Do atheists sometimes wish there was a hell?

No! What nonsense! And, I wouldn't call myself an atheist in the same way Fred or ray call themselves. I'm open to the question, but lean strongly in their direction; only because I was taught: "If it seems too good to be true it probably isn't."

Lily, I love that you ask these questions, I don't mean your question is nonsense, I enjoy the way your mind works & the things you think to ask!

I'm not so sure that is true, but even so there's a catch to that. You have to sincerely mean it and not just mouth words. You really think inherently evil individuals would pass that test? For myself, I don't believe in hell, but if there is an afterlife, then there will be something. Why do I know that for sure? Because just there being an afterlife alone would tell you something interesting is going on.

Don't ask me about Catholics. And anyway,  that's beside the point of my question. Golly gee whiz, how about evading the point?

I hope you haven't had lunch yet. I wanted to catch you before you disappear after the weekend. So do tell.




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Hey, I answered the question. 8->

I'd like there to be a hell, but only if it's not the goofy one that most Christians believe in.

But, since there is no hell, being dead is not punishment enough for certain crimes. Better to keep the evil one alive and in misery. But that rarely happens. Almost all the really bad folk die long before they get what they deserve, either killing themselves or being killed. Too easy.

You know, Raybar, you just brought up a subject I've been thinking about, and that is that non-existence after death is the same as non-existence prior to being born. But there is a difference. Before you were born, you certainly didn't think about not existing, but after you're born, most of us think about mortality and what we'll miss. So I don't think it's quite comforting to think about death as being the same as never having been here, which is voiced here often enough. One thing for sure, you have to go through dying first to be dead, which is not something you had to go through having not existed. And that isn't something most of us don't look forward to experiencing.

No, I wouldn't say comforting, just that nothingness is nothing to fear.

I wonder if death really is much of an experience. My mother died in her sleep. My father died quietly at the breakfast table. Sick friends have slipped from sleep into coma before dying, or just dosed off while someone was visiting them in hospital. And even in a traumatic or violent situation, I imagine that whatever you are experiencing just stops, like being knocked unconscious in sports (yes, I have been, briefly, to wake up with a blank spot in memory).

Can we talk about something happy now?

My "can we talk about something happy now" was meant as a light hearted remark. Nothing to worry about.

I am not in denial about death. I just accept the fact that we all die and face that piece of reality in a matter-of-fact way.

We have been fortunate in my family that never, in living memory, have any children or young adults died. So there has never been any sense of a life cut short (well, cut a little short when they died in their mid-60s), no parents burying their children, and so on. This is not to say that there was no crying or tears, including some from me, but funerals were mainly celebrations of life.

Outside the family, as is probably true for most people our age (66 & 67), Molly and I have a long list of dead friends who pass through our thoughts and conversations on a frequent basis. They did die young. Several of them, and one in particular, we miss very much.

I have found that talking about the recently deceased helps enormously with getting through the grief and sadness. And after that, talking about them whenever something reminds us of them keeps the "alive" in our hearts and minds even years later, as if they "have only slipped away into the next room [or are waiting for us] somewhere very near, just round the corner." (Henry Scott Holland, "The King of Terrors" aka "Death Is Nothing At All," 1910)