I believe God is just, but I also believe He is merciful and loving as well.
Really?
(Which god, by the way? There are so many to choose from.)
Let's consider the story of Noah, and assume there were around 100 million people on the planet and billions of animals at that time. Most of those humans had never heard of YHWH; remember, all the action in the Old Testament takes place in small parts of the Middle East, and there were millions of people in Asia and the New World.
Apparently, YHWH was not happy with human beings (which he designed and created). What did he do? He flooded the entire planet, killing millions upon millions of humans, with no warning. Oh, and billions of animals too, which had not done anything wrong.
I'm fairly certain that any human who suggested wiping out almost the entire population of North America as a punishment for collective sins would be seen as monstrous beyond comprehension. When a deity does it, it's just and loving.
Anyway....
Not believing in God does not makes anyone a bad or uncaring or immoral person....
I'm glad you can perceive that. The thing is:
Ultimately, morality in Abrahamic religions is not about the inherent virtue or vice of an action; it's about obedience to the deity. Rejecting the existence of the deity is seen as a crime against the deity.
Christianity and Islam mostly assert a binary afterlife: Heaven or Hell. If you have defied the deity, you are going to Hell. There is no theological or textural reason to believe otherwise.***
The ethical status of a deity is not to be questioned, because the deity (via its human interpreters, of course) sets the standards what is and is not ethical. Even if some of those laws are based on an underlying theory of ethics, you aren't following those laws because YHWH gave an extended defense of how or why they are ethical; you're following them because you were told to do so. Follow orders or burn.
As with the Noah example, any human who imposed similar strictures today would not be regarded as ethical. If I tell my 14 year old son that masturbation is wrong, and it is his choice whether or not to masturbate, but I will beat him for a week straight if he masturbates, will my neighbors praise me? That seems unlikely today (though I might have gotten away with it as recently as 30 or 40 years ago).
if God is who He is (relatively) widely understood to be, all those things that I've seen some atheists say about what they would do or say once confronted by Him, will not happen. All that bravado about spitting in His face, or calling Him a prick, or telling Him how He messed it up and how you know better the right way to be God is just that - bravado.
Uh.... How can you spit in the face of something that doesn't exist?
Now, I completely understand that many and probably even most of you are extremely comfortable and confident that this is not something you need to worry about.
Pretty much
I'm not even trying to convince you otherwise.
Kinda seems that way, though.
I mean, if your question is "how do you handle virtuous materialists?" then the answer will vary greatly based on your religion, denomination and personal beliefs. As far as I know, though, most Abrahamic religions will say that the non-believer is doomed.
*** We should note that for hundreds of years, many Christians did believe in Limbo and Purgatory. The "virtuous unbaptized" went to Limbo; baptized sinners who essentially committed only venal sins, went to Purgatory to be "purified". The RCC cancelled limbo officially in 2007. Catholics don't discuss Purgatory much anymore, but it's still technically part of the doctrine. Protestants reject the existence of Purgatory, in part because there's no real textural support for it, in part because it played a large role in the abuse of indulgences. So I ask you, who is right....?
