If Christianity is true, then all who believe that Jesus was and is the son of God who was born of a virgin and resurrected after his death by crucifixion will go to heaven when they die and do who knows what for eternity -while all those who don’t so believe will be tortured in hell for eternity in ways that are rarely if ever discussed or explained, as also with heaven, in any objective and concrete detail and with specificity. and thoroughness by believers.
If I was religious, a devout Christian, who believed in God and an afterlife, an eternity in heaven or hell for my “immortal” and immaterial “soul,” I’d be terrified of dying even if I was 95% certain I was going to heaven rather than purgatory -since heaven, if it existed, would be hell, if less chthonic in its absence of torture and torment as the hell envisaged by dogmatic and traditional Christians, especially if one remained a “soul” for eternity whose life in heaven was that of an intangible spirit and immaterial person, a disembodied mind with no eyes to see or ears to hear who, obvioiusly, couldn’t see or hear or talk to and interact in any way or sense with all the other “souls” and disembodied minds.
But even if one’s body was restored, magically and miraculously, after one’s soul ascended to heaven, such an elysium would be hellish in its’ eternity of monotony and immutability, as I explain in some detail in another blog-post.
And if one’s soul descended to hell after the death of one’s body and brain and survived for eternity as an intangible spirit and and disembodied mind, it would have no eyes to see the flames and devils as imagined by believers, no ears to hear the flames and the voices of devils, no body and senses to taste, smell, and feel the flames and thus be tortured, physically or emotionally.
And if one’s body was restored, magically and miraculously, after one’s “soul” descended to hell, it would be burned to death and turned into ashes and dust in minutes and seconds depending on the intensity of the flames envisaged by Christians who believe hell exists and that nonbelievers will suffer and be tortured for eternity and deserve such an excruciating fate -which, if the body is restored, would be excruciating, albeit not eternal but ephemeral.
But since Jesus, assuming he existed (and some argue that he didn’t even exist as a mortal human) was and is not the son of a God that didn’t and doesn’t exist, and the idea of hell is a sick and evil fantasy, I’m not worried, and have never been so worried, not even for a moment, since the age of 10 (of which much more later) when I became an atheist and have been one ever since, now for over 60-years, and will be so until the day I die in my 70s or 80s or even 90s, possibly but not likely.
For an atheist who rejects the lie and tenet of mind/body dualism, the fantasy of a soul and afterlife, what’s to fear in and of death? Death is oblivion, nothingness, the cessation of consciousness, the end of pain and suffering, liberation and surcease from the “hell that is other people,” the annihilation of a lifetime of memories in which (for me, lamentably, and for most people, billions of males and females) the bad and worse far exceed the good and better. Death is like falling asleep, with no dreams, and not waking. Thus I face the end with stoicism and equanimity.
Atheism Simplified 