Is there a chance a non-believer will go to heaven?

Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
God sends only believers to hell. theists suffer

What would be the point of that? After all, they believe. That would be like sending everyone Not Guilty to prison, and letting all the convicts run around free.

Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos

God sends everyone to hell. both suffer

God sends no one to hell. both do not suffer

And what would be the point of either one of those? These two are the worst of your six examples.

The first one is inane because then there's no way of escaping Hell. So really, what's the whole aim there?

The second makes no sense either, because then God would be rewarding the disobedient for their wicked behavior, while simultaneously disregarding the deeds of the righteous.

In both scenarios there's no point in issuing Commandments. Everyone's going to Hell anyways, or they'll never be enforced, so Hitler and Dahmer are now in Heaven.

Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos

A man says he will torture you for no reason he can explain. You cannot forcibly stop him. Now, do you decide that you're fine with that or tell him to **** off?

First off, why can't that puto explain it?

Do I have a fighting chance of breaking free? Or will telling him to "**** off" only make him madder? Because then there's no pointing in escalating a doomed situation. I'd shut up and put up with it.

Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
Also, objective morality doesn't mean your morals aren't crafted. It just usually means that someone else crafted them for you. Or, more generously, that you "really super extra special sure" that you're right.

Well, it kind of does imply that, because then they can't be objective if some random guy made them up.

I personally believe that morality was pre-ordained, and therefore trumps the opinions of mere mortals who decide they don't like it.

Originally posted by Quiero Mota
What would be the point of that? After all, they believe. That would be like sending everyone Not Guilty to prison, and letting all the convicts run around free.

And what would be the point of either one of those? These two are the worst of your six examples.

The first one is inane because then there's no way of escaping Hell. So really, what's the whole aim there?

The second makes no sense either, because then God would be rewarding the disobedient for their wicked behavior, while simultaneously disregarding the deeds of the righteous.

In both scenarios there's no point in issuing Commandments. Everyone's going to Hell anyways, or they'll never be enforced, so Hitler and Dahmer are now in Heaven.

I'm covering all possible attitudes of a god. We can throw in "owns exactly 36 grams of cheese at the time of death" as the sole qualifier for going to heaven just as reasonably as anything else. But I'm limiting it to atheism/theism as the only thing that matter.

You can't cherry pick the ones you want for this thought experiment. We don't know anything about God for sure, because we have no way of testing anything about him (unless you have a testable god, in which case I can bring my challenges in an empirical form rather than a rational form).

But explanations for the first one might be that God is a rationalist who will punish those who believed in him without good reason.

Everyone goes to hell is simply a malevolent God (which people believe in). Everyone goes to heaven is a totally benevolent God (which people believe in). They can be subsumed under the heading of pre-ordainment in the Calvinist sense, nothing you do has any effect on your afterlife.

Originally posted by Quiero Mota
First off, why can't that puto explain it?

He says that he know better than you and that from his better knowledge he has decided that the torture is moral. I assume that you don't take people's word on their impeccable moral sense.

Originally posted by Quiero Mota
Do I have a fighting chance of breaking free? Or will telling him to "**** off" only make him madder? Because then there's no pointing in escalating a doomed situation. I'd shut up and put up with it.

No, your torture is infinite and unending. It cannot possibly be made worse.

Originally posted by Quiero Mota
I personally believe that morality was pre-ordained, and therefore trumps the opinions of mere mortals who decide they don't like it.

So? Randroids believe that morality is objective, absolute and pre-ordained but they probably disagree with you about everything. Saying that your morals are objective gives them no special place since there are debates about what the objective moral truth is to begin with. You have all the same problems that subjectivists do, you're just super extra special infinity mega confident that you've got it right.

Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
I'm covering all possible attitudes of a god. We can throw in "owns exactly 36 grams of cheese at the time of death" as the sole qualifier for going to heaven just as reasonably as anything else. But I'm limiting it to atheism/theism as the only thing that matter.

You can't cherry pick the ones you want for this thought experiment. We don't know anything about God for sure, because we have no way of testing anything about him (unless you have a testable god, in which case I can bring my challenges in an empirical form rather than a rational form).

But explanations for the first one might be that God is a rationalist who will punish those who believed in him without good reason.

