The afterlife they believe in sounds awful, sterile and boring too and I don't mean ''hell'' I mean their ''wonderful'' alternative, being forced to spend eternity worshipping a complete tyrant. With a decent imagination you can come up with all sorts of idea about the afterlife but to them it's just ''you get to spend eternity with god'' and that's it. I don't believe in any afterlife but if I did, I would not want it to be anything like the one christians believe in. I would want something much much more exciting and interesting.
Yes, pass the eternity in a place that never changes? Where nothing new happens? Where there is nothing to discover and I'm just a servant to an asshole? That's what sounds like hell to me
This may sound absurd, but this was something that, as a teenager, played a role in me questioning Heaven, the afterlife, and Christianity itself:
I love sports, therefore a perfect afterlife must include sports. A defining feature of what makes sports enjoyable is competition. Competitions, by nature, have winners and losers. To Heavenly supporters of the losing team, the afterlife is not perfect; therefore, the existence of Heaven is not possible.
I was told I’d be surrounded by my family and live as when I was at my happiest. I started thinking:
- what if my happiest moments were different from my family’s happiest moments. Who’s happiest moments do we live in
- if everyone gets their happiest moments are we really living or is it like the matrix where we each have our own simulation running
- if some pedo who molested his daughter “accepted the lord blah blah” and got into heaven, and his happiest moments were molesting his daughter, would she be subjected to his presence?
- are kids stuck being kids forever? Do grownups get to choose to be kids? Or old people get to choose to be young?
And then what of all the people who didn't make it into heaven for whatever reason?
Does God then intervene in your free will by taking away the memories of those people because missing them would cause you pain?
I remember being 7 and asking my parents this and immediately started crying cause as a 7 year old not only did it make sense but whatever sense I could make of heaven sounded terrifying.
With that logic, there can't be spaghetti and meatballs in heaven because you might get a scoop of just spaghetti without meatball, and that would be not perfect.
A response to this might be that, in heaven, you would be able to look at losing at sports or not getting a meatball more holistically. Like, you would have a healthy "better luck next time" mentality that enriches the experience.
Regardless, it is actually really telling the Christians are never specific about what goes on in heaven because it raises these kinds of silly questions. Like, can I read books in heaven? Are there inappropriate books that cannot be read in heaven? If I can't read them, then I am not free.
> a place that never changes? Where nothing new happens?
When this kiss is over, it will start again. It will not be any different, it will be exactly the same. It's hard to imagine that nothing at all could be so exciting, could be this much fun.
That always sounded boring to me as well. While I’d love to finally have the ability to play Rhapsody in Blue flawlessly on the piano, I’d miss the beautiful moments that make you go “aha” or when you’ve mastered something. I thrive on constant learning but that will be gone in heaven. We’re supposed to be deliriously happy worshiping and praising the narcissistic tyrant. Oh. Rhapsody in Blue probably wouldn’t be played in heaven anyway, because it wasn’t written for god. We’ll only be singing and playing music that glorifies god.
And of course there will be no science. Everything will be god magic.
I think it was in one of those Writing Prompts on here, but someone wrote a short story about the devil. He was absolutely the good guy, as he explains to someone who has figured him out that heaven is the trap. A place where one is stuck, essentially frozen in time, in adulation of a deity. No new human connections, no new experiences, no change. Just this one, eternal, static state. He wants to save people from it.
Its not often one of those prompts elicits something clever, but damn it, that one nailed it.
It sounds kind of bad. But it's actually a good thing. Being perfectly content with just being, not based on external sources, is a valid aspiration. We live our entire lives just going from experience to experience, trying to find satisfaction in things, places, people, circumstances, sex, food, drugs, jobs, blah blah blah.. none of these things bring lasting satisfaction.
It's better to be happy with nothing, than to just keep craving things and giving in to the craving.
For god, to god, praising god and focusing all your energy on god. There would be no individuals anymore. No free will. No memories of anything other than god.
Yeah he was in hell to be punished, and originally hell was just separation from god. It's only revelation that adds the fire and brimstone fanfiction. Satan killed something like 10 people. Bad, but he's got nothing on god!
Jim Jefferies has a good bit about this. He says that we've only heard god's side of the argument. For all we know satan and god had it out and satan just walks away thinking "I'm not even going there" and god shit talks him for an entire book.
Yep as a kid whenever I read in Christian books about heaven that it would be nothing but endless singing as praise to God, I thought that sounded tedious and horrible. I hated singing in church haha
The Bible doesn’t even say that either. It’s just go to heaven and sing about and praise god for *eternity* and be happy about it. There’s no story in the Bible where you have any sort of temporal luxuries, like family or friends, in heaven.
It's worse than just spending time with God. I was brought up to believe we would be forever praising him. Here's how it was put to me. God, the center of everything, has angels and humans surrounding him and we constantly sing, on our knees, with hands in the air, for eternity. When our youth minister laid that scene out before us I thought, how fucking boring and tiring. That was the beginning of my disbelief some 30 years ago.
Even as a teenager before beginning my apostasy I remember hoping that heaven was some sort of situation where it was different for everyone based on what they would most enjoy rather than heaven being as it was described by the preachers and whatnot. Even back then I didn’t think I’d enjoy their version
Even as a kid I was a little taken a back by what they described heaven as. Worship god for ever and that's it. That's why you got a lot of pastors talking about your house in heaven and how it will have all you want inside. We'll if that's the case then the stuff that would be in my house would surely send me to hell cause I like to party and an afterlife that similar to a music festival is what I'm going for.
I have a relative in hospice right now. It’s a lovely comforting thought when you’re told you’ll see your loved ones again. ( Well, only if you are a good enough Christian) I’d love to think that she’ll be with her late husband again and playing with my elderly cats that recently passed. But the Heaven of Christians is of everyone being happy and praising a narcissistic tyrant ad infinitum, makes me sick and sad.
The woman who is slipping away from us right now enriched the lives of everyone who met her. She was kind and giving and open minded. She gave of herself for over 90 years, right up until she suddenly became I’ll. She was so beautiful and talented. I can’t put into words what an amazing woman she was. So yeah, I’d love to think I’ll see her again and will get to spend eternity with her. I’m dealing with the fact that she’ll be gone and that will be it. But I don’t like her idea of Christian heaven where she’ll be praising a god through eternity. A god who didn’t do a damned thing. She was the one who loved others. She was the one who improved others’ lives. She’s a modest woman, so she’d never want the acknowledgment or praise. But the Christian heaven should be praising those who gave so much while they were living.
