How Does Penal Substitution Make Sense?
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- Опубліковано 27 бер 2024
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This analogy only makes sense if you are trying to say that humanity are Christ's employees 😂
Well, actually Jesus becomes Lord and people His slaves, those who accept Him as Lord and Savior. KJV uses 'servant' many times but originally Greek word 'doulos' means 'slave'.
HP and a certain few other vendors provided indemnity to their Linux customers against any SCO lawsuits, who ran Linux on their hardware. SCO (patent troll) ended up suing everyone and anyone because they owned trademarks and certain copyrights on UNIX code that allegedly Linux uses, so third (innocent) parties would end up being guilty, without ever having committed an actual crime, only because SCO abused patent laws and most people and smaller companies do not have the resources to defend themselves in court.
This is another concept, IMHO, of penal substitution - where HP or others like them, absorbs the punishment for a customer's inadvertent or even deliberate transgression of the law.
@@TomDutch Are you Tom Holland's twin brother?
As creator of the universe couldn’t he take responsibility for the sin created in his universe?
So besides low-bar-bills hilariously shallow understanding of philosophy, he has pretty much exactly no understanding of the law.
Bill, proxy partys can get charged IN ADDITION to the vicimizer not INSTEAD of the victimizer. How can you be this dense???
He would have done better perhaps by saying that it makes sense if God is the one who decreed it, penal substitution.
i have a question, this theory is assuming Jesus to take the punishment for our sin, but in my understanding punishment for sin is not death in this world earth but punishment in eternal hell, so how does Christ punishment in world earth could subtitute punishment in eternal hell?
It can only make sense if God is the one who decides on such matters to begin with. Christ sacrifice is only for those going to heaven or eternal life. Regarding hell i would suggest listening to Tim Keller.
It doesn't. Thanks for coming to my TED Talk.
It doesn't.
Very simple.
Especially when you consider that it's gods fault that sin exists in the first place, and that god is still punishing people for sin. So Jesus died for nothing.
So if someone sins it is Gods fault then? That is nonsense.
@@joep_kastanjer
Who made the world the way it is, according to their plan?
Who planted the tree, knowing full well it's fruit would be eaten?
If I set up a Rube Goldberg machine, with the last step being a gun that shoots someone, whose fault is it when the gun shoots someone?
@@somerandom3247 Your logic is that God should be blamed for every wrongdoing of people. That is simply nonsense.
@@joep_kastanjer
My logic is that we should blame the person responsible..... Nothing nonsense about it.
@@somerandom3247 And that person is God you think? Every person who does wrong in life should blame God?
being legally responsible for the wrongdoing of others requires the third party to accept that responsibility, and requires a justification to partially or fully exempt the would-be wrongdoer.
parents/bosses fit in this category by choosing to be parents/bosses, and of course they are legally required to do their best to prevent harm and educate their children/workers to act in a correct way, so they are invested with AUTHORITY over them to force them if needed.
Jesus never accepted such responsibiliy. Jesus also never had a real chance to supervise and teach each and every human being that ever existed up until his death. the one truly responsible is Yahweh by choosing to create mankind.
Hence the Trinity. In the beginning was the Word. The Word was with God. The Word was God. (Parafrased from John 1) Jesus is Yahwe.
@@ArrayzableMusic do you know there's something called the "Law of Identity"? it basically says you are identical to yourself, I am identical to myself, our Sun is identical to itself, and so on. if you want to defend that Yahweh is identical to Jesus, you must first deny that law and you must deny logic and common sense. if logic and common sense are unusable in your case, you must prove with direct evidence that Jesus is Yahweh. but I think that you can use your common sense to deny your house is identical to your TV, and your car keys are not identical to your car, and therefore you validate the Law of Identity with your common sense on a daily basis.
you should know that Jesus was a Jewish rabbi (master) and he knew the main prayer of Judaism begins like this: "listen, oh Israel, Yahwhe is our God, Yahweh is one". therefore, by being a proponent of Judaism, Jesus acknowledged Yahweh was HIS GOD and Yahweh IS ONE. and because God cannot be his own God, that denies the possibility Jesus was Yawheh.
@@holyguacamole4058 Great come back. I'm sure 'The Law of Identity' does apply here, but not how you think it does. Now the following of course is only a relevant argument if you believe in God.
