The behavior of Christians shows that they do not, in fact, believe that Heaven and Hell are real

Great Debates
1

Long-winded post, but I’ll try to keep it concise for GD.

I know not all Christian denominations believe in Hell. But there is a significant chunk that holds to the view that 1) Hell is eternal torment (not annihilationism or purgatory,) and 2) everyone who dies unsaved will go there.

A lot of Protestants/Baptists etc. hold to this view. I grew up in denominations that held that view. Plenty of preachers preach this from the pulpit. A lot of Christian colleges (I attended two of them) have this written into their official statement of faith. So a substantial chunk of Christians in the world do ascribe to this view, at least verbally.

But the way Christians live does not at all suggest that they think Hell is real at all.

Picture the most absolute worst atrocity or torture you can imagine - ISIS immersing people in vats of nitric acid, the Mexican drug-cartel living-skull death, the people in Tokyo who roasted alive during the firebombing of Operation Meetinghouse in March 1945, the fate of the people on the upper floor of the World Trade Center on 9/11, etc. As horrific as such people’s suffering was, it was still only for a few minutes or hours.

Now, if one ascribes to the view that Hell is eternal torment (which has plenty of Biblical backing,) then this means a fate 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 longer and worse than any of the fates mentioned above. Actually, much worse, since eternity is infinitely longer than a vigintillion years. Even a number like Graham’s Number doesn’t even amount to a speck of sand compared to eternity. And we’re not talking about eternity sitting in a cafe sipping cocktails or something; this is burning. You couldn’t withstand fire for longer than even 1 second if you were to stick your finger in the flame of a candle.

In other words, if one is a Christian who believes eternal Hell exists, then the question of whether you are headed to heaven or hell should be, by far, THE biggest concern/question of your whole life til the moment you die. It should be all-consuming. The short 80 or 90 years of life you get on Earth would be but the briefest blink of an eye compared to eternity in heaven…or hell. And Heaven’s ramifications are just as important as Hell’s. It would be like as if I told you that you were a participant in a game show and what you do today - in the next 24 hours - determines whether you receive a billion-dollar jackpot tomorrow or get roasted alive in a furnace. You would be spending those 24 hours solely devoted to making sure you end up on the good side of the contest’s rules.

But almost no Christians behave that way. They are much more preoccupied with questions like, “Did I turn off the stove when I left the house,” or “will my insurance cover this procedure” or “am I going to be able to pay off the mortgage?” than they are with the eternal fate of their soul - despite the fact that the Bible hammers home the point that anyone could die at any time without warning (hit by drink driver, heart attack, struck by lightning, plane crash, whatever.) Indeed, whether they are Heaven-bound or Hell-bound seems to be something that occupies no more than 0.001% of their thoughts. And whether you’re saved or not is no thing to be sure of; Jesus Himself stated that many people would be in for a horrid surprise to find out they were not Heaven-bound as they had originally thought (“Lord, Lord, did we not perform miracles in Your name…”) Many Christians often shrug and say, “Well, I prayed a sinner’s prayer at age 12, so I know I’m saved.” Really? If a billion-dollar jackpot (or, conversely, whether one has remembered to bring their parachute when skydiving) were what was at stake, these people would NOT be shrugging nonchalantly, they’d be taking the matter very seriously. How can the eternal fate of one’s soul be a shrugging-of-the-shoulders matter?

And trying to get loved ones - or even random strangers - saved should be by far the most all-consuming priority of any Christian’s life. These Christians are people who would do everything they could within their power to intervene and assist if an uncle, aunt, cousin, etc. were facing some sort of imminent danger on Earth, yet many Christians have nothing but a shrug when seeing their unsaved relatives persist unsaved on what is, ostensibly, a path to Hell. One atheist had said that if he truly believed in Hell, he’d be willing to crawl ten miles on his knees on broken glass just to save one soul. To be sure, there are the hold-megaphone-at-street-corner preachers “Turn or burn!” folks, but they are a tiny minority within Christianity. Logically, every Christian should be spending nearly every waking hour doing nothing but trying to save souls. But the average Christian spends perhaps no more than half an hour per year in evangelism.

Lastly, there will be those who say, “Well, we don’t spread the Gospel by words, but rather, we spread the Gospel by our lives and actions, so people will see us as a shining light and want to be like us.” But again, most Christians are not living like that at all. They do not live a lifestyle that makes anyone want to convert and be like them.

TL;DR; Christians claim that Heaven and Hell are real but don’t live at all like it’s real.

2

Sure they believe hell is real. Most I know of believe that if you accept jesus as you savior you don’t go to hell. They do anything they want and then ask forgiveness. It is like a get out of jail free card.

