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I know of this instance where an atheist woman was offered to accept Jesus on her death bed and she still refused,so atheist would you do same or just accept it just incase
| No I won’t | 15 | |
| Yes I would just incase | 10 |
im not gonna die on a bed im gonna die by gettin shot by a jealous husband while crawlin out his wifes bedroom window
God is omniscient. He knows exactly which creations will ultimately go to Hell and creates them anyway. He therefore literally creates things to torture.
How do we even know Satan is the bad one? Because YHWH (God) said so? Two sides to every story, right? Why doesn't Satan get a response book? I mean maybe he could point out that if you read YHWH's own book more carefully his presented view is a bit complicated by the fact that he killed about 2,500,000 million people while Satan only killed 10, all of which YHWH made him kill.
But no. He doesn't get to respond. It's a bit like talking shit about someone on IIN and then, after belittling the act of blocking, blocking that person so as that they can't respond because you already learned the hard way and know damn well that you simply can't go toe-to-toe with them and that they'll continue picking your BS apart.
If someone wants to throw in the towel that's fine, but continuing to spew at the mouth? Kind of an insecure, bitch move if you ask me. But then that's evident.
If you're firmly convinced that something is BS, why should you change your mind as the lights are about to go out for the last time?
Maybe if the woman in question had been offered a shopping list of equally valid alternatives - like declaring her belief in Marduk, Indra, Odin, Zeus, Ahura Mazda or the Flying Spaghetti Monster - she might have been moved to see that she'd been wrong.
But it sounds like she probably had too much sense to do that either.
"If you're firmly convinced that something is BS, why should you change your mind as the lights are about to go out for the last time?"
Fear.
You're not firmly convinced then. I'm not afraid of Hell like I'm not afraid of the boogeyman. There is zero fear.
Yep there’s a possibility you were wrong and that would be an eternal mistake so I think at the last instance before death it would be a lot harder to say no
Honestly as much as I would like to think I wouldn't, there is the possibility that I would be so hysterically terrified of dying that all sense and logic would go out the window and I'd be willing to accept any lunacy if it means I don't have to face the idea of certain doom. I'd be so afraid, that some psychological defence mechanisms would kick in and I'd brainwash myself into believing that there is some magical utopian afterlife waiting for me because some guy was nailed to a cross 2,000 years ago. Even though I've lived my life espousing the virtues of logic and the scientific method (knowing that it was those very things that developed technology and made my life so comfortable and pleasant for the last 80 years or so), those things wouldn't be able to help me now on my death bed so I may be fully willing to suddenly turn full traitor against them and embrace the spiritual and the absurd, because they'd help me feel better. I hope I wouldn't be that weak or cowardly in the end though, that would be a shameful and pitiful way to go.
It's annoying because, if the occasional atheist should change their mind on their deathbed, then Christians usually take that as a win for theism and a loss for atheism. But it shouldn't really be taken as evidence for any vulnerability of atheism. That atheist only changed their mind at the very last minute, for 99.9% of their life they held atheism to be true. Also throughout their life, when they felt calm and sound of mind, they reasoned with logic that atheism was the rational thing to believe. It was only when they were under extreme stress and subject to the utmost fear and despair, and when it was beneficial for them to believe that there was an afterlife (and so they couldn't be as impartial and non-biased as they were throughout their life), that they believed in God. So it shouldn't be taken as any win that an atheist could only believe in God when it was beneficial for them to do so, and when they were open to bias. It should just be interpreted as a psychological defence mechanism for the fear of death, that the atheist just can't face the prospect of their own demise.
You haven't answered the question. Also, there's not a shred of proof for a God, let alone for the (evil) Christian God.
Many scientists claim we don't have free will at all. Whatever the truth, though, if we do have free will, and this free will leads to Hell, shouldn't God have given it to us, especially if he's loving?
This question is so silly because almost all religions want you to only worship their god so regardless of what religion comes to you on your deathbed, youre risking pissing off another god.
The religion I was born into that I don't follow didn't believe Jesus was son of God so it never occurred to me to accept him as that ever. Definitely Not going to when I don't believe in any religion.
I'm an atheist, but I didn't vote, because I can never tell until the moment has arrived. However, if I would convert (to Jesus or any of the other countless possibilities), it wouldn't be sincere, as it would be motivated purely by fear.