Everyone goes to hell is simply a malevolent God (which people believe in). Everyone goes to heaven is a totally benevolent God (which people believe in). They can be subsumed under the heading of pre-ordainment in the Calvinist sense, nothing you do has any effect on your afterlife.

I wasn't cherry-picking arbitrarily; I was highlighting the ones that made the least sense. Basically, you were coming up with "What If" scenarios, and I was responding accordingly.

Just because God is benevolent, doesn't mean He can't be just and administer the proper judgment. If justice is the confluence of law and morality, then in a perfect universe, the wicked will get their just desserts.

Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos

He says that he know better than you and that from his better knowledge he has decided that the torture is moral. I assume that you don't take people's word on their impeccable moral sense.

Is he Mexican, or a whiteboy?

Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos

No, your torture is infinite and unending. It cannot possibly be made worse.

Well, then it sucks to be me.

Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos

So? Randroids believe that morality is objective, absolute and pre-ordained but they probably disagree with you about everything. Saying that your morals are objective gives them no special place since there are debates about what the objective moral truth is to begin with. You have all the same problems that subjectivists do, you're just super extra special infinity mega confident that you've got it right.

No actually, I don't have the same problems that subjectivists do. When a person says that they get their morality from the Bible or the Koran, you know exactly what their morals are. And if you don't, you can read a piece of paper (literally) and then understand where they're coming from. But the same can't be said for Atheists, Humanists, Secularists and so on. They have no text that can be referenced, and it differs from person to person, because as Digi pointed out in the other thread; there is no central creed that binds Atheists. They might retain some morals from the religion they were raised in, or they will simply decide what is right and wrong, by their own terms, by their own standards.

He wasn't creating What If scenarios, he was outlining all possibilities in that particular thought experiment, in order to make a point about the futility of belief based on the goal of getting to heaven.

In other words, not being able to know if there's a God, which God it is, and what criteria defines entrance into said God's heaven, a believer is just as likely to be damned as an atheist. This makes belief on the grounds of Pascal's Wager (or a similar wager) illogical, or at least not any safer.

Originally posted by Digi
He wasn't creating What If scenarios, he was outlining all possibilities in that particular thought experiment, in order to make a point about the futility of belief based on the goal of getting to heaven.

In other words, not being able to know if there's a God, which God it is, and what criteria defines entrance into said God's heaven, a believer is just as likely to be damned as an atheist. This makes belief on the grounds of Pascal's Wager (or a similar wager) illogical, or at least not any safer.

And the "other possibilities" are rendered void if you're a Believer, because the criteria for getting into Heaven has already been laid out for you.

Disagreement only occurs between people of different faiths, or between people of faith and Atheist philosophers who decide they are dissatisfied with established criteria and want to discuss every single exception they can possibly think of.

Originally posted by Quiero Mota
And the "other possibilities" are rendered void if you're a Believer, because the criteria for getting into Heaven has already been laid out for you.

Disagreement only occurs between people of different faiths, or between people of faith and Atheist philosophers who decide they are dissatisfied with established criteria and want to discuss every single exception they can possibly think of.

The idea of heaven seems too complex to understand or try to understand. Eternal life as a spirit would likely be more than our current minds can grasp. Also you have to presume that if a person does the right thing for self-serving reasons, it may be perceived as having been a selfish act. That's where the real dilemma lies. If being good isn't enough as "good" is subject to perspective. Why should people frustrate themselves gambling on heaven or hell? If there is no heaven or hell then the world is still improved by people who treat others with respect and sincerity. I would think any teachings that promoted sincere positivity towards the world are worth investigation.

Originally posted by King Kandy
Except that there are tons of cases where the teenagers actually were correct. My grandparents were complete douchebags and my mother disagreed with them about everything. They were just plain wrong and being an adult hasn't changed her opinion of them.

Cosigned. Some parents are wrong and are really screwed up. There are several things my parents did or said that are still wrong, to this day.

However, that's really missing his point. He was speaking more in a general sense and it goes more with a colloquial saying: you think I'm wrong now, but in 20 years, you'll see that I was right (I have hear various versions of that from tons of 'adults'.)

Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
We can extend it to all different kinds of behaviors for god.