3

I have mixed reactions to this thread.

My first reaction is, and thank Og for that. Christianity is one nutty set of beliefs, and the last thing I want to see is people acting on it sincerely.

Then there is the fact that fire and brimstone are way out of fashion these days, and the pious view seems to be along the lines that hell is only the eternal absence of God, while to be in heaven is to be in God’s presence (in some way).

Third, there is no sensible way to have a debate about this, because it is mostly about what is in people’s heads and hearts, to which we do not have access. Also, this is no great revelation, humans are not perfect and are not expected to be perfect, and that’s why there is forgiveness and redemption. As George Spiggott said to Stanley Moon, “I lose more souls that way. Look at Mussolini – a lifetime of horrible behavior, then at the last minute 'Oops, mille regretti” and whoosh, up he went."

My most sincere response is that OP should talk to a few serious Christians and ask them about this. I believe you will find out the myriad ways people have of reconciling daily life with the requirements of their religion.

4

I don’t think there’s much deep thinking going on. There’s the “I’ve been saved, woo hoo!” factor already mentioned. Beyond that, most people view themselves as flawed but basically decent, and surely that meets the “get into heaven” threshold.

“Eh, I’m probably fine” is not diligent enough for life decisions that could lead to eternal torment, to be sure. But I think that’s what many (most?) true believers hang their hats on.

5

The corollary to your argument is that if you DON’T believe in Heaven/Hell, then you should be living every moment of your life to it’s hedonistic fullest since you could die at any time and once that happens, that’s it for you. And yet, most people who claim to not believe in Heaven/Hell are are much more preoccupied with questions like, “Did I turn off the stove when I left the house,” or “will my insurance cover this procedure” or “am I going to be able to pay off the mortgage?”. So they are just as illogical as the Christians I guess.

6

yes, it seems like the OP is more interested in pointing out the supposed hypocrisy of Christians than really understanding the mindset and life philosophy of people that have different beliefs than him.

And on that point, why limit it to Christians, what about the other religions who have similar beliefs? Shouldn’t all of the Muslims spend their greatest daily efforts in practicing good deeds, and convincing all the rest of us to submit to Allah?

7

Uh, yeah, because not wanting to be broke and homeless is soo illogical.

8

IIRC (but I may be mistaken), the OP’s family are devout, conservative Christians.

9

I think, for the type (emphasis) of Christians that the OP is posting about, that this is the most serious answer to the debate. As long as they are saved by their faith in Jesus, they’ll be safe from Hell. Sure, they’re not perfect, but that’s the whole point of Jesus dying for their sins (again emphasis).

Any sect of other Christians may be at risk, and certainly, anyone who isn’t a Christian is going to hell. And they’re often quite smug about it. They have their get out of jail free card, because they’re in the select (often literally) group, and all others being punished makes them that much more special.

And again, for this limited subsect of Christians, they don’t study their faith. They follow the orders of their local preacher, and that’s enough for them. If the preacher says “love these people, hate those people and donate” then they’ve done their job - there are often sincere that they’re doing God’s will as told by God’s representatives.

Of course they believe - it’s just that said belief reinforces their pre-existing sense of superiority, and is rigged in their favor, a thing to be celebrated.

AGAIN, please note, I’ve tried to emphasize this is about the (admittedly large) group of non-studious, smug Christians that seem to predominate in what is called the Bible Belt, and seem to be the explicit focus of the OP. I know plenty of Christians, both publicly and privately devout, who actually study the text, and can debate the literal words of the New Testament and the historical context in great detail.

ETA - for context again, I’m a secular Jew, if that matters in terms of my POV on the whole subject.

10

I grew up surrounded by such Christians. Every time I brought this up, they would give some feeble answer that was evasive, often to the effect that trying too hard to warn people about Hell would backfire, or how it’s impractical and exhausting to try to save souls. Problem is, these Christians would never be delicate or soft-pedaling about trying to get people to evacuate a burning building, for instance. No Christian copilot would be gentle and indirect if trying to inform the captain about some imminent plane-crash malfunction.

The whole thing came across similar to pro-lifism, where people claim that 1 million babies are murdered in cold blood every year, yet feel no more need to do anything other than wave a few placards and signs.

11

As a person who has faced death since, IDK day 3 of my life, I determined early on I was on my own.
I wasn’t here by the whim of some phantom in the sky, I was here by accident of birth.

It would have been way easier if I had been aborted.
Easier on my family. Easier on myself. Cheaper. Less strife and concern. (Good thing I was cute).

