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Go To Church To Hear About Jesus? No Way!

Jumi

Well-Known Member
There must be some margin of error in this poll.... atheist that believe in the biblical heaven or hell has to be a mistake... Christians that don't believe in heaven sounds odd too...
Well, it doesn't seem to imply a "Biblical heaven" or "Biblical hell", whatever those might be. It would be strange if Jews believed in a modern Christian heaven or hell for instance, to say nothing of Hindu or Buddhist....
 

URAVIP2ME

Veteran Member
Hmmmm. . . . So what do you do with the following verses, just ignore them?.
Mark 9:43
43 If your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life maimed than with two hands to go into hell, where the fire never goes out.
Jude 1:7
7 In a similar way, Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding towns gave themselves up to sexual immorality and perversion. They serve as an example of those who suffer the punishment of eternal fire.
Matthew 13:50
50 They will put the bad people into the never-ending hell fire. There they will cry and make a noise with their teeth.'
Revelation 21:8
8 But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars—they will be consigned to the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death.”​


Please keep in mind that originally the Bible was Not written in King James English.
Mark 9:43 originally has the word Gehenna. 'Into Gehenna' Not the English word into hell.
Gehenna was a garbage pit where things where destroyed forever Not burning forever.
That ' destruction ' is what will never be put out or undone.
The wicked are 'destroyed forever' as per Psalms 92:7
Matthew 13:50 that fiery furnace stands for Gehenna.
Remember Matthew 13:34 lets us know Matthew 13:50 is a parable story or illustration story.
Jude 1:7 is in connection to Luke 17:27; Luke 17:29 in connection to: destruction.

The ' second death ' of Revelation 21:8 is the same symbolic ' second death of Revelation 20:13-14.
After everyone in ' biblical hell ' is ' delivered up' (meaning resurrected out of hell (grave) then emptied-out hell is cast vacant into that symbolic ' second death ' for vacated biblical hell.
Satan ends up in ' second death ' (Not hell) because Jesus 'destroys Satan' as per Hebrews 2:14 B.
So, ' second death ' is a fitting term for: destruction.
 

Dell

Asteroid insurance?
Well, it doesn't seem to imply a "Biblical heaven" or "Biblical hell", whatever those might be. It would be strange if Jews believed in a modern Christian heaven or hell for instance, to say nothing of Hindu or Buddhist....
Ok, heaven or hell, paradise or torment, however.. it still seems odd Atheists have any belief in any interpretation of those...
 

Skwim

Veteran Member

Please keep in mind that originally the Bible was Not written in King James English.
Mark 9:43 originally has the word Gehenna. 'Into Gehenna' Not the English word into hell.
Gehenna was a garbage pit where things where destroyed forever Not burning forever.
That ' destruction ' is what will never be put out or undone.
The wicked are 'destroyed forever' as per Psalms 92:7
Matthew 13:50 that fiery furnace stands for Gehenna.
Remember Matthew 13:34 lets us know Matthew 13:50 is a parable story or illustration story.
Jude 1:7 is in connection to Luke 17:27; Luke 17:29 in connection to: destruction.

The ' second death ' of Revelation 21:8 is the same symbolic ' second death of Revelation 20:13-14.
After everyone in ' biblical hell ' is ' delivered up' (meaning resurrected out of hell (grave) then emptied-out hell is cast vacant into that symbolic ' second death ' for vacated biblical hell.
Satan ends up in ' second death ' (Not hell) because Jesus 'destroys Satan' as per Hebrews 2:14 B.
So, ' second death ' is a fitting term for: destruction.
So What? It isn't at all important what some old Bible or manuscripts may have said because people aren't reading them. What is important is what the Bibles they read say. For whatever reason, the scholars who constructed each of the versions of the Bible decided they would use the word that best describes the intended meaning of their sources. So if they used word X instead of word Y to get across the meaning of ޘ it's because that's what they wanted the reader to understand. Therefore they used "Hell" instead of "Gehenna," "Hades," "Sheol," or whatever because its definition best describes what they feel was meant by ޘ .

Of course, if you check other versions of the Bible no doubt you'll come across different words for Hell in a particular verse, in which case you have the opportunity to cherry-pick the Bible that best suits your theology.

.
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Jumi

Well-Known Member
Ok, heaven or hell, paradise or torment, however.. it still seems odd Atheists have any belief in any interpretation of those...
I don't see anything weird in, didn't see anything odd in it even when I was atheist myself. It's just that Christianity is linked more in people's minds to afterlife than other religions... when Christianity itself has multiple beliefs on afterlife that believers can have. One of them is "dust to dust", you die body and soul and get resurrected on "the final day"

Some atheists believe reincarnation and things like that. It's not a theistic monopoly. I don't have much beliefs on afterlife myself as theist, don't see any changes in it actually from the time I was atheist.
 