Jesus very well knew Yahweh IS ONE. Jesus knew according to the gospels, that he himself was the Son of God, Gods Son or as he presented himself many times as The Son of Man, a title that you probably know comes from The Book of Daniel chapter 7, and refers to a man-like figure (coming on a cloud - God attribute) who joins The Ancient of Days (The Father) in the heavenly assembly. The theories about this incident was in ancient jewish theology known as 'the two powers in heaven'. They could speak about two powers in heaven an still call God ONE.
There are many places in the Old Testament where Gods presence becomes ambiguous: is it God? - is it an Angel of the Lord? or The Spirit of The Lord?, like for instance in Moses and the burning bush, or when Jakob wrestled the Angel - all bear witness to Gods many facetted ways of revealing himself.
Jumping back to Jesus in the New Testament we hear Jesus say that he was before Abraham, we see him healing a blind mand by recreating his eyes with mud (like God created Adam in Genesis). Jesus also walked on water which is also an exclusive God attribute (Job 9, 8). These places bear witness that Jesus was God.
Now you may object and say: 'Did Jesus pray to himself when he prayed to the Father?' And this is where the 'Law of Identity' comes into the picture. Whenever God revealed himself on earth, be it before Moses or dining and walking with Abraham. He was not only present with Moses or Abraham in those instances, because God was before everything, he is outside the created world, the universe, and cannot be contained within it. So while walking and present with Abraham he is still also outside the created world, outside time, or else it would violate his omnipresence.
The classical doctrine of the Trinity is ONE GOD with three persons. So Jesus (the Son) is GOD, but not the Father and not the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is GOD but not the Father and not the Son, The Father is GOD but not the Holy Spirit and not the Son. But I'm sure you already know this. The point that I'm rather clumsy trying to get through, is that 'The Law of Identity' is not violated because Jesus is not his own God. Jesus is God, and saying Jesus is Yahweh is not a stretch, because the Son and the Father are ONE (John 10, 30).
So of course the car keys are not the car. For me as a Christian I also believe that I am not exclusively my body. I may not, by 'The Law of Identity', be my body if I can exist without my body as a spirit after death, or as a soul as some call it.
Enough rambling! I'm getting tired :) Thanks for the interaction!
Best regards
@@ArrayzableMusic I'll leave aside my personal beliefs to focus on this: nowadays (year 2024) it is said that Jesus exists, and Yahweh exists. is Jesus also Yahweh? I don't think so. is Yahweh also a deity a.k.a. God? they say He is. is there just one God? they say so.
if Jesus is not Yahweh, there are two distinct beings, what we know as "individuals". if Jesus is indistinguishable from Yahweh, and their descriptions are identical, then it's impossible to say there are two beings.
which one is it? because if Jesus is Yahweh, Jesus is like an alias, a nickname for Yahweh, and Jesus can be God because he'd be the same being we know as Yahweh. and if Jesus is NOT Yahweh, we either have two gods, or Jesus is NOT a god.
your efforts to rediscover the trinity would be a lot more admirable if they were characterized by a desire to understand rather than a desire to criticize. Of course you are welcome to criticize, but criticism based on flawed understanding is pretty useless.
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are three persons and one being. They all can be properly addressed by the divine name YHWH. There's nothing that contradicts the law of identity or any other logical precept in the Trinity.
Utterly senseless guy. Imputed to innocence and making one liable. He clearly doesn't understand objective morality. Dark Ages morality. Just brutal!
@@hydepark1382 Punishment of the innocent for the guilty is senseless and immoral. I don't care what word salad you use to deny that. Objective morality is for the well being of life. Penal substitution is barbaric.
His morality is brutal and offensive, and we don't need God for objective morality to be true. I'm sure his intellect is just fine.
More bait and switch nonsense from WLC. Vicarious liability is a concept in civil proceedings. It is a relationship between an employer and his employee. It denotes a situation where one party is responsible for ( and have control over) a third party and is negligent in carrying out that responsibility and exercising their control. The employee is liable for his conduct and the employer is vicariously liable for failing to exercise proper control.
This does not apply to individual criminal activity, and employer is not responsible if his employee goes off on a ‘frolick of his own “.
If you send your delivery driver to deliver goods and he shoots people whilst carrying out his job the employer is not liable. Shooting people is not part of his job.
If the employer does not regularly maintain the delivery truck and it suffers mechanical failure that causes a crash that kills somebody, he may be vicariously liable.