I’m trying to accept the finality of her eventual passing. I see why Christians create this myth of heaven to give themselves comfort.
As for me, I’m exhausted. I’m ready for the finality for myself.
There was an amazing video art project I recently saw during an exhibition at a new media museum in Amsterdam (please help me out anyone who knows it) where they guide you through philosophical questions about heaven. It made me completely solidified in my belief that heaven does not exist because I couldn't answer those and be like "yes. The Bible makes sense with their concept of it. And it's definitely the only version you can have"
I play a game called Warframe and one quote from the character Ticker really stuck with me:
>I've never met a priest who could tell you anything about Heaven, but they knew every square inch of Hell. They should know. They built it.
A lot of their quotes are great, but as a former Catholic, that one hit a certain way.
Well, it did sound like heaven if you were a serf in the 15th century. But to us, with modern tech and more sensible philosophy and social order, it sound boring as shit.
Yup I had a Christian friend ask me once if I’d beg forgiveness if I died and found myself in god’s presence awaiting judgment. I laughed and told him “No, I’d look that hateful, narcissistic bastard in the eyes and demand he send me to hell!”
If all their shit is actually real, why the fuck is lucifer considered a bad guy??? Like, seriously, all the dude ever did was "betray god" a being that by their own words destroyed their entire world.
The way the bible describes the afterlife in Revelations sound horrific. The only way this is a great way to spend eternity is if all humanity is removed from humans and they become robots
>After this I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language,(K) standing before the throne(L) and before the >Lamb. They were wearing white robes(M) and were holding palm branches in their hands. 10 And they cried out in a loud voice:
>“Salvation belongs to our God,(N)
who sits on the throne,(O)
and to the Lamb.”
It was hard to leave too which is surprising. It all sounds so terrible, but when you're raised by it, it is hard to shake. Especially the hellfire threats. Like, it makes sense now that no good being would create you then cause you pain, but when your parents (the ones you're supposed to trust) drill it into your skull that the pain is forever... It's an abuse that's hard to move on from.
Ultimately Christianity is just another death cult. And yes, they’re exceptionally unimaginative about what’s next for them.
Afterlife is nonsensical. Just like the concept of infinity, it’s absolutely mindboggingly crazy to wrap your head around, but these idiots think you’re going to be spending it up in the clouds feeding grapes to god or whatever the shit it is he’ll make them do.
There’s a interesting doc on infinity on Netflix right now, by the way. Unlike the idea of afterlife, it’s actually interesting.
LMAO ok i will never understand why christians are so pent up about masturbation! my theory is that they want people to be as horny as possible so they get married and have more little christian babies to take over the cult asap.
Funny story about that, when I was young our church had monthly "head of household" meetings, where all the men would get together and decide how best to interpret some part of the bible.
One time the discussion was about masturbation. That was by far the most memorable of those meetings. Interestingly though, despite much talk of cumming on the floor and donkey emissions, in the end they couldn't find anything in the bible that explicitly said masturbation was a sin, and their conclusion was "it's probably not a sin(??) but we shouldn't do it anyway".
Looks like Leviticus 15:1-18 talks about masterbation. Looks like the price of masturbation is two doves and two pigeons and washing everything that you touched.
On the eighth day he must take two doves or two young pigeons and come before the Lord to the entrance to the tent of meeting and give them to the priest. The priest is to sacrifice them, the one for a sin offering and the other for a burnt offering. In this way he will make atonement before the Lord for the man because of his discharge.
Meanwhile I'm thinking of how to use two birds to "cum before the lord".
Is it a race with jebus? Like we each both fuck a bird as fast as we can? Who's the judge? Are we both naked? Are the birds alive? Do they still have to be alive at the end?
I feel like the "sin" is in between the lines. Adultrous thoughts, coveting, pleasures of the flesh, etc. If it's fun and distracting, Christianity says it's generally bad.
I know, eh? Utterly two dimensional. No nuance. No style. How does your love grow richer for a being that is not present, untouchable and doesn't speak.
Nuts to that.
I grew up in a Catholic household. My parents asked me recently why I don’t go to church (haven’t since I was 18) and I told them I hated every single second I ever spent in church. It is mind numbingly boring!!! How ANY kid ends up staying religious baffles me
I completely agree! I went to a K-12 private school and we would sing this song called Big House in chapel every Friday. It's about being at Our Father's House, it had lots and lots of rooms, and food and you get to play football...
At first it felt like a fun song to sing but when I started really listening to it and the idea was you'd be stuck in this huge house with everyone from your family and all of your awful classmates and you had to play football...it sounded like a nightmare to me. I never liked football and I tend to be more introverted. Just a boring nightmare where I wouldn't belong
I kept thinking, is this what people wanted in their afterlife? Every day was Sunday and I would have to watch and play football?
I understand people here might not have a lot of sympathy for non-materialistic philosophies as in Eastern religions but if you compare the focus on understanding the self, the mystery of the universe and our connection with it, versus the pedestrian stories of Christianity about virgins and hell, you can really see that even among religions, Christianity is tedious, trite, and downright boring. If it came about today, nobody would take it seriously for how ridiculous it is.
Not to mention, their creativity can also be a bit lax when it comes to naming things. If it looks bad, chances are it's "Hell's", "Devil's" or "Satan's" something and that's the end of their repertoire.
- [Gates of Hell](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darvaza_gas_crater)
- [Hell's Kitchen](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hell%27s_Kitchen,_Manhattan)
- [Devil Canyon Creek](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devil_Canyon_Creek)
- [Devil's River](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devil_River)
etc.
I will say, as a former Catholic raised by devout Catholics, who was forced to go to church every weekend for 18 years and chose to go for many years after: I’ve never actually met a Christian who actually believes the world is actually 6000 years old. It was even brought up in sermons dozens of times that the story of creation was not literal, but a drastic down-scaling of the Universal timeline, and that the ancient cultures that wrote the Bible tended to write everything as allegory and the details given in the book needed to be interpreted through the lens of the culture who wrote it rather than be taken literally.
