Zone1 Are Atheists Happier Than Christians?

[Hector12]

Pew Research Center, JANUARY 31, 2019

Religion’s Relationship to Happiness, Civic Engagement and Health Around the World​

In the U.S. and other countries, participation in a congregation is a key factor​

People who are active in religious congregations tend to be happier and more civically engaged than either religiously unaffiliated adults or inactive members of religious groups, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis of survey data from the United States and more than two dozen other countries.

Religion’s Relationship to Happiness, Civic Engagement and Health Around the World

People who are active in religious congregations tend to be happier and more civically engaged than either religiously unaffiliated adults or inactive members of religious groups, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis of survey data from the United States and more than two dozen other...

www.pewresearch.org

 

[Meriweather]

Tell me, what do you believe about "salvation"? Do you believe only Christians inherit eternal life in heaven, while everybody else gets tortured in hell for all eternity?

Is that what you believe about Christians and hell? If so, you are wrong about hell--and about what most Christians believe. Why torment yourself with a minority belief and accuse the majority of that minority belief?

 

[Red Front]

It is not what I believe about God or Christianity. I am pointing out you did.

I don't, most Christians do. That's the point you're conveniently ignoring. Most Christians, especially the Evangelicals and militant Catholics, like these:

https://www.youtube.com/@ChurchMilitant

Believe you either convert to Christianity or you're damned in hell for all eternity.

 

[Red Front]

Is that what you believe about Christians and hell? If so, you are wrong about hell--and about what most Christians believe. Why torment yourself with a minority belief and accuse the majority of that minority belief?

You're just being dishonest now and ignoring what your NT says about salvation. God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life, but those who don't believe in him are condemned already. Well, what if I don't believe it? All of the people who don't believe are going to be abandoned in hell, according to most Christians, especially devout ones. Maybe you as a liberal Christian are more eclectic and open-minded, willing to ignore certain passages in the bible or re-interpret them in a way that makes salvation more universal, but most Christians, especially Protestants, don't agree with you.

 

[Red Front]

Who has told you that? It is not Catholic teaching, and it is not all non-Catholic Christian teaching, either. So...again...who told you that? Which denomination?

Sure you can argue that most Christians don't believe that if you define being a Christian as anyone who got baptized in the past or attends church once a year. However, most devout Protestant Christians, with few exceptions, reject universal salvation and believe that without Christ, people go to hell. Modern, well-educated Catholics who study their new catechism and canon law, know that the Catholic Church, today, has a much more universal stance on salvation. People will be judged according to their conscience and you don't have to be Catholic, or even a Christian. This is a novelty, because for most of Catholic history, say up to Vatican 2, you had to be a baptized, confirmed Catholic, receiving the sacraments to be saved.

Most Evangelicals, if not all of them, have a very strict, narrow view of salvation. They also believe that God will abandon people in hell, for all eternity. They don't believe in annihilation or being unconscious in hell, they believe in conscious torment FOREVER. That version of the Christian God is worse than Adolf. The Nazis would torture people, but that torture was temporal, not eternal. So in a way that version of the Christian God, which is quite popular among Evangelicals and militant, fundie-Catholics, is truly worse than the Nazis.

 

[Red Front]

Catholics are taught that no one knows their fate or the fate of others. Except of course the saints. They know their fate.

So you believe God tortures people in hell for all eternity for not converting to Christianity? Answer the question, it's simple.

 

[Meriweather]

I don't, most Christians do. That's the point you're conveniently ignoring. Most Christians, especially the Evangelicals and militant Catholics, like these:

Most Christians are neither Evangelicals nor militant Catholics. In fact, I have never even met a militant Catholic in any of the parishes in which I have lived. I have also met moderate Evangelicals. Therefore I am asking why you are hysterically beating the drum over a minority belief?

Sure, I have heard some minority Protestant denominations tell me I am doomed to hell for being Catholic. That is not worth paying even slight attention to, let alone getting hysterical about it. It would be like getting hysterical over every wrong answer I see on a student's test. People are often wrong. So what. The truth is still out there and readily available. The famous adage: Speak your truth quietly and clearly.

 

[Meriweather]

You're just being dishonest now and ignoring what your NT says about salvation. God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life, but those who don't believe in him are condemned already. Well, what if I don't believe it? All of the people who don't believe are going to be abandoned in hell, according to most Christians, especially devout ones. Maybe you as a liberal Christian are more eclectic and open-minded, willing to ignore certain passages in the bible or re-interpret them in a way that makes salvation more universal, but most Christians, especially Protestants, don't agree with you.

