Just watched Nat Geo's "Inside North Korea" last night, and WOW

Just wow. One of the most eye-opening, frightening, and heartbreaking doses of reality I've ever seen.

I come to r/atheism to make this post because of a quote I read on here posted by a user that I found both substantial and funny. It was something along the lines of,

Atheist: "If I've never heard of hell, will I still go there?"

Christian: "No, not if you've never heard of it before."

Atheist: "Then why did you tell me about it?"

Anyway, back to the documentary. The people of North Korea see Kim Jong Il and his late father as their lord and savior. As an analogy, his father is/was god, Kim Jong is Jesus. This is not an exaggeration. Everywhere you go, there are pictures statues and dedications to Kim Jong Il and his father, and that's it. Nothing else. There are no cell phones, no Internet, no TV, no nothing. They are completely cut off from the outside world. Hell, there was even a park bench completely encased in glass in order to preserve it because Kim Jong Il's father "sat on it once." Seriously.

These people are in terrible condition. Famine plagues the country. Children have become horribly deformed -- so much so in fact, that a whole generation of them have been dubbed the "stunted generation" because of extremely poor bone development due to malnutrition. Many of these children are beyond help and are just waiting to die, and there is almost no hope in sight for North Koreans. Even so, they relentlessly worship their Great Leader. Sure, it is mostly out of fear, but in North Korea, the line between fear and actual belief does not exist.

The Nat Geo team was documenting a humanitarian doctor who brought his surgical procedure to North Korea in order to cure a large number of people who were blind due to cataracs (spelling?). What was the first thing they do when those who have been blind for years, some even their whole life, can finally see? They move past the doctors and their family and immediately praise the pictures of Kim Jong Il as if he had delivered them sight.

Two things,

1. Does this sound familiar to you? I grow increasingly tired of hearing about someone making it through a difficult operation or procedure or beating some terrible disease, and then those around that person attributing it to God. Protip: IT WAS NOT GOD WHO FIXED YOU. It was the hardworking, caring doctors and medical practitioners who saved your ass. Thank them, not your imaginary friend. Just as the North Koreans thanked Kim Jong Il out of fear, so to do Christians often thank their god in part out of fear of eternal damnation (and this applies to many of the reasons behind their faith -- who wants to burn in eternal hellfire?).

2. Like I said, the North Koreans are completely cut off from the outside world. The majority of North Koreans don't even know man has landed on the moon! Think about that! They are so cut off from the outside world, I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't even know what religion was. The only religion they have is to worship their Great General, and nothing else. They have not heard of Christianity nor Jesus, and the vast majority of them never will. So one question I would ask Christians is, would these people all go to hell? They are poor and destitute with no sure sign of hope in sight. They face enormous hardship every day. They are always under the watchful eye of an incredibly evil dictator and will never know many of the facets of the outside world. Hell, they even worship a false idol (Kim Jong Il and his father). So to recap: they don't believe in Jesus, they don't believe in God (at least the Christian one), they will likely never read the Bible (and if they were told about it, they would simply condemn it since it is associated with Western culture -- Kim Jong Il's number one enemy), and the only thing they worship is the dictator that rules over them. From a textbook biblical standpoint, this is a recipe for hellfire.

This also applies to any developing/third world country, the only difference here is there is no way any Christian missionaries are getting their foot in North Korea to spread the word of Christ.

Further, if God is real, why are the North Koreans still in such a shitty situation? I could ask why God doesn't do something about it, but that's too easy (and cliche), so instead I'll ask, if God is all-powerful, everlasting, and omnipotent, how come he doesn't have the power to extend his word past some measly human dictator and spread it to the desperate people of North Korea?

These questions are rhetorical, of course, but just thought I'd use what I saw from the documentary to illustrate points regarding religion and faith.