God sends everyone to hell. both suffer
God sends only believers to hell. theists suffer
God sends only atheists to hell. atheists suffer
God sends only people who are "good" to hell. good atheists and good theists suffer
God sends only people who are "bad" to hell. bad atheists and bad theist suffer
God sends no one to hell. both do not suffer

By adding in a malevolent god (or alternately "a nice guy who only tortures most of humanity"😉 neither side comes out ahead in terms of total potential for suffering. One option here is to accept nihilism. In practice nihilism is stupid and rarely practiced by people older than 15.

We are left with evaluate atheism and theism on merits other than their ability to let you avoid hell.

Excellent points.

Mormonism fits the your very last point, almost perfectly:

"God sends no one to hell. both do not suffer."

By being born, you are already guaranteed a place in heaven. That's it: just be born and you go to heaven.

This includes people like Hitler, Stalin, and Mao Tse-Tung.

The only people who go to "hell" are those that obtain a perfect knowledge of God and his laws. This would be people like Judas Iscariot, or other prophets, that turn completely away from God to spite him. This is more of a decision to go to hell than it is God casting them to hell. So, really, the only people that go to hell are those that chose to do so. And, it's not really hell: they still will have a perfect immortal body for an infinite of amount of time: they just want being in a version of heaven.

Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
You have all the same problems that subjectivists do, you're just super extra special infinity mega confident that you've got it right.

crylaugh

I also liked the comment about 36 grams of cheese.

How I see it: if we have souls that are eternal and they were formed from some sort of God, then there is an afterlife to obtain.

Mormons believe that pretty much every last one of us goes to heaven. Those that go to the "best" heaven are those that got all of the ordinances done (baptism, marriage for eternity) and were a good person. What is unique about Mormonism is that the ordinances, while absolutely required, do not have to be done while you are living: they can be done while you are dead, waiting in the spirit afterlife, but before "judgment day". This means that no matter what, every last person has the chance to go to heaven.

However, one is still judged but what moral good and evil they lived by. Again, the ignorance exception works.

Some in the Mormon church say that it is much harder for a spirit to repent than it is a spirit in a body: something about the body and the spirit creating a much more conducive 'repentance' combination. I think that makes sense: as a spirit, supposedly, we will have a perfect memory of all our deeds: good or evil. So, as a spirit, we will remember that bad things we did perfectly, making it much harder to "get over our misdeeds" than when we are mortals because we can "get over" or bad deeds more easily because pain can usually fade. This works because with repentance, our sorrows and pain are "loosened" or forgotten by our spirits and God which culminates the point of repentance and one of the reasons Jesus Christ's atonement was necessary: to "get over it" basically.

But why do we "suffer" from our misdeeds? Because, as spirits, we have a perfect knowledge of the gospel, know perfectly what we did wrong, and have difficulty getting over the those thoughts.

Again, this goes back to the "all go to heaven except those that chose to turn away from God, on purpose."

So, there will probably be some prideful atheists that would rather doom themselves for eternity than go to heaven, but I think those will be very few and far between. Most of the people that go to hell will be those that were very righteous people that had a sure knowledge of God (People that saw angels or things on the level of that type of "sure knowledge"...in other words, it is a 100% ordeal because they have actual proof) but rejected God and all he represents for various evil reasons. The best example of that is Lucifer, one of the greatest spirits in heaven before the Creation. He rejected God and his teachings and took 1/3 of all the "people" from heaven with him: he obviously had some pull.

Anyway, to sum up: yes, everyone WILL get a chance to hear the gospel, either here on earth or in heaven. They WILL get ordinances done for them so that the strange ritualistic rules of baptism and eternal marriage can be fulfilled, and almost every last person WILL go to heaven with various degrees of paradise assigned to them, based on what they've accepted and how they lived. That's the Mormon faith: every last person accounted for.

What makes me happy about that belief is that most of my atheists friends (which comprises the majority of my friends, strangely) will not go to hell. The gloomy Christian religions which send people to hell left and right seems to fly against the nature of a 'good' God. That's my opinion, at least.

Originally posted by dadudemon

Mormons believe that pretty much every last one of us goes to heaven.

Originally posted by Quiero Mota

I think I understand what that dude is talking about: some Mormons incorrectly believe that skin color is correlated to curses. That's not correct doctrine and, in fact, is taught as being incorrect in our Sunday School classes. Their incorrect logic follows that because their skin is dark due to curses, when they are resurrected into their "perfect bodies" their skin will not be dark because their is no curse.