The point is, you are here. Now that you are, you want to live. If your spend your life worrying and freaked out by hell, that is a hell on its own. Life would not be worth it. You may as well be dead, or never born.
Wearing a hair shirt for 75+ years isn’t a life.

This is why people don’t, do as you say, spend days on end worrying about their hell.
Same as I can’t sit around worried why I was ever born.

That’s the road to true madness.

12

Tell me you do not understand how Christianity works in seven long winded paragraphs.

Yep

What you need to do is accept Jesus and repent of your sins. Truly- that last is hard for a lot of evil people.

And all those weird punishments are not really in the Bible- Jesus refers to hell as a place of “outer darkness” with “weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matthew 8:12) Jesus also spoke of hell as “eternal punishment” (Matthew 25:46) and a place of suffering that will be eternal. Many Christians think the worst part of being in Hell is the realization you got there by you own actions. That realization- “weeping and gnashing of teeth”- causes the true suffering.

And of course, if you then truly repent- you can get out.

Of course there are people who think that the bad things they did were actually Good Things, and they are incapable of truly repenting- Hitler is an example.

13

“I wanna get my kicks before this whole shit house goes up in flames” - Jim Morrison, a hedonist if there ever was one, but look how he ended.

14

My sister is born again. We have an agreement: she will not try to save my soul, and I will continue to have her in my life. Trying to save other peoples’ souls is hardly the test of sincerity of religious belief, and I think it is extremely naïve to think it is.

15

There certainly are sects / denominations where that is indeed emphasized as an essential ingredient in being sincere: if you’re not actively selling it, you’re just faking it.

And, as you suggest, other sects where that’s not so emphasized.

16

I think, aside from the already noted narrow view of Christian belief the OP is taking, the OP is also pinning true belief on some very non-human expectations of behavior.

Take global warming. Potentially massive impacts in the near and long term for humanity. Many (most) of us believe it’s happening, and believe that the biggest changes could be averted if we adjusted our behavior. Yet how many of those believers actually implement those changes, or dedicate meaningful amounts of energy on a daily basis getting the rest of society on board?

Sure, climate change is nothing compared to eternal suffering, but the point is that as humans we’re just focused on living comfortably and securely first and foremost. It doesn’t mean we don’t believe in long term consequences, just that we are generally going to not place as much importance on them as near term concerns, even if those long term consequences are dire.

17

Per deterrence theory, the punishment needs to be close in time to the misdeed (or undone deed) and have high certainty of occurring. The severity of punishment does not have an enormous impact.

So if deterrence theory as described is true, this explains why threats of hell do not much impact behavior.

18

I think that if I sincerely believed that a sibling were going to be tortured for an eternity, I would probably try to do something about that.

Humans are social animals, with built-in feelings of community, shame, pride, importance, and so one. Being found, say, naked on the street after a night of hedonistic extravagance would harm your social standing, increase your shame, harm your community experience and so on. Non-religious people aren’t robotic short-term pleasure maximizers. And, being homeless and unemployed will make your life worse in many ways.

19

There are as many different beliefs around the Christian hell as there are Christians.

I know a guy who was raised by evangelical Christians who became an atheist after concluding that if God sent that many people to eternal damnation, God was evil and unpredictable, and he was screwed, so he may as well ignore that hypothesis.

I know a guy who took great comfort in knowing his daughter was in heaven when she died in her 20s of cancer.

I recently went to a celebration of life of a gay guy where the guy’s awkwardly Christian brother told us that the guy had accepted Christ when he was 14, and therefore, he was saved, despite a life of sin, because we all sin, being human, and Jesus had died for our sins. (And he struggled, and succeeded, barely, in not lecturing us to accept Christ.)

Some of those Christians have crazy and inconsistent views, and some have plausible beliefs.

20

This. IMHO the threat of hell isn’t typically thought about by that subset of Christians from the perspective of metaphysics (and even less from the perspective of real physics or biology). It’s all about authoritarianism. The local preacher and other religious authorities want people to behave a certain way on the basis of “because I say so”, rather than based on a set of moral principles. The threat isn’t about eternal punishment. It’s about punishment while still here on Earth. Since the rich and powerful are a lot less likely to have to deal with that (punishment in this life), they don’t have to spend much time thinking about it.

As far as what they personally think, it probably goes something like this. “I was chosen by God, and it doesn’t matter how I behave, I still get reward”. Any further thinking about the topic is unnecessary.

ETA. I also suspect that there’s a good number of them, in their heart of hearts, who really don’t believe any of that. They probably think the same thing an atheist does. That when they die, it’s just over. The end.