It is not a matter of 're-interpretation' but a matter of understanding what the original author was conveying to his original audience.

First example: "Condemned already" is far from being condemned to hell. What Jesus taught over and over and over is, Repentance for the forgiveness of sins. This means turning from wrong-doing to doing what is right. If one does not turn from wrong-doing they are condemned to continue doing what is wrong and bearing all the consequences of that wrong-doing.

In this passage, John is not giving us a thing to argue over. It is as plain as the nose on a face, unless one wants to drag in what John doesn't even mention--hell for example. The second issue is how we use the 'word' condemned, and how it was used in Biblical times. In Biblical times, the closer definition would be 'disapprove' or 'censure'. Simply disapproving of a behavior is not the same as claiming that behavior means one is going to hell.

This is not being liberal or eclectic...it is being a Bible student, not just a Bible reader.

 

[Meriweather]

This is a novelty, because for most of Catholic history, say up to Vatican 2, you had to be a baptized, confirmed Catholic, receiving the sacraments to be saved.

Again, this jumping to unfounded conclusions. In the past, the Church was extremely careful about claiming anything that not Apostolic Tradition or Biblical. "What happens when you are not baptized?" was more correctly noted as "Unknown", but people being people concluded that if the baptized went to heaven, it must mean the unbaptized do not.

Vatican II was not about changing anything Apostolic or Biblical, but about correcting wrong conclusions among the general populace. Christianity was never intended to be an "If...Then..." affair. Baptism is what Christians should do. Baptism has nothing to say about (or to) those who are not Christian, it speaks to those who are.

 

[Meriweather]

Most Evangelicals, if not all of them, have a very strict, narrow view of salvation. They also believe that God will abandon people in hell, for all eternity. They don't believe in annihilation or being unconscious in hell, they believe in conscious torment FOREVER.

Then those who choose to be Evangelicals should pay attention. Those of us who are not, have no need to bother with Evangelical teaching any more than there is any need for anyone who is not a rocket scientist to bother with launching said rocket.

There is as little need for most to learn Evangelical teaching as there is for most to learn how to train huskies to be sled dogs in the Arctic.

 

[Red Front]

Most Christians are neither Evangelicals nor militant Catholics. In fact, I have never even met a militant Catholic in any of the parishes in which I have lived. I have also met moderate Evangelicals. Therefore I am asking why you are hysterically beating the drum over a minority belief?

Sure, I have heard some minority Protestant denominations tell me I am doomed to hell for being Catholic. That is not worth paying even slight attention to, let alone getting hysterical about it. It would be like getting hysterical over every wrong answer I see on a student's test. People are often wrong. So what. The truth is still out there and readily available. The famous adage: Speak your truth quietly and clearly.

You're obviously the one who is hysterical, not me. Both the Christian scriptures and most Evangelicals, assuming they're devout and identify as bible believing Christians, believe salvation is exclusively through Christ. It's not through Muhammad, Krishna, or Buddha. You can continue with your silly sophistry and gaslighting, pretending there's something wrong with me for saying what I said or taking the position I have, but it's quite clear to most other people, that there are A LOT of Evangelicals, that believe it's "JESUS OR BURN".

You're a liberal, educated Catholic, whose more open-minded and really doesn't give a hoot what the NT says about salvation. The Catholic Church has become very liberal, theologically and otherwise, in the last 55 years (Post Vatican 2). The Catholic Church today isn't the same Catholic Church of the early to mid-1900s, or of the 16th century. It's another Church, a more enlightened one, much more tolerant and friendlier. It had to reform, in order to survive and remain relevant.

Nonetheless, I doubt that the quarter million + subscribers to this militant, traditionalist Catholic YouTube Channel:

https://www.youtube.com/@ChurchMilitant

Are mostly Protestants or Atheists. There are many devout Catholics that share the beliefs of the Catholic apologists and polemicists on that channel. They believe Protestant Christians go to hell, not to speak of non-Christians. Watch their videos.

If God is how many Christians paint him, then that's worse than Adolf Hitler. Hitler could torture you for a few hours, maybe days, even months, but not forever. Not trillions and trillions of years of being tortured in hell.