URAVIP2ME

Veteran Member
So What? It isn't at all important what some old Bible or manuscripts may have said because people aren't reading them. What is important is what the Bibles they read say. For whatever reason, the scholars who constructed each of the versions of the Bible decided they would use the word that best describes the intended meaning of their sources. So if they used word X instead of word Y to get across the meaning of ޘ it's because that's what they wanted the reader to understand. Therefore they used "Hell" instead of "Gehenna," "Hades," "Sheol," or whatever because its definition best describes what they feel was meant by ޘ .
Of course, if you check other versions of the Bible no doubt you'll come across different words for Hell in a particular verse, in which case you have the opportunity to cherry-pick the Bible that best suits your theology.

Nothing to do with cherry picking but everything to do with the ancient manuscripts.
The Bible was Not originally written in English, so the non-English words used helps gives us the definition.
Sheol the Hebrew word for the grave.
Haides'Hades the Greek word for the grave.
Gehenna is the word for a garbage pit where things were destroyed forever and Not any grave.
 

URAVIP2ME

Veteran Member
I don't see anything weird in, didn't see anything odd in it even when I was atheist myself. It's just that Christianity is linked more in people's minds to afterlife than other religions... when Christianity itself has multiple beliefs on afterlife that believers can have. One of them is "dust to dust", you die body and soul and get resurrected on "the final day"
Some atheists believe reincarnation and things like that. It's not a theistic monopoly. I don't have much beliefs on afterlife myself as theist, don't see any changes in it actually from the time I was atheist.

No, I find it is very wrong to say 'Christianity' linked people's minds to 'afterlife '
Rather, it's false Christianity aka 'Christendom' did that, Not the Bible.
Afterlife teaching means more alive at death then before death.
What we can learn from the Bible is ' Resurrection ' ( that is different from the false afterlife teaching ).
The dead are Not alive, but sound 'asleep in the grave' until they are later resurrected.
Sleeping according to Psalms 115:17; Psalms 146:4; Isaiah 38:18; Ecclesiastes 9:5 and Jesus at John 11:11-14.
This is why the 'future tense ' is used at Acts of the Apostles 24:15 that there ' is going to be' a resurrection.....
That ' final day ' is a thousand-year day, Jesus' coming 'millennium-long day' of governing over Earth.
 

URAVIP2ME

Veteran Member
Well, it doesn't seem to imply a "Biblical heaven" or "Biblical hell", whatever those might be...............

What we can learn from the Bible is ' Biblical Heaven ' is God's home address as per 1 Kings 8:39,49
What we can learn from the Bible is ' Biblical Hell ' is just mankind's temporary stone-cold grave for the sleeping dead.
'Sleeping dead' as per Psalms 115:17; Psalms 146:4; Isaiah 38:18; Ecclesiastes 9:5 and Jesus at John 11:11-14.
After everyone in "Biblical Hell' is ' delivered up ' (meaning resurrected out of the grave) then, emptied-out Biblical Hell is cast vacant into a symbolic ' second death ' for vacated Biblical Hell / Grave according to Revelation 20:13-14.
 

Muffled

Jesus in me
I came across the following stats and found some of them kind of interesting.

1) 3% of atheists believe in Hell and 5% believe in Heaven. WHAT THE HELL'S WITH THAT???

2) More agnostics (9%) believe in Hell than do JWs (7%).

3) Fewer JWs (50%) believe in Heaven than any other Christian denomination believes in Heaven or Hell.

4) Only 40% of Jews believe in Heaven,

6) But most surprising of all, to me anyway, was that 15% of Christians don't believe in Heaven. And 30% don't believe in Hell.


FT_15.11.11_afterlife_420px.png


The JWs aside because they only make up a small fraction of Christians, what's going on with the other denominations in that they can't do any better than convincing 85% of their congregants to believe in Heaven? And even Hell isn't scaring them that much; only 70% are buying it. Could it be, as has been sometimes asserted, that for many people church is more for socializing than getting right with god? Fifteen percent go to church not to hear about Jesus and such, but to hear about their neighbors.

Could this be why church attendance is plummeting, people are finding the religion irrelevant?

.

I believe it makes a difference what church one goes to. also just because something is preached and the people hear it, doesn't mean they believe it.
 

metis

aged ecumenical anthropologist
I don't have a belief in heaven nor hell, but neither do I deny their possibility of existing.

IOW, I don't know, so my response to such questions tends to be "Whatever".
 
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