...For Sam Harris, the challenge to religion depends on what he calls intellectual honesty. "Either the Bible is just an ordinary book, written by mortals, or it isn't," Harris writes in A Letter to a Christian Nation. "Either Christ was divine, or he was not … If the basic tenets of Christianity are true, then there are some very grim surprises in store for non-believers like myself."
Grim indeed. The Pope recently reminded Catholics that unrepentant sinners can still expect eternal damnation. Hell "really exists and is eternal", he told parishioners in Rome, "even if nobody much talks about it any more".
Many of the people who contact the Atheist Foundation are struggling with the psychological residue of religious upbringings, Nicholls says. Especially in the winter months, "we get many people who can't get over the fear of hell, can't escape it. Even though they're atheists."
And that's the main problem for atheist evangelisers: just because something isn't true doesn't mean it's not real.