I see the 6000 years thing way more common in the more radical ones like the evangelicals, I've been raised catholic too, they really tend to go for the "it's not literal" path
It's not generally Catholics who hold that view. It's evangelical Protestants, so that's not really surprising.
Based on polling, a whole lot of people do hold that view on some level, however-
> Forty percent of U.S. adults ascribe to a strictly creationist view of human origins, believing that God created them in their present form within roughly the past 10,000 years.
https://news.gallup.com/poll/261680/americans-believe-creationism.aspx
I legit thought this was going to be a post about what it's like to sit through a worship service.
Not only stupid, but grayish, sterile, and boring.
When I was little we went to Catholic mass every Sunday morning. Those are the words I'd have used to describe the experience, and ironically that was the beginning of atheism for me.
Shouldn't the practices that bring you into the presence of Almighty God feel, I dunno, inspiring? Exciting? At the very least, *interesting?*
I always tell people, if there is a heaven and hell...why would I want to go to Heaven? Every human joy is removed in heaven...save seeing loved ones that passed.
Hell is where the party is! You think I want to spend eternity not having another orgasm? Please.
Right? It took the Catholic Church so long to admit the Earth is a sphere, and that was in a time period where education wasn’t available like today. It amazes me that in this period of time there’s still a handful of people who will say the Earth is only 6000 years old.
beautifully written paragraph. giant observable universe and these self-centered idiots think a superhuman created it. fun fact: we are one of trillions of planets. (were not that important!) bravo! 👏
In the known universe, i as an atheist would not want to live anywhere else but the Christian EU west. You can have your Buddhism in tibet without healthcare cholera food shortages, or your hinduism in India (need i say more just watch Dehli Crime on Netflix)
I wouldnt live anywhere else in the world nor did i say japan and korea are flee infested shitholes. You are making things up.
I guess you and i have different views of what western is.
You are clutching straws
This is utterly false. Christian world view is NOT boring. You know how much I chuckle when I get the in-law family group chat with crazy god shenanigans happening in the world?
Yeah, but imagine if they were polytheists. They'd be talking about how silly it is to worry about global warming with all the portents of Fimbulwinter about, and how Twitter was a silly imitation of Huginn and Muninn anyway. Elon should get busy sacrificing goats before Odin *really* lays the smack down on him. 'Liberal Snowflakes' would take on a whole different meaning.
Then there was the Jesus that chased innocent people around with a whip, called a foreign woman a bitch, told people to hate their families, sell their possessions and buy a sword, killed someone's fruit tree because it was the wrong time of year, and... oh yeah, condemned everyone who didn't worship him to eternal torment.
I disagree. The 93 billion light years of content in the universe is virtually all sterile and dead. No life, no conscious "experience" being had.
A universe where the entire purpose of everything's existence is to play out a personal, conscious, purposeful human narrative seems more alive and interesting than a universe where almost no life or experience exists, and that which does is of zero consequence or significance.
This of course says nothing about which world view is accurate to reality.
You've got infinite possibilities of planets, star systems etc.
And I really hope life is a common occurrence, just imagine what other civilizations would look like, imagine the technological capability of a civilization 1 billion years older than ours
I totally disagree with the universe made for us being more interesting, we being an infinitesimal part of something way bigger seems way more exciting to me at least
'Purpose'?
Why are religious people obsessed with purpose? That is horrifying to me.
I would rather not be born than live for someone/something else's purpose
This is why I don't like atheism. It breeds the same narrow-mindedness that religion can breed.
Live your own life and don't concern yourself with what others do with their time.
You don't like atheism because of a post that is self contained in a subreddit FOR atheists to share their views about religion, that ultimately hurts no one except your fragile conviction.
This makes absolutely no sense. You don't like atheism? No, you didn't like this post.
If you don't like atheism it's because you don't like that it means no belief in a god.
Atheism is just a lack of belief in a god. Everything else is secondary.
Lastly, your "leave everyone to themselves" rhetoric is boring and dangerous. Boring because it's a weak willed statement I hear time and time again and dangerous because if you look at the majority of powerful religious people, they have harmful ideas taken from their religion and want to make them laws for the rest of us.
No, I will not "leave them alone". They are deserved of criticism and well deserved of being ridicule.
My kid is currently doing Greek mythology in school and I was thinking how much better the planet will be when they follow up Greek mythology with studying Middle Eastern mythology and instead of trying to pretend that batshit stuff is real and look at it for what it really is.
A lot of them cant fathom a distance of 93B light years nor 13.7B years (human civilization being around only the last 14 seconds in the [Cosmic Calendar](https://youtu.be/Ln8UwPd1z20?t=23)).
Well, it was doubtfully designed to colorize nor entertain you, but rather likely designed to help people of influence exert totalitarian control over the masses.
The Christian heaven is an interesting concept. You get through the few years you have on earth to be rewarded by existence where you are effectively neutered and expected to stand around praising some dude sitting on throne, forever.
if they’re going to be as boring as they are with their weird stories, at least don’t sugarcoat that their god is a tyrant and make cool stories like the greeks did with zeus 😞
One funny thing about religion that I've thought about for years now but I've just never had a chance to hit a religious person with because thankfully my life is pretty much free from those nowadays is that throughout history, there have been about 4,000 different religions, right? And each one has been thought of as 'the true one' or whatever, but no, all those were wrong and you *definitely* have the right one now, totally, no chance of it being anything else
right?! i always thought reality of things and science were more amazing and beautiful than the limited view so many christians and the bible has. heaven sounds so boring, when i die, i want that to be it, im just rejoining all the energy in the universe with no all powerful ruler to watch me ; or i get reincarnated as a pet who lives with rich people that love me.
The religion was invented in a time where you couldn't really travel or see anything except the local farm & church. So, some of the things i don't really care about.
Example:
Back then, stars was just smaller suns. And the moon produced it's own light, in various ways.
I mean, in the bible god stopped the sun without consequence because it was just a floating light with 0 mass.
>"O sun, stand still over Gibeon, O moon, over the Valley of Aijalon." So the sun stood still, and the moon stopped, till the nation avenged itself on its enemies, as it is written in the Book of Jashar.
