I laugh at them & tell them that their ridiculous delusions have no affect on life (or after life, for that matter).
I get all choked up and say "I'm Sooooooo scared"
I tell them, “Sorry, Satan already offered me a job in Human Resources!” “Now run along, I’ll see you later.” With a devious smile.
How am I supposed to take the threat of hell seriously when I fundamentally don't believe in it? It is a specious threat. I suppose my response is "oh."
I tell them I am a New Thought Christian(which I am) and so I don't believe in Hell. Further the Hell they believe in was invented during the Dark Ages by Dante. Jesus wouldn't have know what they were talking about. If that didn't work, I would probably beat them over the head with the very scripture they tried to attack me with. (Metaphorically of course). A good New Thought Christian would never do this, so I guess I have a ways to go.
I just laugh. I can't say it won't happen but doubt it so strongly as to ridicule this God of theirs. I tell them that I hope to actually have that Judgment Day so I can look Thou in the eye and ask what kind of sick motherfucker Thou is? Was the experience I just had to endure really necessary or some kind of uncomfortable joke? That usually shuts them down but gets a horrified chuckle.
Sad that their religion is based on reward and punishment. The only hell is theirs.
If Pope Francis says I can get into heaven as an athiest, just trying to do good and living by my own moral code, then that's good enough for me. As a Catholic, I would be expected to repress my sexuality. As an atheist, I don't have to.
And the scoreboard says:
Atheism 1 - 0 Catholicism
"Demons, sodomy, and so much heat the clothes are likely to come off. Doesn't sound too bad to me."
Such a threat has about as much meaning to me as if they'd exclaimed "bopity bop plobalop wibble wobble woo", although slightly less amusing.
I generally just shrug and ignore, unless in the mood to have a lengthy and tiring debate where I request objective evidence for the claim and then have to exhaust myself explaining how citing a religious text as proof of it's own accuracy is a circular argument and not an objective one.
When someone informs me that according to their beliefs I am sinful/immoral/going to burn in hell?
I let them know that as a Taoist, my belief is that they are perfectly doing what they should, and that I believe they should go on believing that if they want to.
I am not that devout a Taoist, but it does take the wind out of a crusading monotheists sails.
Disbelief, and an uncontrollable smile
It’s actually difficult to recall when I’ve been ‘threaten’ like that … and it generally came from the craziest of the crazies. One religious nut wearing a sign-board and using a ‘bull horn’ in downtown Portland (Ore) as my young daughters and I waited for a light rail train didn’t like my questioning his rant... It was a good experience for them to witness the base hatred in such people.
The other was after my mother and I stopped to take on the religious crazies picketing an woman’s health clinic, also in Portland. We’d worked them down a side street… and when they finally realized what we’d done, really got pissed! Kept em out of the public’s eye for maybe a half hour We’ve some serious ‘hell time’ if they’ve any pull! But Mom’s always said, ‘she wants to end up wherever Pat Boone isn’t!’