 

[Meriweather]

That version of the Christian God is worse than Adolf. The Nazis would torture people, but that torture was temporal, not eternal. So in a way that version of the Christian God, which is quite popular among Evangelicals and militant, fundie-Catholics, is truly worse than the Nazis.

Since we hold no such belief about God, we return to people being wrong. No need to get hysterical, no need to cry "Nazi". Simply quietly and clearly state one's own belief about God.

 

[Red Front]

Again, this jumping to unfounded conclusions. In the past, the Church was extremely careful about claiming anything that not Apostolic Tradition or Biblical. "What happens when you are not baptized?" was more correctly noted as "Unknown", but people being people concluded that if the baptized went to heaven, it must mean the unbaptized do not.

Vatican II was not about changing anything Apostolic or Biblical, but about correcting wrong conclusions among the general populace. Christianity was never intended to be an "If...Then..." affair. Baptism is what Christians should do. Baptism has nothing to say about (or to) those who are not Christian, it speaks to those who are.

You know I'm not going to take the time now to go through several papal encyclicals from the past and quote pre-Vatican 2 documents and books written by Catholic authorities and saints, but anyone can simply take an hour and go through several of these sources online and see for themselves if the Catholic Church wasn't explicit and adamant about the need to be Catholic to be saved. Read what the popes and other Catholic authorities said about the Protestants, Muslims..etc. Your sophistry might impress your Kindergarten students, but not me.

 

[Meriweather]

You're a liberal, educated Catholic, whose more open-minded and really doesn't give a hoot what the NT says about salvation.

Wrong. I am neither liberal nor open-minded. Over and above that I care a lot about what the New Testament says about salvation. Again, it is a matter of studying salvation, not simply reading about it and jumping to modern, Western conclusions.

I believe Jesus redeemed and brought redemption to the World. That is what the New Testament says. I don't pay a lot of attention to the term "saved"--again, that is modern Western culture, not Biblical culture.

I believe actual Biblical teaching (ignoring all denominations) should be taught to all school children. (You can imagine why no liberal would want anything to do with me. )

 

[Red Front]

Since we hold no such belief about God, we return to people being wrong. No need to get hysterical, no need to cry "Nazi". Simply quietly and clearly state one's own belief about God.

The only one appealing to supposed hysterics is you. You're the gaslighting sophist who denies facts. Most people know how dogmatic and close-minded Christian Evangelicals are. I was asking for Ding's opinion, not yours.

 

[Meriweather]

might impress your Kindergarten students, but not me.

Don't teach Kindergarten and have no wish to impress you. Be sure to read the a selection of commentaries on the encyclicals. Interesting the different points that are brought out. I have a feeling you may be more interested in more militant views?

 

[Red Front]

Wrong. I am neither liberal nor open-minded. Over and above that I care a lot about what the New Testament says about salvation. Again, it is a matter of studying salvation, not simply reading about it and jumping to modern, Western conclusions.

I believe Jesus redeemed and brought redemption to the World. That is what the New Testament says. I don't pay a lot of attention to the term "saved"--again, that is modern Western culture, not Biblical culture.

I believe actual Biblical teaching (ignoring all denominations) should be taught to all school children. (You can imagine why no liberal would want anything to do with me. )

Most Christians aren't universalists. Yes, there are some verses that could be interpreted that way but not all of the NT easily fits the universalist soteriological model. Protestant Christians who hold to a universalist view of salvation are in a small minority compared to the more "Orthodox" traditional view of salvation.

 

[candycorn]

Are Atheists Happier Than Christians?​

Depends.

If you're talking about actual Christians who make an attempt to honor the teachings of their faith, on average, I'd say no.

If you're talking about the folks who claim to be Christians on social media outlets such as this, I'd say yes. Nothing is sadder than the daily barrage of hate you author.

 

[Meriweather]

is you

Making the discussion about the other party is the best way to stray from valid analysis.

 

[Red Front]

Don't teach Kindergarten and have no wish to impress you. Be sure to read the a selection of commentaries on the encyclicals. Interesting the different points that are brought out. I have a feeling you may be more interested in more militant views?

As I said, anyone, can read the papal encyclicals, pre-Vatican 2, and see for themselves how "tolerant" the Roman Catholic Church was and what was its view of salvation. Even unbaptized infants were forced into a state of limbo and purgatory.