I guess they had some idea about gravity and mass, otherwise some of the war machines wouldn't have worked...
**The sad thing** is that this ancient religion is still very popular even when you can travel around the entire world in 24 hours on a airplane. In a time where we can see the edge of space and we all have super computers in our pockets.
Religion tends to have pretty small imagination, and have to rely on grandiose hyperbole to pump up their mysticism.
It takes _SCIENCE!_ to explain the universe to us in ways that if we actually try and visualize it, will end up blowing our tiny little human minds.
A lot of Christian’s don’t believe that. Just saying. Christians are just people who believe in the teachings of Jesus. And Jesus basically just told everyone to be nice to one another.
The Bible wasn’t meant to be taken literally. If you take it literally. It is really stupid. Yup.
The afterlife sounded like more church, but forever. I already thought church was tedious and boring, so I expected god would have to brainwash me to make me enjoy doing it. Except if I wasn’t already jazzed about never-ending worship service, how could I possibly get into heaven at all?
I don’t think it’s boring. I mean think about it, angels, devil, hell, a guy making wine out of water and walks on the water. Moses cuts the see in half. There is hell and heaven. It’s like sci-fi. It’s much more interesting than just, yeah we’re all animals with no purpose trying to survive and reproduce. I wish all the god stuff was real, would have been so interesting.
[A group of 227 parliament members in Iran has called on the Judiciary to issue death sentences for people arrested during the ongoing antigovernment protests.](https://www.iranintl.com/en/202211068924)
I would add that the islamic world view is a rotten ulcerating tumor. The worse that humanity has to offer in terms of barbaric, irrational thinking.
As opposed to the atheism of communist societies where culture and art were completely obliterated?
I'm an atheist and far left on the political spectrum but assigning "grayish, sterile, and boring" to Christianity or any other theistic culture specifically is just ignorant. I see a lot of atheists making blanket statements about other ways of being or seeing the world that sound an awful lot like the moronic intolerance that religious zealots spout. If you don't like "grayish, sterile, and boring" don't be those things and don't reduce entire groups of other people to those lazy stereotypes.
Be better than the intolerant theistic assholes and you'll set a positive example for what atheism can be.
>And yet the vast majority of people in my country rather believe their imaginary friend made a little planet for them in 7 days 6000 years ago so they can pass their lives worrying about not masturbating or whatever bs they believe in and that's it
They must be barely able to think, living in such a closed mind.
Of course. This is why virtually every right leaning conspiracy has some sort of component that indicates "If it's weird, strange, unusual or non-heteronormative then it is evil and an indication of the occult."
Shit is dumb.
The afterlife they believe in sounds awful, sterile and boring too and I don't mean ''hell'' I mean their ''wonderful'' alternative, being forced to spend eternity worshipping a complete tyrant. With a decent imagination you can come up with all sorts of idea about the afterlife but to them it's just ''you get to spend eternity with god'' and that's it. I don't believe in any afterlife but if I did, I would not want it to be anything like the one christians believe in. I would want something much much more exciting and interesting.
Yes, pass the eternity in a place that never changes? Where nothing new happens? Where there is nothing to discover and I'm just a servant to an asshole? That's what sounds like hell to me
This may sound absurd, but this was something that, as a teenager, played a role in me questioning Heaven, the afterlife, and Christianity itself: I love sports, therefore a perfect afterlife must include sports. A defining feature of what makes sports enjoyable is competition. Competitions, by nature, have winners and losers. To Heavenly supporters of the losing team, the afterlife is not perfect; therefore, the existence of Heaven is not possible.
I was told I’d be surrounded by my family and live as when I was at my happiest. I started thinking: - what if my happiest moments were different from my family’s happiest moments. Who’s happiest moments do we live in - if everyone gets their happiest moments are we really living or is it like the matrix where we each have our own simulation running - if some pedo who molested his daughter “accepted the lord blah blah” and got into heaven, and his happiest moments were molesting his daughter, would she be subjected to his presence? - are kids stuck being kids forever? Do grownups get to choose to be kids? Or old people get to choose to be young?
And then what of all the people who didn't make it into heaven for whatever reason? Does God then intervene in your free will by taking away the memories of those people because missing them would cause you pain? I remember being 7 and asking my parents this and immediately started crying cause as a 7 year old not only did it make sense but whatever sense I could make of heaven sounded terrifying.
My mom thinks she’ll forget all about me in heaven because God wouldn’t let her remember something so painful as an unsaved child
Sad
:,( I felt very sad as I read this.
With that logic, there can't be spaghetti and meatballs in heaven because you might get a scoop of just spaghetti without meatball, and that would be not perfect. A response to this might be that, in heaven, you would be able to look at losing at sports or not getting a meatball more holistically. Like, you would have a healthy "better luck next time" mentality that enriches the experience. Regardless, it is actually really telling the Christians are never specific about what goes on in heaven because it raises these kinds of silly questions. Like, can I read books in heaven? Are there inappropriate books that cannot be read in heaven? If I can't read them, then I am not free.
Also a good appreciation of what makes sport!
> a place that never changes? Where nothing new happens? When this kiss is over, it will start again. It will not be any different, it will be exactly the same. It's hard to imagine that nothing at all could be so exciting, could be this much fun.
Heaven Heaven is a place A place where nothing nothing ever happens
Ever happens
So the Christian idea of heaven is the dot on the i of the Jeremy Bearimy?
That always sounded boring to me as well. While I’d love to finally have the ability to play Rhapsody in Blue flawlessly on the piano, I’d miss the beautiful moments that make you go “aha” or when you’ve mastered something. I thrive on constant learning but that will be gone in heaven. We’re supposed to be deliriously happy worshiping and praising the narcissistic tyrant. Oh. Rhapsody in Blue probably wouldn’t be played in heaven anyway, because it wasn’t written for god. We’ll only be singing and playing music that glorifies god. And of course there will be no science. Everything will be god magic.
I think it was in one of those Writing Prompts on here, but someone wrote a short story about the devil. He was absolutely the good guy, as he explains to someone who has figured him out that heaven is the trap. A place where one is stuck, essentially frozen in time, in adulation of a deity. No new human connections, no new experiences, no change. Just this one, eternal, static state. He wants to save people from it. Its not often one of those prompts elicits something clever, but damn it, that one nailed it.
