I don't really believe in an afterlife. I've had talks with my close friends, asking them why a good God sends people to hell. The reply is always, "you send yourself". This statement irks me so much!! How would you respond to that?
Say to them that if they keep being this aggressive and bad behaved, Santa won't bring them presents this year and observe the mental process of them understanding that both sentences have the same meaning to you...
Or just say: "As long as it is far from you and your people"
"Well Valhalla sounds more fun anyway"
"Thanks god I won't spend the eternity with you"
"Yes, but on executive class please"
Just play with it and the silliness of making a religious threats to a non believer.
All kinds of snarky ways, I try not to repeat myself too much and I'm always trying to see what might work...
This one's easy . According to the Bible , Lucifer was one of God's favorite angles . Angles were made by God . Lucifer rebelled and was thrown out of heaven and sent to live in hell , also created by God . If God does not exist , then he did not create either Lucifer or Hell , therefore only Christians can be sent to Hell , because it does not exist for non Christians .
Ask them why god lets you send yourself to hell. A good god would protect us from ourselves after all.
If it is a choice why would any one go to hell, I would vote myself to go somewhere good. I do not think that would be heaven, though.
"Thank You! It will be one Hell of a party! All of my friends will be there." Followed by watching their heads explode.
Remind them that we are all the heroes of our own story, So we would not send ourselves to hell, therefor hell can't exist. Even the evil men of history believe their actions where righteous and would not consider that it would lead them to hell.
In the case of an afterlife existence, we cannot know and if we could it is extremely doubtful that the source of that knowledge would be a man or group of males who happen also to be exclusively 'in charge'. The social condition itself is suspiciously unbalanced and the goods likewise.
Regardless of alleged sources of afterlife certainty and "knowledge", nobody exists who has visited that 'undiscoverred country' and anyone who hasn't had their perceptual and reasoning faculties monkeyed with (pun intended) before those abilities have had a chance to develop naturally, clearly and instantly understands that simple, reasoned principle. Nobody has been there, so how can ANYBODY know, as in information that is so?
Knowledge is information but all information isn't knowledge. In our hapless world all information is soaked in the brine of our male dominated existence and therefore, in terms of evaluating our reality, cannot be balanced; truth exists but must be carefully, forensically gleaned by each thinking individual for their self. The larger and stronger the group 'truth', the further it will be from reality; therefore possessing concomitant measures of intolerance and cruelty for 'maintenance' and propagation.
To sum up: One cannot reason with one who has had their ability to reason scrambled to an irretrievable degree. Many theologically captive minds are exactly that and cannot tolerate information at odds with conditioning without being terrified by it.
Great reply! Yes, no one knows for sure, but it it doubtful.
The middle finger.
Oh, you heathen.
That was the short answer, the long one would really hurt
Answers itself. IF there was a "hell" why did "god" create it in the first place?
Duh.
But as you know it's an endless circular argument with no end.
Stop hanging out with them.
He's family, so I'm trying to be nice. But it IS pointless to argue with someone who's not going to be open-minded.
really sending my self to a place that does not exist wow!
I'd say that I agree with Sartre that "Hell is other people" and they can be part of my heaven here on earth, or part of my hell. If they really believe in Hell, then they should just let their god make the judgments, not take that role upon themselves, and let you live your life as you see fit, as you welcome them to live life as they see fit.
It's a response that's been put into their heads by brainwashing. Don't take it personally. It's a question they've asked themselves, but they aren't able to face the truth, so they blame torture on the victim. We were born so incredibly sinful that nothing would do but for us to be roasted alive for eternity.
I start with laughter. (face-palm) variety.
From there - depending on the angle the (theist/idiot) uses to attempt to establish 1: A hell exists and 2: demonstrate I am responsible for sending my self there, I will often refer to an old NPR story about a once prominent fundamentalist preacher who was a believer who devoted his life to trying to warn people about believe in Jesus or burn in hell forever. One day this preacher had an epiphany, he realized that what about the Himalayan monk who devotes his entire life to living a moral live if this monk day falls to his death before asking Jesus for forgiveness, he would also burn in hell forever. This did not sound correct to the preacher so he changed his sermon to allow more latitude in the acceptance of his version of god. His megachurch quickly went belly up and he wound up in a small church where a large part of his congregation was LGBT he was no longer condemning to hell.
If Internet access is available, this video does a wonderful job of demonstrating their “Hell” assertion is nothing less then a pile of festering hog manure. I have shared it with many theists.
I'd say "And you send yourself to never never land. Wherever the heck that is."