WLC you are not a lawyer and you do not understand legal concepts. Those of us who understand law knows that vicarious liability does not apply in criminal cases.
I don't think comparing PSA to human legal systems makes much sense, since human legality can be as unjust as anything.
humans may be unjust, but most people may agree that personal responsability exists. maybe criminals could object that but without basis. after accepting personal responsability, people must determine if the guilty ones must be punished, or if it's acceptable and useful that any innocent people unrelated to the unlawful/criminal activity can be punished in place of the guilty ones.
punishments serve as corrective measures when applied to the guilty ones, and as a deterrent for would-be offenders. also serves the purpose of protecting citizens and private/public property from destructive behaviors from criminals.
@@holyguacamole4058 We can say that a system of punishment and justice seems to intuitively make sense to us, we CANNOT say, however, that the human race has ever perfectly or impartially carried it out.
That's fine
You can absolutely reject them
But Craig's point is to say it's not completely alien to our senses
We already do stuff like this in our court systems
So, if you want to reject PSA, you have to do it on a strict logical contradiction instead of saying this does not seem right, so it is unlikely that PSA is right
@@Dizerner sure. but if we say the current legal system is as close to be just as it is humanely possible, it means we have a way to evaluate it, and we have a definition or a standard to compare it against. can we say PSA is just and fair without using our current definition and standard? if we need another definition and/or standard, we are no longer talking about the common concept of "justice" or "fairness".
@@holyguacamole4058 NO, no, no, a thousand times no, humans are sinners and petty and unjust and idolatrous and lazy and selfish, they have a sin nature, and no, there justice system will NEVER match true justice, nor should it be counted as a reliable guide, ALL have fallen short, ALL have turned aside, the heart is deceitful above ALL things, and no. The fact that-in some small instances we may mirror justice, or show we believe it is ""out there somewhere," does not prove we have got it right. God alone is the arbiter of justice. Look at how "just" the court system was, when God himself came down and walked among us. That system is the very thing that condemned the most innocent man that ever lived.
The crucifiction may be one thing but the incarnation was a sign of God's good and grace will towards men before that.
It doesn't.
But it can be really amusing to watch apologists twist themselves into a pretzel trying to explain the incoherent doctrines of their stupid religion.
ya, no
thats so covuluted and so clearly nonsense
'penal substitution' makes no sense..................... especially since I dont ow Yahweh anything.................. 'original sin' is garbage brained silliness..........
It makes perfect sense because God is the one who decides all matters.
@@joep_kastanjer spoken like someone who has never ever had a thought of their own in their life...................
it makes sense because a book told you a magic man said so?
lol
ok brah......................
@@SwolllenGoat It makes sense to say "I don't know what source created the universe, so i believe nothing"?
@@joep_kastanjer cool strawman brah
Why would I 'believe nothing' simply because I, like everyone else, am unaware of 'where the universe came from'
ALL YOU do is PRETEND to know
Like all religious people of all religions.................
'I dont know' is the ACTUAL answer but you insist on pretending its your special magic sky man who punishes other folks for eating the wrong seafood or whatever
Yeah, seems legit
lol
@@SwolllenGoat I pretend to know about only one thing here and that follows from the fact that the universe exists and the fact that literally everything has a source of origin. I would be lying to myself if i said "I do not know" what i just mentiond. Now what source caused the universe can be the question surely, but there has to be a source somewhere. Or we can literally believe in magic without any intelligence behind it.
WLC not only advances another morally bankrupt argument, he doesnt even understand vicarious liability . First, as someone who has both wronged others, and has been wronged, I find it morally repellent to imagine justice consists in taking bloody revenge on an innocent third party. Justice involves the culprit repairing the wrong done, not vengeance. Second, an employer is held vicariously liable only if they have a rmaterial responsibility for a crime committed by their employee - and that employess is still held legally culpable too. Vicarious liability renders neither party "innocent"
Omnipotence hangs on a cross and beautifully responds to the problem of evil and suffering as an act of perfect love yet this being is unable to forgive mankind until God punishes Himself (The Father punishes the Son)? Why can't God simply forgive? He clearly did it throughout the O.T. and N.T. prior to Jesus being crucified.
Can't forgive the unrepentant!
@@somethingtothinkabout167 hypothetically, if I offended you, could you forgive me without making sure I repented? or do you consider sincere repentance a universal requisite for forgiveness?
@@holyguacamole4058 god does!
