As a lifelong atheist, my answer is: "All roads lead to the grave." There is nothing beyond that destination. Am I willing to roll the dice that I am right? Yes, I am.

Does this give me license to act however I want? No. There are ways humans can act (mercy, love, kindness) that I aspire to. And ways humans can act (hatred, greed, violence) that I want to avoid.

And, paradoxically, all of this comes from being raised in the Southern Baptist church. As a child, up thru college age, I attended (forced) church between 3 to 5 times a week, plus 2 or more weeks a year of 7 day revival meetings.

And during this time I came to 2 conclusions. There was too much in the Bible that was, to me, obviously false (coming back from the dead, virgin birth, walking on water) for me to take the preacher's hellfire and brimstone seriously. It just seemed to be stories meant to frighten children so they would tell their children the same stories and the faith would live on.

But there was such beauty in the writings of the Bible that I couldn't reject it whole cloth. Such great stories of mercy (The Good Samaritan, The Woman Taken in Adultery) made me realize the need to give mercy to others and hope for that mercy from others.

Paul writes in Corinthians: " And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love; but the greatest of these is love. I disagree. It's mercy.

@MontyMoose

Yes. Or compassion.

@rajk999 said
A bit more schooling and you would have figured out all by yourself that 'all-loving" and 'God is love' are not the same.

@rajk999 said
Personal, Facebook type remarks.. you just cannot help it.
I undertand.

@divegeester said
The concept of an all-knowing, all-loving and all-powerful creator, who predestines and then permits his creation to be infiltrated and fall into sinfulness and death, and then demands that his creation repents and worship him because his loves them or he will torture them in eternal fire....

Is utterly preposterous, logically flawed and morally reprehensible.

The is no “hell”.

@rajk999 said
Pretty soon yo its me will come whining with some nonsense like ..

??? You're very hard to understand Rajk. Are you young? I don't mean this as an insult. I think we assume you're our age but I think you're much younger and we should make allowances perhaps.

@rajk999 said
Jesus referred to hell several times where evil people are tormented. However there is no indication that this torment is forever and ever. Jesus never spoke of a place called heaven where people go to. Quite the opposite, Jesus said that no man has ascended to heaven. I personally will stay with what Jesus said, without adding or embellishing it.

I cannot remember se ...[text shortened]... s also taken on a tour apparently somewhere in the heavens and he wrote a lot about that experience.

@montymoose said
As a lifelong atheist, my answer is: "All roads lead to the grave." There is nothing beyond that destination.

@they said
Hoping that if there is a heaven some of us will be able slide in from some technicality that was not translated correctly from the Hebrew, Greek etc. Maybe there are some sweet not-so-strict entry rules we don't know about yet or someone forgot to write down.

@ghost-of-a-duke said
I think the seven heavens is from Islam.

@yo-its-me said
Aww, listen, I really am sorry you were offended at that.
Being young is a good thing, it means there's a endless space before you for growth and learning.
When I was younger I held to a few Bible verses and repeated them, I thought in terms of black and white and literal taking of the Bible.

Seriously didn't mean to insult you, please accept my apologies.

@divegeester said
Shut up Rajk999.

You insult people on this board every day you post. You just told me I needed “more schooling”.

So don’t be a hypocrite, you’re certainly better than that.

@yo-its-me said
So the end (for those not going to Heaven), is as it was before being alive? Or something else?
What about Heaven then?

@rajk999 said
I insult people who insult me. Its called 'first blood'. You start it, then dont complain after.

@rajk999 said
I dont accept fake apologies. If and when you do change your ways I will know and I will see it. If that happens then apology accepted, otherwise right now your apology stinks.