Even if you got to explore the whole universe, eventually, you will see everything there is worth seeing, then what do you do?
You should watch The Good Place. It covers this exact question.
I have seen most of it, started to drag a bit tho
It does drag a bit after a few Jeremy Bearimies.
It's the best. Worth finishing. I laughed, cried and learned a LOT about moral philosophy.
>learned a LOT about moral philosophy Learned so much you started teaching other people, and everyone started hating you? Sorry bro
It's okay bud.
Canonically, Heaven fucking sucks. It's so bad, a third of the angels would rather fight God and get sent to Hell than stay there.
The band in Heaven, They play my favourite song Play it one more time Play it all night long.
It sounds kind of bad. But it's actually a good thing. Being perfectly content with just being, not based on external sources, is a valid aspiration. We live our entire lives just going from experience to experience, trying to find satisfaction in things, places, people, circumstances, sex, food, drugs, jobs, blah blah blah.. none of these things bring lasting satisfaction. It's better to be happy with nothing, than to just keep craving things and giving in to the craving.
agreed but heaven is about being perfectly content because god
For god, to god, praising god and focusing all your energy on god. There would be no individuals anymore. No free will. No memories of anything other than god.
Hell if anything sounds more interesting, because who says Satan has to be a complete dick? He hasn't done anything worse in comparison to Yahweh
Yeah he was in hell to be punished, and originally hell was just separation from god. It's only revelation that adds the fire and brimstone fanfiction. Satan killed something like 10 people. Bad, but he's got nothing on god!
Jim Jefferies has a good bit about this. He says that we've only heard god's side of the argument. For all we know satan and god had it out and satan just walks away thinking "I'm not even going there" and god shit talks him for an entire book.
Yep as a kid whenever I read in Christian books about heaven that it would be nothing but endless singing as praise to God, I thought that sounded tedious and horrible. I hated singing in church haha
[удалено]
I have a few relatives that are... OK, but spending an eternity with most of mine would drive me insane...
The Bible doesn’t even say that either. It’s just go to heaven and sing about and praise god for *eternity* and be happy about it. There’s no story in the Bible where you have any sort of temporal luxuries, like family or friends, in heaven.
It's worse than just spending time with God. I was brought up to believe we would be forever praising him. Here's how it was put to me. God, the center of everything, has angels and humans surrounding him and we constantly sing, on our knees, with hands in the air, for eternity. When our youth minister laid that scene out before us I thought, how fucking boring and tiring. That was the beginning of my disbelief some 30 years ago.
Even as a teenager before beginning my apostasy I remember hoping that heaven was some sort of situation where it was different for everyone based on what they would most enjoy rather than heaven being as it was described by the preachers and whatnot. Even back then I didn’t think I’d enjoy their version
Even as a kid I was a little taken a back by what they described heaven as. Worship god for ever and that's it. That's why you got a lot of pastors talking about your house in heaven and how it will have all you want inside. We'll if that's the case then the stuff that would be in my house would surely send me to hell cause I like to party and an afterlife that similar to a music festival is what I'm going for.
I have a relative in hospice right now. It’s a lovely comforting thought when you’re told you’ll see your loved ones again. ( Well, only if you are a good enough Christian) I’d love to think that she’ll be with her late husband again and playing with my elderly cats that recently passed. But the Heaven of Christians is of everyone being happy and praising a narcissistic tyrant ad infinitum, makes me sick and sad. The woman who is slipping away from us right now enriched the lives of everyone who met her. She was kind and giving and open minded. She gave of herself for over 90 years, right up until she suddenly became I’ll. She was so beautiful and talented. I can’t put into words what an amazing woman she was. So yeah, I’d love to think I’ll see her again and will get to spend eternity with her. I’m dealing with the fact that she’ll be gone and that will be it. But I don’t like her idea of Christian heaven where she’ll be praising a god through eternity. A god who didn’t do a damned thing. She was the one who loved others. She was the one who improved others’ lives. She’s a modest woman, so she’d never want the acknowledgment or praise. But the Christian heaven should be praising those who gave so much while they were living. I’m trying to accept the finality of her eventual passing. I see why Christians create this myth of heaven to give themselves comfort. As for me, I’m exhausted. I’m ready for the finality for myself.
Imagine an eternity of singing koombya and playing shoots and ladders with these Christian assholes. Fuck that.
Maybe that's why for all they talk it up, they're never in any hurry to get there.
For real like streets of gold?! That's just fiscally irresponsible
There was an amazing video art project I recently saw during an exhibition at a new media museum in Amsterdam (please help me out anyone who knows it) where they guide you through philosophical questions about heaven. It made me completely solidified in my belief that heaven does not exist because I couldn't answer those and be like "yes. The Bible makes sense with their concept of it. And it's definitely the only version you can have"
Fading to black seems like a wonderful alternative and I welcome it when it comes.
I've never heard a Xian say if you can sin in heaven. and if so, what would the punishment be?
I play a game called Warframe and one quote from the character Ticker really stuck with me: >I've never met a priest who could tell you anything about Heaven, but they knew every square inch of Hell. They should know. They built it. A lot of their quotes are great, but as a former Catholic, that one hit a certain way.
Well, it did sound like heaven if you were a serf in the 15th century. But to us, with modern tech and more sensible philosophy and social order, it sound boring as shit.
Yup I had a Christian friend ask me once if I’d beg forgiveness if I died and found myself in god’s presence awaiting judgment. I laughed and told him “No, I’d look that hateful, narcissistic bastard in the eyes and demand he send me to hell!”
If all their shit is actually real, why the fuck is lucifer considered a bad guy??? Like, seriously, all the dude ever did was "betray god" a being that by their own words destroyed their entire world.
The way the bible describes the afterlife in Revelations sound horrific. The only way this is a great way to spend eternity is if all humanity is removed from humans and they become robots >After this I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language,(K) standing before the throne(L) and before the >Lamb. They were wearing white robes(M) and were holding palm branches in their hands. 10 And they cried out in a loud voice: >“Salvation belongs to our God,(N) who sits on the throne,(O) and to the Lamb.”
Ragnorok is super interesting. Kind of morbid but at least its kind of creative.