God didn't simply forgive in the Old Testament, nor in the New Testament, as you stated. Do you not know of the system of atonement, and that God said without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins?
The same can be said of a common judge just forgiving one convicted of an egregious crime. The judge can do that, but that does not resolve the question of justice to the parties involved
Not in every case judges punish third party. It is the involvement of third party in some way leads to punish. So vicarious liability do not apply to Jesus. Since Dr Craig has mastered logic so he knows how to bend things. Jesus as God cannot be punish. He is still innocent and so it's wrong to punish him. God have various ways to forgive humans of their sins. In Islam it is three criteria to be met. One is to admit and remorse on sin. Second to leave the sins immediately. Third to make promise to God that you will never do sins again. Or course you will not be that perfect in keeping the promise so you keep on repeating this way until God melt by your humble and so down to earth actions. Then God will shower his mercy to you and finally you are forgiven. But repentence should be genuine and continuous until one lives. Islam is simple. No orignal sin. No atonement. No penal substitution. All this mess in Christianity to justify divinity of Jesus. But Jesus was mere human come to establish humanity and law and justice and encouraging to good deeds, discourage to do sins. The quest to justify Jesus divinity leads to all kind of nonsense concepts, laws and logic.
Well said
Penal substitution, if true would destroy the concept of grace. God forgives us graciously but if Christ 'paid' for our sins, then our forgiveness would not be grace; nor would it be forgiveness, it would be exoneration as of right. Right back into paganism. But Christ triumphed over sin and death. He is our victor and invites us to join him in that victory by regeneration by his Spirit, all we do is repent. ('all we do'...there's a great irony there, as this is the hardest thing for we proud to do)
Your not getting grace for YOUR sins. You get it for the sin of Adam and Eve, having immortality, and losing it in disobedience.
Since then, we are all mortal, and be so without the sacrifice.
Love Dr Craig when he debates atheists but as a Protestant he holds these awkward legalistic views of justification that make God the Father punish God the Son on the cross in a sort of trinitarian schizophrenia.
This understanding is so off that it ends up undermining the strength of his arguments before atheists.
Are you Christian? If not, what religion do you follow?
@@angelthman1659 yes, Christian
@@thejerichoconnection3473 Do you believe Jesus is the son of God?
@@angelthman1659 sure
@@thejerichoconnection3473 I'm guessing you're not a trinitarian. So you don't believe the Father, Son and Holy Ghost are one?
In other words, the father damns the son within the perfect love and unity of the Trinity, sorry protestants doesn’t work.
Your comment assumes that condemnation of Christ as our substitute is incompatible with the necessary love relations between the persons of the Trinity. Dr. Craig deals with this objection in his book "Atonement and the Death of Christ," noting that one can either have penal substitution without condemnation of Christ or condemnation of Christ via imputation which is consistent with penal substitution as well as inter-trinitarian love. If you're unable to pick up the book, you can check out Dr. Craig's Defenders classes on the subject: www.reasonablefaith.org/podcasts/defenders-podcast-series-3/doctrine-of-the-christ-part-5/doctrine-of-christ-part-19. - RF Admin
Adam and Eve, were immortal. Their disobedience fell on humanity to be mortal. No immortality without the sacrifice of Jesus on humanities behalf.
Mt. 12:31
Mk. 3:28
you know those are myths, not history, right?
@SwolllenGoat If it was passed down by generational word of mouth, without the Bible, then just happens to be documented in the Bible, I'd say it's evidence for God. I too, wondered how a book of myth could have so much popularity, until my mentor told me something about God, I had heard, but not from the Bible. That so called book of legend, and myth, documents God being heard by great crowds, at least twice. That's what I heard from a friend, and neither of us ever looked at a Bible. He was Levite.
Anyway, give yourself a challenge, look up the times God was heard by crowds, and tell us what God said so we can know you found it. Hint: Once in each of the old and new testaments. After 32 years as an atheist, what God said, converted me.
The problem is Dr Craig's logic here is that he is projecting fallen behavour onto a perfect God.
God only allowed 'an eye for an eye' in the Old Testament in order to limit revenge culture from its usual escalation and as a means of raising his chosen people up with baby steps.
When the time was right, Jesus then taught that an eye for an eye was out dated and he gave the upgraded teaching of 'forgive and love' to replace revenge.
Then are we to believe that humans, even fallen, imperfect humans are held to a higher standard than God holds himself?
