The Hell That Awaits Me

        So I suppose this will be a relatively short post.  I just want to take the time to discuss the concept of Heaven and Hell.  I imagine that most people probably don’t put too much thought into this, but recently I have.  Here's what doesn't add up for me: 

        Let's just assume, for simplicity purposes, that every human being lives to the age of 80.  This is, of course, also assuming that you die of natural causes.  That means you have 80 years to do everything possible to get into Heaven.  This means you lived a good life based on the teachings of Jesus Christ and accepted him into your heart.  For this, you are allowed to live for all eternity in the Kingdom of Heaven.  So, for only 80 years you get an eternity of happiness.  Honestly, you don't even need to spend your entire 80 years "living a good life", all you really need to do is repent before your time comes and you're golden.  You could have been an evil, sinful person for 79 years but "see the light" and change your ways during that last year and there you have it; an eternity in heaven.  Seems legit, right?  But what happens if at the age of 78 you are killed in a car crash?  Well, looks like you better pack your bags for some warmer weather.

        For only 78 years' worth of sin and evil doing you are to spend all of eternity in the flaming pits of Hell.  Seems a rather harsh punishment if you ask me.  Especially if my only "sin" was not accepting Jesus into my life.  I'm to be tortured and burned and live the worst possible existence for all of eternity simply for 78 years of wrongdoing? This fact, alone, tells me that the concepts of both Heaven and Hell are completely flawed.

        Now let's touch on another aspect of all of this.  Most Christians believe that God controls their destinies.  If this is true then, 1. God should already know that you were going to repent at the age of 79 and therefore you should actually end up in Heaven anyways and 2. Even with this knowledge he chose to end your life at 78 with a car crash instead of giving you the chance to live out the rest of your life and eventually repent.

        It seems to me that the concept of Heaven and Hell wasn't thought out too well.  If it was, well then, whomever came up with the idea was a complete idiot.

What about the other gods?

Christianity wasn't the first religion to exist and it certainly won't be the last.  This was the basis one of the first truly skeptical thoughts I had as a child.  I learned about ancient Greek/Roman mythology and it sparked my skepticism.  Surely those ancient Greeks held the same conviction about their god as Christians do theirs.  Trying to tell an ancient Greek that Zeus did not exist would have been a laughable ordeal back then.  There was no doubt in any of their minds, then, that Zeus was the "master of the universe".  My question is, "what makes them wrong and Christians right?"

You see, throughout the human existence there have been multiple religions worshipping multiple gods.  In fact, there have been over 150 gods that we know of.  That, of course, doesn't even include a complete list, not to mention whatever gods might have been worshipped that we may never know about.  You're telling me that the millions, possibly even billions, of people who worshipped these other gods we wrong?  Not to bring up Pascal's wager but, the odds that Christians are right in their beliefs is at least 1 in 151.  These other gods, whom some were thought to be omnipotent themselves, have all faded away and died out.  What makes the Christian God any different?  I see no difference.  I see yet another omnipotent being thought up by people to offer answers to unknown questions and provide solace when it is needed.  Nothing else.  The same faith that Christians have in their god all these people from our past had in theirs.  What makes the Christian faith any better?  I hate to sound cliché with this, but now seems like the perfect time for one of my favorite quotes:

"I contend we are both Atheists, I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours."

Such a quote couldn’t be more fitting to one of the very first arguments I had for why I was an Atheist.  How a theist could hear such an argument and still not see the light is beyond me.  This is just one of many flaws found in the Christian religion.  I could go on and on about the other as well but since I have others things to do at the moment I will digress.  I only ask you to think about those other "all powerful" gods and remember their fate.