Because it's implying that they believe you deserve what they see as the most negative consequence that could ever exist for something that they also think you are stupid for not believing in. And the power play on the fact that they think you're ignorant when they have no proof of their position so it is like saying they are better than you for no good reason. It's quite the multifaceted insult.
Because whether you believe in hell or not it's insulting when someone says you deserve to be tortured forever for not believing what they do.
Condescendingly condemning you like that completely ignores who you are as a person and what you know and have experienced that have led you to where you are. It is an act of complete invalidation of everything that you know and are. It is a complete embrace of ignorance and inhumanity and it is disgusting.
I find it idiotic, ignorant, hypocritical, and arrogant.
So when christians say it to me, I don't get "insulted," I typically laugh. Then I point out their hypocrisy by saying it using their own scriptures...and THEY get "insulted." Go figure.
wine country girl Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Okay, but what happened was this person said it to > me about my friend (also an atheist) who is dying > of cancer.
A friend (or friend of a friend) is dying, and this "christian" has nothing but arrogant, hypocritical judgment? No sympathy, no empathy, no desire to comfort?
I can only hope that when THIS person is dying of cancer, people are the same to him/her. Karma's a bitch.
One reply in this situation would be, "If that is how your religion teaches you to respond to a situation like this, then your religion is ugly and disgusting."
baura Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > One reply in this situation would be, "If that is > how your > religion teaches you to respond to a situation > like this, then > your religion is ugly and disgusting." ******************************************************************* "AMEN!"
...In saying it. Have you ever heard of a site called Rapture Ready? It's filled with all sorts of posters delight in thinking how all the heathens and atheists will be left behind to suffer the tribulations, then burn for eternity. Simply, they are sadisticly minded and revel in the idea that unbelievers will be punished for not falling in line.
It's appalling someone would say that about your dying friend. Tell them to kick rocks.
I just love that these people have such a close, personal relationship with Jesus that they know who gets to go to Heaven and Hell. My dad called up one day just to tell me that I wasn't going to the Celestial Kingdom. I told him that I didn't believe in it and so it was irrelevant. It's just ridiculous for people to say those kinds of things and heartless to say it to someone who is dying.
I realized a long time ago that it doesn't have anything to do with the other person, it's their way of consoling themselves for the misery they experience in their religion. Sometimes that's all they've got--is the sick satisfaction they think they're going to get watching everyone who didn't endure the same misery in life get cast down to hell, or telestial world, or outer darkness or limbo, or whateverthehell they need to believe.
Heartless sums it up nicely. I am sorry that your friend is having cancer in her life, and sorry that you are loosing your friend in this way. There are no two ways about it.....cancer is ugly.
It's so offensive in this situation because this particular believer is circling you like a vulture.
You're losing a friend to a horrible disease, so this is the best time to threaten you with hell - your defences are already stretched pretty thin.
"See? You'll die too, someday, and I know the ONE TRUE WAY to beat death at its own game. I'm better off than you (or your friend) because I'll NEVER go to hell. Don't you want to be smart like me?"
Ignorant, greedy, hateful.
WCG, your words on this board are so often full of beauty and laughter, so often full of wisdom. I'm fairly certain your friend is comforted by your presence.
I'm sorry you have to experience this. Maybe the ugliness that the ignoramous poured on you had to spill out somewhere, lest its head explode like a rotten egg, and right now, better you than your friend.
I don't like the way they seem so satisfied and smugly happy about the idea of other people burning in hell forever. It seems like the very thought should make them sad.
I was at a family party enjoying a bit of brew, when my wife's uncle asked me out of the clear blue if I "have accepted Jesus Christ as my personal Savior"! I replied quite loudly "good god Fermin, get real" and walked away.
These Jesus freaks are a royal pain in the ass, and are the best proof against religion. If god really wants these jerks in his kingdom, he/she isn't the kind of god that I personally would want anything to do with. Spending eternity with these morons would really be a living hell.
If Jesus Christ wants me to accept him as the "Savior" then he could approach me himself and not confine himself to a period of Roman history 2,000 years ago.
Anyone that doesn't accept Christ and burns in hell forever has it coming....obviously!
Now that is not to say it's actually going to happen:)
Getting insulted by it is a carry over from our childhood when someone on the play ground said "my dad can beat up your dad"....you feel you've been judged and condemned by someone that knows nothing about how tough your dad is or who he can beat up.
I mean, what if your dad was Chuck Norris and you knew he could beat up the other kids dad? You'd still feel insulted by the judgement. Human nature.
This is a culmination of all that is ignorant and horrible about religion.
To say such a thing to a dying person shows just how insecure, arrogant, egocentric, and pompous that person is. It is a way of saying, between the lines, "Even though you are dying and in pain it is more important to me to show you that I am superior and that your non-belief threatens me on a personal level. So, instead of keeping my mouth shut and offering you some kind of comfort, I choose to disrespect and abuse you in an effort to feel better about myself."
So if there WAS a Christ and Heaven and Hell and all that, then the moment you died, you'd know it for a FACT because, well, there it all is.
But SOR-RY! the deal is that if you didn't believe it BEFORE you died and could know it as a fact, then you deserve to be pointlessly punished for the rest of eternity. The reason for that is because in the next life, you need lots of faith, so it's VERY important to develop that now.
Oh wait, oops, no you don't really need faith at all in the next life because God is right there running everything out in the open. Now why is it that he cares about people having or not having faith? So confusing.
I would only tell evil people they are going to hell. I personally find a belief in hell to be helpful because I think some people are that evil. Without believing in hell, where is justice?
rhgc Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I would only tell evil people they are going to > hell. I personally find a belief in hell to be > helpful because I think some people are that evil. > Without believing in hell, where is justice?
You may want there to be some kind of "ultimate justice," but there's no evidence there is any such thing. Yes, it would be nice if magically anyone who was nasty or "evil" in the real world, yet escaped civil justice, got nailed by a magical god-thing and given punishment.
There's just no evidence any such thing will occur. And the concept of eternal punishment for finite "sins" isn't "justice" anyway.
Some people are going to get away with nasty things. Oh, well. Pretending there will be some "ultimate justice" doesn't make it real.
It is like saying my daddy can beat up your daddy when they have no evidence that they could. They just want to think that and it is insulting that they are so childish to even say it to you. Is it because they don't like you or they don't like your daddy or lack of one?