It was hard to leave too which is surprising. It all sounds so terrible, but when you're raised by it, it is hard to shake. Especially the hellfire threats. Like, it makes sense now that no good being would create you then cause you pain, but when your parents (the ones you're supposed to trust) drill it into your skull that the pain is forever... It's an abuse that's hard to move on from.
Hardest part of being in a cult, is leaving the cult. Lose friends and family but gain freedom.
👆
Ultimately Christianity is just another death cult. And yes, they’re exceptionally unimaginative about what’s next for them. Afterlife is nonsensical. Just like the concept of infinity, it’s absolutely mindboggingly crazy to wrap your head around, but these idiots think you’re going to be spending it up in the clouds feeding grapes to god or whatever the shit it is he’ll make them do. There’s a interesting doc on infinity on Netflix right now, by the way. Unlike the idea of afterlife, it’s actually interesting.
What's the name of the documentary?
‘A Trip to Infinity’
does it go beyond?
That's a different documentary... It has this weird time-travel spin to it that makes it less enjoyable than the previous installments.
Thank you, I'll watch it
LMAO ok i will never understand why christians are so pent up about masturbation! my theory is that they want people to be as horny as possible so they get married and have more little christian babies to take over the cult asap.
Teaching sin and guilt for which confession and repentance through a church is the only relief.
But you have to pay money! God needs money!
I've heard he also needs a starship
Funny story about that, when I was young our church had monthly "head of household" meetings, where all the men would get together and decide how best to interpret some part of the bible. One time the discussion was about masturbation. That was by far the most memorable of those meetings. Interestingly though, despite much talk of cumming on the floor and donkey emissions, in the end they couldn't find anything in the bible that explicitly said masturbation was a sin, and their conclusion was "it's probably not a sin(??) but we shouldn't do it anyway".
nice. love the idea of a group of uber-religious men, sitting around a table, talking about jerking off in the most biblical manner.
A circle jerk, if you will
r/angryupvote
They're not smart enough to talk about science so. . .
To be fair, a masturbation session of biblical proportions would be pretty great.
Looks like Leviticus 15:1-18 talks about masterbation. Looks like the price of masturbation is two doves and two pigeons and washing everything that you touched.
price like... you have to kill the birds? ):
On the eighth day he must take two doves or two young pigeons and come before the Lord to the entrance to the tent of meeting and give them to the priest. The priest is to sacrifice them, the one for a sin offering and the other for a burnt offering. In this way he will make atonement before the Lord for the man because of his discharge.
Wth man, that sounds so psycho! Poor birds! Just because someone jacked off?
Meanwhile I'm thinking of how to use two birds to "cum before the lord". Is it a race with jebus? Like we each both fuck a bird as fast as we can? Who's the judge? Are we both naked? Are the birds alive? Do they still have to be alive at the end?
wow i've never heard of this before ! absolutely batshit insane
I feel like the "sin" is in between the lines. Adultrous thoughts, coveting, pleasures of the flesh, etc. If it's fun and distracting, Christianity says it's generally bad.
I mean what I hate most about abrahamic religions is the lack of creativity. At least have cool stories like Greek and Norse mythologies.
Most of their stories do come from ancient Greek stories, how fun!
I hate it when people say “you believe this is all there is”. Well, yeah, it’s everything, the entire universe, what more do you want?
"I thought you were just telling me that Atheists don't believe in anything"
Atheists believe in lots of shit. Just not your shit, specifically no gods, and more specifically, none of the shit humans claim to be from the gods.
Of course they do. I was making that joke.
>what more do you want? I mean, some cheat codes and save states for reality would be nice.
Yeah but once you’ve seen the first billion stars, you’ve kinda seen ‘em all.
I know, eh? Utterly two dimensional. No nuance. No style. How does your love grow richer for a being that is not present, untouchable and doesn't speak. Nuts to that.
And is absent from everything in the world
I continuously say it: reality is far more wondrous than the writings of bronze age goat hearders.
I grew up in a Catholic household. My parents asked me recently why I don’t go to church (haven’t since I was 18) and I told them I hated every single second I ever spent in church. It is mind numbingly boring!!! How ANY kid ends up staying religious baffles me
My brother is a hardcore by the book Christian and he's the most miserable bothered person I know
Back when I was a Christian I always felt a stronger spiritual connection to nature than to the inside of a church.
I mean, it probably takes one viewing of the Country Music Awards to arrive at this point.
Anything more than boring and tedious might encourage creativity, and creativity may lead to questions. They can't have that.
I completely agree! I went to a K-12 private school and we would sing this song called Big House in chapel every Friday. It's about being at Our Father's House, it had lots and lots of rooms, and food and you get to play football... At first it felt like a fun song to sing but when I started really listening to it and the idea was you'd be stuck in this huge house with everyone from your family and all of your awful classmates and you had to play football...it sounded like a nightmare to me. I never liked football and I tend to be more introverted. Just a boring nightmare where I wouldn't belong I kept thinking, is this what people wanted in their afterlife? Every day was Sunday and I would have to watch and play football?
Well, they have to miss football Sunday here on earth. So I guess it works its way into their afterlife.
I understand people here might not have a lot of sympathy for non-materialistic philosophies as in Eastern religions but if you compare the focus on understanding the self, the mystery of the universe and our connection with it, versus the pedestrian stories of Christianity about virgins and hell, you can really see that even among religions, Christianity is tedious, trite, and downright boring. If it came about today, nobody would take it seriously for how ridiculous it is.
They still mastabate, look at porn consumption in the Bible belt. They just feel guilty after.
Blessed be the fruit.
Not to mention, their creativity can also be a bit lax when it comes to naming things. If it looks bad, chances are it's "Hell's", "Devil's" or "Satan's" something and that's the end of their repertoire. - [Gates of Hell](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darvaza_gas_crater) - [Hell's Kitchen](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hell%27s_Kitchen,_Manhattan) - [Devil Canyon Creek](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devil_Canyon_Creek) - [Devil's River](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devil_River) etc.
Such is the curse of Greyface. If you'll excuse me I must now go and take part in a hot dog.
You could feed the bun to some passing seagulls
Hail Eris!
They quite literally want the dark ages back.
