Let’s face it: atheists are not gonna burn in Hell.
Whenever I’m here on Teen Ink, just looking around on the Religion section, I read something about how an atheist thinks that religious people think that or a religious person is, in fact, thinking that.
You wanna know what I think? I think there are a lot less people in Hell than we think. Seriously. Every religious person has, at least once, read about God’s willingness to forgive anything, if you can only ask for forgiveness. So I can think of only a few people that I believe will really and truly burn in Hell. Sure, some people – for example, Hitler – have done awful things in their lives. But do we know why they did it? No. We do know that if they repent they will be punished for it by going to Purgatory, and probably endure agony in it for a long time.
Anyway, back to atheists. If you don’t believe in God, either because you were raised that way or no one taught you to believe or something awful happened or you’re just not convinced, he’s gonna understand. Those are all valid reasons not to believe. However you look at it, being an atheist is – from a religious point of view – not your fault, just like being Islam or Jew isn’t. It’s just the way you are, and guess what.
God (who is, by the way, the only one who has a right to judge, since He is the only one who knows everything) judges you according to your morals. Meaning, if your religion has taught you that eating meat is wrong, and you believe it is, then gulping down a steak is about the worst thing you can do. But if I eat a steak, it’s fine, because my religion has nothing against that.
Even if you have no religion, if you think – for cultural reasons or because of your family – that lying is wrong, God’s gonna judge you according to that.
And, just for the record, He has nothing against gay people. I mean, there are some awful things about that in the Old Testament, but the New One is the updated one, and it says to love everyone, which includes gays. God loves gays just as much as he loves straight people, and he will not instantly make them burn in hell. Whoever says that is being narrow-minded, hurtful, and probably very ignorant.
So if you think gays and atheists are gonna burn in hell, think again. God is love. Follow His example and start LOVING more and JUDGING less.