Why Christianity gives no hope.

[SecularPriest]

Greetings people,
this is my first entry in this forum and I hope it will not be my last. The topic I would like to adress is the question of hope. This is one of the arguments I hear the most from Christians and I have to say it really starts to anger me:"Where is the hope in an Atheist universe?". When Richard Dawkins gets asked this question he usually talks about how the universe does not owe us any hope and that we have to create hope and purpose ourselves, which is something I would agree with. However, I would go a step further and ask Christians where hope is in there universe. The question is from a Christian point of view:"I will live eternally". What they fail to see is that at the same time they are saying that ONLY they will go to heaven (at least most of them do). This automatically downgrades their worldview from giving hope to a simple threat. And I do not know about you, but I do not like being threatend. To really show how messed up this belief system is, here is a little thought experiment: Imagine a Afghan child, who all his life has suffered under miserable life circumstances, like no clean water, insufficent food, unhygenic environment and so on. Because he is Afgahn he is almost certainly Muslim as well. What the Christian ideology now says is that after his death not that all his suffering will be made up for, but that he will continue suffering FOR ETERNETY, because he was born in the wrong country. How is this delivery of hope? How is this moral? In my mind such a threat is plain evil, a god how would act that way not worthy of worship and anyone who tells me that his worldview gives hope, while in the same breath condemning most of humanity to eternal torture is a liar and a hypocrite and an idiot.

[GirlyMan]

The real problem is it gives false hope, which makes them lazy by relieving them of the responsibility to create their own purpose.

And welcome to the mix, SecularPriest.

[SecularPriest]

I´d say that is a problem for the believer yes. But I find it extremly insulting and filled with an enormous amount of arrogance, as well as a horrificly immoral statement, that any Christian has to believe. So it makes perfectly normal people think and say extremly wicked things, too.

[Logisch]

Anyone who is jealous, immature enough and arrogant enough to tell me I have to believe them or they'll simply torture me is ultimately an asshole.

Above and beyond that, anyone who would tell me the same and torture me FOREVER is a pile of shit.

If a god exists like that, fuck that guy.

[morondog]

Nice point.

Welcome

[Mr Woof]

Welcome and very true what you say.

The Eastern religions simply keep re-cycling you till you reach a more 'acceptable standard', whatever that is?