identifier to debate theological issues among themselves, I use it as they defined it, even though technically we shouldn't be considered pagan by a wider reading of that term)
This question sorta betrays a major ignorance of what those very diverse groups of religions actually believe. They don’t all believe in Hell, and the ones that do don’t all believe that Hell is permanent, not even within just the mainstream Christian denominations. For example, some branches of Christianity believe that nobody went to Heaven before Jesus kind of “opened the way”, but that once he did, the souls in Hell got “rejudged” and the virtuous souls were redeemed. Others believe everybody will be reborn at the end of the world and have a final chance to be judged again. And on top of that, Catholics (just one example) officially believe in a complex Hell/Purgatory system where virtuous people can be redeemed and go up to Heaven. Point is that there are a huge range of beliefs about this… mainly because “what happened to those people before” isn’t a core part of the belief system.
Anyone who worships a being that tortures people for eternity for something they did during a short human lifetime isn't going to care about it torturing people who never heard of it.
Tbh people like hitler do deserve that eternal damnation idk
Some of them think everyone goes to Hell. Some of them think the Earth/the Universe is only ~6000 years old. Some of them think that if you haven't had the chance to hear about Jesus, then you automatically go to heaven. Some of them don't believe in the concept of Heaven/Hell. Even though they all think something really stupid, they are like any other large group, not a monolith.
As a former evangelical Christian, these were my old beliefs: 1. Young earth creationism: the universe and the earth is only 6,000 years old 2. During the Old Testament period, God used the system of animals sacrifices as a temporary stand-in for the blood of Jesus which was eventually coming to be the perfect sacrifice 3. The animal sacrifices stopped being needed after Jesus died 4. The people outside of the line of Noah, Abraham, and later the 12 tribes of Israel, were pagan tribes and generally they went to hell when they died
Hell doesnt even exist depending on what flavor of christian you ask.
They say they don't know, and that it is up to god. Just like every other question they don't have an answer for. Edit. Fat fingers.
I always wonder about the uncontacted tribes and similar groups from the past. I understand missions and spreading the word but it seems really flawed for an omnipotent being to leave it up to his flawed creations to know about him and to spread the word, or go to hell. “I’m too lazy to present myself so, millions of souls must go to hell”
Since not all abrahamic religions even have a concept of hell - no.
Ill give you the ol' Baptist answer. There's a place called Paradise in the center of the Earth,and next to it across a great chasm, is Hell. All believers in Christ waited there in Paradise until Jesus died on the Cross, went to Paradise, fought and defeated the Devil, and then took all those waiting in Paradise to Heaven. Then Hell consumed all of Paradise taking up the entire Earth's core.
The Universe was created old around 6000 years ago. For a supernatural God this is easy. Just cause Big Bang, skip forward until 6000 years ago and start from there. Do some editing along the way. If you accept a supernatural God, anything is possible. Nothing is random. Everything is intentional. And for the best. Free will is not a contradiction of this, for an all-knowing supernatural benevolent personal God for all.
It is a major plot hole. The apologists have developed various excuses in an attempt to plug the hole. Most of the excuses are pretty thin, so they get holes poked in them as well.
They believe in Adam and Eve and do not think people started before 6000 years ago. Those were monkeys or something and not people. But theologically you would say that God can make his determination for the afterlife, but he has mapped it out in his religions. So prior to that there was no map.
6000 years bro. From Adam and Eve. They've got flowcharts and shit.