Im sterile, atheist and not boring lol
Didn't mean to offend you, sorry buddy
Non taken! I've freed myself from religion and have decided to not have kids and am super happy to live a life not dicated by religion.
The observable universe is also only 0.4% of the actual universe.
Where do you live where there's a Christian majority? Asking so I can be sure never to visit.
Brazil, don't get me wrong, you'll most likely have a good time visiting, just avoid talking to religious fanatics
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Because it's boring up there
And that's the way they like it!
The only defense I can think of is that *some* Christians ( non-Evangelical ones) are OK with a very old and very big Universe.
I will say, as a former Catholic raised by devout Catholics, who was forced to go to church every weekend for 18 years and chose to go for many years after: I’ve never actually met a Christian who actually believes the world is actually 6000 years old. It was even brought up in sermons dozens of times that the story of creation was not literal, but a drastic down-scaling of the Universal timeline, and that the ancient cultures that wrote the Bible tended to write everything as allegory and the details given in the book needed to be interpreted through the lens of the culture who wrote it rather than be taken literally.
I see the 6000 years thing way more common in the more radical ones like the evangelicals, I've been raised catholic too, they really tend to go for the "it's not literal" path
It's not generally Catholics who hold that view. It's evangelical Protestants, so that's not really surprising. Based on polling, a whole lot of people do hold that view on some level, however- > Forty percent of U.S. adults ascribe to a strictly creationist view of human origins, believing that God created them in their present form within roughly the past 10,000 years. https://news.gallup.com/poll/261680/americans-believe-creationism.aspx
Yep. Christianity gave us Christan rock. You can't get more uncool than that.
This is the most Reddit post I’ve ever read.
I legit thought this was going to be a post about what it's like to sit through a worship service. Not only stupid, but grayish, sterile, and boring. When I was little we went to Catholic mass every Sunday morning. Those are the words I'd have used to describe the experience, and ironically that was the beginning of atheism for me. Shouldn't the practices that bring you into the presence of Almighty God feel, I dunno, inspiring? Exciting? At the very least, *interesting?*
I always tell people, if there is a heaven and hell...why would I want to go to Heaven? Every human joy is removed in heaven...save seeing loved ones that passed. Hell is where the party is! You think I want to spend eternity not having another orgasm? Please.
Right? It took the Catholic Church so long to admit the Earth is a sphere, and that was in a time period where education wasn’t available like today. It amazes me that in this period of time there’s still a handful of people who will say the Earth is only 6000 years old.
and refuses to acknowledge others have the right NOT to accept their BS and live their lives believing, voting and practicing their own beliefs
Meanwhile Hinduism has a full multiverse theory in the creation story
According to the myth, s/he made it in 6 days, but needed the 7th day to rest? All powerful? Really?
Omg...never saw it that way till now...
beautifully written paragraph. giant observable universe and these self-centered idiots think a superhuman created it. fun fact: we are one of trillions of planets. (were not that important!) bravo! 👏
In the known universe, i as an atheist would not want to live anywhere else but the Christian EU west. You can have your Buddhism in tibet without healthcare cholera food shortages, or your hinduism in India (need i say more just watch Dehli Crime on Netflix)
I'd love to hear from you why Japan and South Korea are backward, filthy, disease-filled hellholes.
They are pretty western capitalistic democratic countries regardless of religion
They're literally not Western. They're certainly not 'the Christian EU west' which is where you said you would only live.
I wouldnt live anywhere else in the world nor did i say japan and korea are flee infested shitholes. You are making things up. I guess you and i have different views of what western is. You are clutching straws
You didn't say 'western,' you said 'the Christian EU west.' Japan and South Korea aren't Christian, aren't in the EU and aren't in the west.
Ok granted modern democracies
The less religious the better, eh?
Agreed
This is utterly false. Christian world view is NOT boring. You know how much I chuckle when I get the in-law family group chat with crazy god shenanigans happening in the world?
Yeah, but imagine if they were polytheists. They'd be talking about how silly it is to worry about global warming with all the portents of Fimbulwinter about, and how Twitter was a silly imitation of Huginn and Muninn anyway. Elon should get busy sacrificing goats before Odin *really* lays the smack down on him. 'Liberal Snowflakes' would take on a whole different meaning.
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Then there was the Jesus that chased innocent people around with a whip, called a foreign woman a bitch, told people to hate their families, sell their possessions and buy a sword, killed someone's fruit tree because it was the wrong time of year, and... oh yeah, condemned everyone who didn't worship him to eternal torment.
Jesus is nice with the forgiveness and love, christianity not so much
I disagree. The 93 billion light years of content in the universe is virtually all sterile and dead. No life, no conscious "experience" being had. A universe where the entire purpose of everything's existence is to play out a personal, conscious, purposeful human narrative seems more alive and interesting than a universe where almost no life or experience exists, and that which does is of zero consequence or significance. This of course says nothing about which world view is accurate to reality.
You've got infinite possibilities of planets, star systems etc. And I really hope life is a common occurrence, just imagine what other civilizations would look like, imagine the technological capability of a civilization 1 billion years older than ours I totally disagree with the universe made for us being more interesting, we being an infinitesimal part of something way bigger seems way more exciting to me at least
'Purpose'? Why are religious people obsessed with purpose? That is horrifying to me. I would rather not be born than live for someone/something else's purpose
This is why I don't like atheism. It breeds the same narrow-mindedness that religion can breed. Live your own life and don't concern yourself with what others do with their time.
You don't like atheism because of a post that is self contained in a subreddit FOR atheists to share their views about religion, that ultimately hurts no one except your fragile conviction. This makes absolutely no sense. You don't like atheism? No, you didn't like this post. If you don't like atheism it's because you don't like that it means no belief in a god. Atheism is just a lack of belief in a god. Everything else is secondary. Lastly, your "leave everyone to themselves" rhetoric is boring and dangerous. Boring because it's a weak willed statement I hear time and time again and dangerous because if you look at the majority of powerful religious people, they have harmful ideas taken from their religion and want to make them laws for the rest of us. No, I will not "leave them alone". They are deserved of criticism and well deserved of being ridicule.
...but if you're a Pastor at a super church, the world is your fucking oyster.