This probably comes from an incorrect interpretation of things from the Book of Mormon about "Lamanites" being a dark people: this refers to their mixing with the natives and their 'dark evil' spirits...not actually their skin color making them bad. This is because by the end of the BoM, all of the people look the same due to mixing with the natives.

Edit - So, if you ever come across a Mormon spouting that BS, tell them that that line of reasoning has no place in his or her actual religion and to stop being racist f***s.

Of course a non-believer can be accepted into the conceptionalisation of Heaven.

Bill Hicks once said "I communicate with God everyday! I don't need a middleman to do it".

Wise is Wise, Intelligence is not an issue. If you have the Intent to be a good and knowledgeable person who opens himself to anything without fundementally abiding by Superstition the all the better.

Originally posted by the ninjak
Of course a non-believer can be accepted into the conceptionalisation of Heaven.

Bill Hicks once said "I communicate with God everyday! I don't need a middleman to do it".

Wise is Wise, Intelligence is not an issue. If you have the Intent to be a good and knowledgeable person who opens himself to anything without fundementally abiding by Superstition the all the better.

If you're defacto open to everything then you are abiding by superstition. The common description of the needed balance is "keep an open mind, but don't let your brain fall out".

Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
If you're defacto open to everything then you are abiding by superstition. The common description of the needed balance is "keep an open mind, but don't let your brain fall out".

Hey I'm not perfect.
Your explanation of Enlightenment is all good but leaving yourself open to ideas and meddling with it is what I like to do. I like Superstitions they're fun.
But I don't believe them.
That's the beauty of free will and creativity.

Being open doesn't mean believing. Just curious. Filter out the crap. Experiment and see where it takes you.

Originally posted by dadudemon
Cosigned. Some parents are wrong and are really screwed up. There are several things my parents did or said that are still wrong, to this day.

However, that's really missing his point. He was speaking more in a general sense and it goes more with a colloquial saying: you think I'm wrong now, but in 20 years, you'll see that I was right (I have hear various versions of that from tons of 'adults'.)

I mean, we know for a fact that attitudes on social issues change over time; that alone should be proof positive that people adopt views contrary to their parents.

Originally posted by The MISTER
The idea of heaven seems too complex to understand or try to understand.

Originally posted by The MISTER
Eternal life as a spirit would likely be more than our current minds can grasp.

Originally posted by The MISTER
Why should people frustrate themselves gambling on heaven or hell? If there is no heaven or hell then the world is still improved by people who treat others with respect and sincerity. I would think any teachings that promoted sincere positivity towards the world are worth investigation.

Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
Assuming for the sake of argument that there is a god and being a good person is not what qualifies me to go to heaven I don't want to go to heaven because god is obviously malevolent.

I personally don't see how that logically follows. If entry requirements aren't based on how good you are then why does that make God malevolent? In fact Christian doctrine teaches the opposite, that people who go to Heaven aren't those who are good, rather they get in because they accept what God has done for them. If anything they get in not because they are good but because God is good.

Originally posted by willRules
I personally don't see how that logically follows. If entry requirements aren't based on how good you are then why does that make God malevolent? In fact Christian doctrine teaches the opposite, that people who go to Heaven aren't those who are good, rather they get in because they accept what God has done for them. If anything they get in not because they are good but because God is good.

Originally posted by willRules
I personally don't see how that logically follows. If entry requirements aren't based on how good you are then why does that make God malevolent? In fact Christian doctrine teaches the opposite, that people who go to Heaven aren't those who are good, rather they get in because they accept what God has done for them. If anything they get in not because they are good but because God is good.

But I don't consider the title of god to confer any special authority to decide what is and is not good. So to me the situation is a guy is going to torture me unless I surrender my freedom of choice to him and swear my undying loyalty. And, in this particular example, I know that the only thing I've done to offend him is not declare this person I've never met to be the greatest being in the universe.

To me that is a god that is truly malevolent. I want no part in its version of heaven, though I guess the torturing might break me one day.

Well, speaking on behalf of Christianity, the answer is this: absolutely not.

"I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh unto the Father but by Me." - Jesus.

No Jesus, no Heaven.

Originally posted by King Kandy
He would say, that proves that god isn't good.

God is righteous. Being 'good' or 'bad' is merely a person's perception.

Forgot to add the part that you have to die without believing Christ.