Christianity is a religion of grace not works. I wish more Christians would act like that.

My criticism of atheism as well as Wilson’s was for the lack of a consistent application of the principle. We’re just a bags of chemicals so why get all bothered what I believe or say?

You said that our lives are meaningful. Why? In 10,000 years the sun will go out and nothing any of us did here will make a bit of difference. In a couple of billions of years the universe will blink back out of existence in a cosmic collapse. Neither Robert Frost’s greatest poem nor Joe Schmoe’s giving a bum two bits in 1923 will make any difference at all. How can our lives have any meaning in that scenario?

You seem to have gotten your idea of the afterlife from The Far Side or cheesy 1950s TV. We won’t be sitting around playing harps and floating on clouds. That’s a heaven without Jesus and I’m not interested in that.

As far as hell goes, what about them Nazis? Hitler killed millions in death camps and in war and then capped himself at the end before he could be brought to human justice. So now he no longer exists and he got away with it, right?

Also, to critisize us atheists all the while claiming that the “real meaning” has to do with a deity who began creation with the plan to end up torturing billions of people for all eternity, just because he chooses to, is HARDLY an argument for some sort of “meaning to life.” The best you can hope for is that this Cosmic Nazi won’t do the same to you! How is that “meaningful”?

I’ve actually written an entire book on this topic–”Hell? No! Why You Can Be Certain There’s No Such Place As Hell,” (for anyone interested, you can get a free Ecopy of my book at my website: http://www.ricklannoye.com), but if I may, I’d like to share with you one of the many points I make in it to explain why your hope for Heaven is futile, and anything but something to give you a legitimate meaning to life.

Let’s say you end up in Heaven trying to sing endless praises to a God who is, simultaneously, torturing billions of others. Unless you are given a de facto lobotomy (in which case, YOU would no longer be YOU, so you might as well have not had a soul to begin with), you would have to begin wondering, “When am I next?” and the joy of Heaven would be lost, replaced by gloom and foreboding! Why? Because you could never rely on a God who is so mean to be honest about making any exceptions.

After all, which is more difficult? For God to actively cause so much immense pain, for so many, for so long, or to go back on whatever promises he made to a few others that he would not put them in Hell too at some point?

It would be like accepting an invitation to live as a guest with one of these maniacal men we’ve been hearing about lately who kidnap, imprison, rape and torture young girls in secret basements. Can you imagine such a guy, simultaneously, having some other young lady as his dinner date, and treating her with respect and care? And even if he did for a while, wouldn’t his true nature unleash itself upon her at some point in time, as it has on so many others? Of course!