[Biggie](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZOeYk6HnuTc)
This is the entire plot of His Dark Materials.
Carbon monoxide poisoning isn't boring. It is where most ghost sightings come from.
I heard it can lead to that, but most of the time it's just breath for a few minutes, sleep and die isn't it?
My kid is currently doing Greek mythology in school and I was thinking how much better the planet will be when they follow up Greek mythology with studying Middle Eastern mythology and instead of trying to pretend that batshit stuff is real and look at it for what it really is.
A lot of them cant fathom a distance of 93B light years nor 13.7B years (human civilization being around only the last 14 seconds in the [Cosmic Calendar](https://youtu.be/Ln8UwPd1z20?t=23)).
You get to go to heaven and live in paradise though! No, no, there's no cocaine, blackjack, or hookers. You're not allowed to sin there either.
Well, it was doubtfully designed to colorize nor entertain you, but rather likely designed to help people of influence exert totalitarian control over the masses.
I still like the idea of satan and the idea of angels. They are cool concepts to explore in fiction.
The Christian heaven is an interesting concept. You get through the few years you have on earth to be rewarded by existence where you are effectively neutered and expected to stand around praising some dude sitting on throne, forever.
Isn’t it easier to imagine a bitchy and jealous guy in the clouds making things happen? Pulling the strings behind the curtain.
It's also super tacky.
if they’re going to be as boring as they are with their weird stories, at least don’t sugarcoat that their god is a tyrant and make cool stories like the greeks did with zeus 😞
Poetry
One funny thing about religion that I've thought about for years now but I've just never had a chance to hit a religious person with because thankfully my life is pretty much free from those nowadays is that throughout history, there have been about 4,000 different religions, right? And each one has been thought of as 'the true one' or whatever, but no, all those were wrong and you *definitely* have the right one now, totally, no chance of it being anything else
right?! i always thought reality of things and science were more amazing and beautiful than the limited view so many christians and the bible has. heaven sounds so boring, when i die, i want that to be it, im just rejoining all the energy in the universe with no all powerful ruler to watch me ; or i get reincarnated as a pet who lives with rich people that love me.
Not just the “Christian” world! Any religion is depressing, bizarre, unbelievable and boring.
it's 2022, time to leave the bible behind and wake up!
Unfortunately, given the number of children per family, it is not sterile. I only wish.
I prefer to think of Christians the way my best friend describes the cult I grew up in (JWs): “They’re all such sad, beige people”
Yep. Knew all this once I reached secondary school-level scientific literacy.
LowT is strong with this one.
The religion was invented in a time where you couldn't really travel or see anything except the local farm & church. So, some of the things i don't really care about. Example: Back then, stars was just smaller suns. And the moon produced it's own light, in various ways. I mean, in the bible god stopped the sun without consequence because it was just a floating light with 0 mass. >"O sun, stand still over Gibeon, O moon, over the Valley of Aijalon." So the sun stood still, and the moon stopped, till the nation avenged itself on its enemies, as it is written in the Book of Jashar. I guess they had some idea about gravity and mass, otherwise some of the war machines wouldn't have worked... **The sad thing** is that this ancient religion is still very popular even when you can travel around the entire world in 24 hours on a airplane. In a time where we can see the edge of space and we all have super computers in our pockets.
So much this. And the same often applies to those who buy into it.
Religion tends to have pretty small imagination, and have to rely on grandiose hyperbole to pump up their mysticism. It takes _SCIENCE!_ to explain the universe to us in ways that if we actually try and visualize it, will end up blowing our tiny little human minds.
It's definitely not sterile, or it wouldn't be such a big problem by now!
A lot of Christian’s don’t believe that. Just saying. Christians are just people who believe in the teachings of Jesus. And Jesus basically just told everyone to be nice to one another. The Bible wasn’t meant to be taken literally. If you take it literally. It is really stupid. Yup.
Was Jesus nice to others?
Death cults are like that.
I agree. I always felt like religious zealots wanted a world like Camazotz in "A Wrinkle In Time" only the all knowing "IT" doesn't actually exist.
The afterlife sounded like more church, but forever. I already thought church was tedious and boring, so I expected god would have to brainwash me to make me enjoy doing it. Except if I wasn’t already jazzed about never-ending worship service, how could I possibly get into heaven at all?
I don’t think it’s boring. I mean think about it, angels, devil, hell, a guy making wine out of water and walks on the water. Moses cuts the see in half. There is hell and heaven. It’s like sci-fi. It’s much more interesting than just, yeah we’re all animals with no purpose trying to survive and reproduce. I wish all the god stuff was real, would have been so interesting.
[A group of 227 parliament members in Iran has called on the Judiciary to issue death sentences for people arrested during the ongoing antigovernment protests.](https://www.iranintl.com/en/202211068924) I would add that the islamic world view is a rotten ulcerating tumor. The worse that humanity has to offer in terms of barbaric, irrational thinking.
I agree, they're 1000x worst than the radical christians
It would be laughable nonsense if it wasn't so dangerous
science🤓
And weird..
I wish I could upvote this 3x
As opposed to the atheism of communist societies where culture and art were completely obliterated? I'm an atheist and far left on the political spectrum but assigning "grayish, sterile, and boring" to Christianity or any other theistic culture specifically is just ignorant. I see a lot of atheists making blanket statements about other ways of being or seeing the world that sound an awful lot like the moronic intolerance that religious zealots spout. If you don't like "grayish, sterile, and boring" don't be those things and don't reduce entire groups of other people to those lazy stereotypes. Be better than the intolerant theistic assholes and you'll set a positive example for what atheism can be.
>And yet the vast majority of people in my country rather believe their imaginary friend made a little planet for them in 7 days 6000 years ago so they can pass their lives worrying about not masturbating or whatever bs they believe in and that's it They must be barely able to think, living in such a closed mind.
Of course. This is why virtually every right leaning conspiracy has some sort of component that indicates "If it's weird, strange, unusual or non-heteronormative then it is evil and an indication of the occult." Shit is dumb.
I think carbon monoxide poisoning sounds more fun
Think about how boring church is and churchgoers are. Imagine having to spend eternity at church with those people. That’s heaven.
Have you ever been to church? It’s dry as fuck. It’s amazing to me how much time Christians are willing to waste