That humans are to foregoe retribution and punishment but God will indulge Himself in such?
Fallen people see God as if he is an Old Testament God of retribution who sees infraction that He must get his pound of flesh for satisfaction over.
But God, seen through a Christian heart, sees us as spiritually unwell and not as criminals.
God sees each generation of His fallen human children as being born with a spiritual sickness that requires a cure and ongoing treatment to nurse the patient back to health.
Suggesting that God has a thirst for retribution and for dolling out punishment to the extent of needing to have his innocent son tortured and murdered so He can be satisfied is as bizarre as a doctor being angry at a child with leukaemia and then spanking the child when t arrives at the hospital.
The idea of someone being tortured and killed in order to forgive someone of a crime they never committed is absolutely ludicrous to me.
Why couldn’t this jesus fella just say “I forgive you” instead of going through all this nonsense?
It’s just barbarism and theatrics meant to persuade gullible people.
Well no. You have to understand that if God just forgive everytime there would be no justice, if he punished everytime there would be no forgiveness or grace, hence a holy sacrifice. God decides such things, thats the only way it makes sense.
@@joep_kastanjer Your explanation doesn’t make any sense at all nor could you rationalize it.
If you’re accused of a crime you didn’t commit, is your neighbor required to sacrifice himself to himself in order to forgive you of said “crime”?
@@2l84me8 Again, God decides if he accepts a suffering, a martyrdom as a holy sacrifice for sin. If God decrees it and Christ agreed to it, then what we think is irrelevant.
@@joep_kastanjer I asked a yes or no question.
@@2l84me8 No is the answer to your question. But here we are talking about something else, namely that God should be able to decree whether or not he accepts a sacrifice for sin and wrongdoing, to begin a restoring of mankind after the fall of Adam. By Adam all became mortal and die, by Christ all will be resurrected n can become immortal again. The sacrifice is therefore more significant and relevant in the larger scheme of things.
This doesn't make sense.
WLC seems excited about the idea of Jesus being punished. Instead of trying to evade justice, I think it's better to take responsibility for your decisions in life. The resurrection story is quite beautiful. But I think it's a just a story that you can draw lessons from.
my issue is that Jesus didn't remain dead, and therefore he was only dead for three days (or so they say) before becoming invincible and immortal. a sacrifice is understood to carry a permanent loss, like sacrificing a lamb, unlike Jesus who at worst was asleep for a few days.
You can sacrifice gratification today to enjoy it better tomorrow, is that permanent?
Jesus has to come back to life to conquer death.
Jesus took the equivalent of the full wrath of God against all sins for all time, the exact same punishment each would receive for an eternity, a 1 to 1 correlation or God is not just. He was able to do this because an infinite being can experience in time what a finite being can experience infinitely. He was not "asleep for a few days," and his physical suffering and torture and shame, was nothing, a drop in an ocean, compared to his spiritual suffering.
I’m a Christian and I don’t quite know how to answer your question/issue.
@@Dizerner best answer ever
Oh Dios ten misericordia es mas facil entrar por una aguja de coser.No es de todos la fe.La erudiccion es el factor que nos ciega el alma ey endurece el corazonEntiendo a la perfeccion todo lo que plantea.Los alelos ;la evolucion en fin los cuantiosos argumentos que plantea que impiden creer que descendemos de una pareja humana La palabra divina lo dice;te alabo padre porque escondiste estas cosas y las diste a los pequeñitos;si padre porque asi te agrado'De los sabios tambien se dijo ;que trastornaria la ciencia de los sabios para que se conviertan con el corazon Es por eso que los que creemos en un Dios creador y un Cristo crucificado le somps locura al mundo porque para nosotros todo es posible para el que cree.A Cristo se llega por amor o por dolor.Orare que lo reciba por amor Bendiciones
¿cómo dice la Biblia que alcanzaremos la salvación según tu entendimiento y creencias?
Why do we need a human justification for this? Christ is the son of God, and He received punishment for our sins because otherwise we'd have no chance for salvation. It was God's plan in the first place. The idea that we have to find a situation in society where "penal substitution" takes place so that we can justify God's actions seems backwards to me. God makes the rules, not humans.
was Jesus Christ the Son of God, or God?
you should know that Jesus was a Jewish rabbi (master) and he knew the main prayer of Judaism begins like this: "listen, oh Israel, Yahwhe is our God, Yahweh is one". therefore, by being a proponent of Judaism, Jesus acknowledged Yahweh was HIS GOD and Yahweh IS ONE. and because God cannot be his own God, that denies the possibility Jesus was Yawheh.