I don't think I would because if God exists he kills innocent people every day not someone I'd want to be associated with
Why would they. If you cannot hold onto the tenants of your beliefs when facing death... How valuable are religious tenants (at all).
Several hundred thousand Sabbath worshiping Christians died instead of converting to Sunday worship as several armies and later Church inquisitors marched across Asia minor, the middle east, northern Africa, and Europe.
Christianity started out with Sabbath (Saturday) worship. Sunday worship was an idea started by the Roman Church (now The Catholic Church) in the mid 300's. Then the Church declared that everyone had to convert to Sunday worship - and you would be executed if you didn't.
The brave ones who held their beliefs died (or went into hiding), and most of the people practicing early Christianity changed to Sunday worship instead of dying for their belief in the 10 commandments and their religion (now I believe considered the 10 suggestions by most modern churches).
What type of "just incase" is that? Lying on your deathbed, claiming to believe when you don't, is just the type of thing that would get God mad at you.
Allow me to explain the extent to which I don't believe.
If someone with the ability to reveal the truth one way or the other made a wager with me regarding the matter in which me being wrong meant a painful death and me being right meant I received a dollar, I would accept the wager.
I'm not broke. But hey, maybe I can give it to some kid or, I don't know, spit my gum in it and throw it in the trash. I'm sure I'll find some use for it. Okay. Fine; I won't throw it in the trash like some entitled asshole, but you get the point: I simply do not believe that shit at all.
That expressed, is there any circumstance in which I would (appear to) do this? Probably. I think if I were hypothetically dying in front of loved ones who thought I would go to Hell if I didn't, I would consider saying I now believed for their peace of mind. I think many atheists do this.
I suspect you're right about some claimed deathbed conversions being the result of people trying to make their loved ones feel better. I imagine others are just to get the believers to stop whining and wailing about their delusions.
Agreed. As annoying as it is at present, I can only imagine enduring that while feeling my life slipping away.
I think the only atheists that might actually convert are what I call emotional atheists. An emotional atheist loses a child or develops lung cancer without ever having smoked. They become enraged at God and somehow simply decide God doesn't exist. To me that's as delusional as following the Bible because Heaven sounds great.
Emotional atheists are right; if God exists He is certainly a dick, but our opinions of Him don't affect reality. They've already demonstrated disbelieving based on feelings, so I'm sure they can just as easily suddenly believe in God when it's convenient. Us logical atheists will require nothing short of Jesus showing up and explaining exactly what technologies were used to do things like create the illusion of dinosaurs having existed. Even still I would probably end up leaning toward it being some extraterrestrial fucking with us for fun. As implausible as that sounds, my mind rates that as much more likely than God coming back and explaining why He rigged everything to look exactly like the Bible was BS.
I wouldn't deny my entire identity right before dying, just to make my family happy. It wouldn't matter what my beliefs were. My family were devastated when God became a part of my life, and my father did everything he could to persuade, humiliate or punish me out of convictions. If I changed my beliefs again either now or right before my death, it would be for me.
Anyway, who would do that for another person, when it's their last chance to be the person they want to be, before they leave the whole known world and all earthly consequences behind them?
You need something other than other people's emotions to be motivating you, if you're to change your mind at that stage.
It's not about making them "happy" really; it's about preventing them from being utterly traumatized. My mother would have been less traumatized by me dying as a small child but accepting God after having been captured and subjected to sexual abuse and torture before being eaten by a lunatic than by me dying a peaceful death and rejecting God. You can't underestimate the extent to which some of these people wholeheartedly believe in Hell. Believing a loved one has been doomed to Hell is enough to drive some of them insane or compel them to take their own lives.
It's sickening really. It's part of why I can be intolerant of religion.
I am really sorry about what you must have had to live with. Your Mum was wrong to foist her anxieties on you. Neither she nor you were really free in that situation.
I wonder if it is less a matter of believing in hell, than in believing that your loved ones should be exempt from justice simply because they are yours. We don't know exactly what hell will be like or feel like, but in Revelation where it is described, there is no indication that any of the saved who see it, will think it is unjust or ask God to stop it. And Scripture also makes it clear that those who will be saved will have great love for people; they won't be characterised by heartlessness. Jesus does make it clear that families will be divided by some believing and some not, and effectively says 'if you can't deal with this, don't follow me' (Luke 14:26).