Love Dr. Craig but this analogy seems very, very weak. If I commit a crime and my employer is found to be vicariously liable then that means the employer is ALSO liable for wrongdoing. The employers guilt is in addition to mine rather than in place of mine. It dosen't remove my guilt for my crime.
I support penal substitution though.
in order to hold a third party legally responsible for the wrongdoing of others requires the third party to accept that responsibility, and requires a justification to partially or fully exempt the would-be wrongdoer.
parents/bosses fit in this category when they accepted to be parents/bosses, and of course they are required to do their best to prevent harm and educate their children/workers to act in a correct way, so they are invested with AUTHORITY over them to force them if needed.
Jesus never accepted such responsibiliy. Jesus also never had a real chance to supervise and teach each and every human being that ever existed up until his death. the only one truly responsible is Yahweh by choosing to create mankind.
Why are you atheist, what is good about believing death is the end? If you ask atheists why they believe death is the end they would answer the burden of proof is on the one making the claim the universe was created from an intelligent entity. Am I right or wrong? Reality comes from reality. From nothing can not be created something. Reality is eternal. Something always existed. Because reality comes from reality the sequence must have an eternal first reality without a predecesor. That first reality from which the rest of reality comes from is God. God is the first uncaused cause. God is everything that exist. If it exists is God and if it doesn't exist is not God. Death being an atheist doesn't make sense. The truth is atheism is a logical fallacy that assumes God is the religious idea of the creator of the creation to conclude wrongly no creator exists because a particular idea of God doesn’t exist. The fallacy is to believe the idea of God is religious or fantasy. To end the war and other undesirable suffering the discovery that atheism is a logical fallacy has to be news. Time is eternal and running out. Thank you.
I don't believe in any gods or metaphysical realm. I am an atheist. I have been close to dying as an atheist, and I can say that I don't think quantity is always better than quality. I once had a lot, I barely have enough now, and I've found out that having plenty of something makes that less attractive and valuable. when resources are scarce, it's when they are most valuable.
we are living beings, preprogrammed with instincs to keep ourselves alive for as long as it's humanely possible, and away from suffering as long as possible. but we also have long-term planification abilities, and if someone convinces us that believing in X will save us from death, our brain may adopt it as a survival strategy. the mere possibility is enough to convince many. more sophisticated arguments are needed for others. but the trick is that two opposite possibilities are simultaneously rolled before our eyes: eternal life, and eternal suffering.
those two possibilities are enough to keep many inside Christianity. I have seen people asking for God's forgiveness, others fearing damnation. the question is: can the benefits of Christianity offset the damage it causes? is there any reason to give our blind trust to priests and pastors? is there any other way to get rid of our fear of death without pushing into our brains an even worse fate?
the uncaused cause is a very weak argument. Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas lacked our current knowledge, and even pushed the argument in different contexts. Aristotle didn't give the uncaused cause any personal features, like will and intelligence. Thomas Aquinas forgot to mention that the "uncaused cause" needs something else (other than itself, that is) that can be changed, or "moved". read about the "Act and Potency" to understand why they are complementary, because Aquinas threw away the "Potency", leaving God as "pure Act", but unable to "move" any Potency at all because Potencies didn't exist back then if God created everything else.
"what is good about believing death is the end?"
I do not believe what is "good", I try to believe what is true.
The restr if your post is incoherent. Death being demonstrably final (no one has ever been demonstrated to exist in any form after the death of their body) has nothing to do with any first cause and there is no reason why first cause has to be God, especially Christian God in particular.
@michelangelope830, there is nothing objectively “good” or bad about “believing death is the end”. It is objectively true that death is the end. There are over 8 billion people alive today. Throughout human history over 100 billion people have lived and died. They all have one thing in common, they are all still dead.
“Nothing” is something religious people talk about. Just as you say “God is the uncaused cause”, I can say that the universe is the uncaused cause. I have no evidence for this claim, but neither have you. I don’t know is good enough for me. Billions of people have died not knowing.
Finally, you do not know what atheism means. It is not about religion, it is the lack of belief in God or gods. Theism is the belief in God or gods and atheism is the opposite, a lack of belief. Hope this helps.