It was on your mum to respect your boundaries and let you just exist, besides steering you into the beliefs and values she held to be right, when you were still a child. A responsible parent at least gives their child SOME kind of spiritual and moral education; they don't just send their kid out into the world like a ship without a rudder, as a blank slate for any huckster to target.
When you became emotionally more mature, suggesting, offering and praying, then standing back, would have been better courses of action than fretting and trying to control you.
idk, i feel like i still wouldn't accept religious beliefs, but if it gives a sense of peace of mind it probably won't be so bad on my deathbed to accept faith
Am just waiting for the impending hate that is going to ensue from atheists who might feel their dignity bruised by the way this question is put...
I'm not an atheist, but I'm not a Catholic. Only the Catholic Church and a few others give this chance to convert on one's deathbed a sacramental sort of status. But I have seen someone suddenly turn to Jesus and believe in his death and resurrection when they were very close to death, and that was not in a Catholic way. They did it entirely on their own, after someone just read a part of the Bible to them and sang them a church song that they knew, and in their own conversations with God that they said they had but told nobody about.
If the question put to me is, 'would you become a Catholic on your death bed', the answer would be, 'I don't consider myself different from Catholics in any respect that would make me not belong to the way of Jesus, and nor do most Catholics differ so much from my community's understanding of Jesus either to that extent, so no, I will not leave the community who have shown me how to love Jesus and consider them as spiritually 'less than', but yes, please do give me last rites! Prayer in the name of Christ, made in love and good faith, is always welcome with me! Please help me face my shames and regrets that I'm in denial about, and help me to hand them over to God one last time.'
I ask the same of respected figures and leaders in my own church community, and they help me to turn away from doing the same things that I hate doing, and they pray for me, and assure me that God's forgiveness is for me too, and that I belong among them and am loved, when my guilt feeling makes me doubt my worth.
So in answer to your question, it's yes - sort of. I would accept all prayer in the name of Christ at my deathbed, and when I feel bad about something I have done or feel trapped in a pattern of things I don't want to do, I am happy to be assured of God's forgiveness and of my belonging to his people, by any church leader of any church that honours the words and the way of Jesus.
I'm agnostic only because I cannot honestly manifest my faith in God. I'm not going to lie to the omniscient entity about my faith. Though I do wonder if I can still get into heaven because I'm still a decent person it's just that I'm conflicted about what god(s) and their prophets are correct. Not going to be blasphemous by worshiping the incorrect God.
Hedging my bets. I believe it's the right thing to do considering how corrupt religions can get when it comes to saying the "truth"
I like your intellectual integrity.
If it were purely about intellectual choice for me, I might possibly agree with you.
I am intimidated by the depth and variety of world religions and I might never get to the bottom of examining even the main ones. But Christianity at least has an (albeit rudimentary) form of documentary evidence for its claims in the form of the 4 gospel accounts of Jesus' life, with places and times and names of historical figures mentioned, welcomes testing and examining the scriptures, and insists on an evidence-based exploration: 'taste and see', 'come and see'.
I am a Christian though because of Christian people and their God, whom I had a personal encounter with, and enough of his interventions in my life, and enough of the things in the Christian scriptures proving true and holding true when depended upon, that I know I can trust it.
So really for me it's more about relationship and trust.
See I know jesus was a real person he was on the roman census. I'm just unsure if he was the prophet of god because taken under context people used lead cups to serve wine and spoiled bread had a habit of making lsd accidentally.
Jesus's lessons were good for reforming christianity on a more civil level. Golden rule and all that. Plus it being 2000 years ago I do wonder if god came down a few more times just to see how humanity was doing with the age of discovery, enlightenment, industrial revolution, both world wars, the space race and the internet.
Just saying If I was god I would be very impressed by humanity. That's a crap ton of progress in a short amount of time. Especially since for the bulk of it the average life expectancy assuming you made it past being a adolescent was 50.
I think god still loves humans. I'm just hoping that he has the perspective of the average persons plight with having access to the collective of human knowlage at the tip of their fingers which is often filled with bias. So that's why I still hope that it's the Christian god and theres a heaven. I'm just hoping god sees what I'm doing as an act of respect for him rather than a cold hedging of bets.