One can be a Christian and not believe in Hell

Thanks for accepting, Domr.Hell is the doctrine that those who do not accept Christ are, after death, condemned to eternal conscious torment.I. No true Scotsman fallacyReligion is a social phenomenon that springs up wherever humans inhabit as they form connections with the spiritual realm. Because each persons religion is fundamentally a personal connection with God, we should prefer self identification as opposed to lumping people into groups. That is to say if a person identifies as a Christian we should accept their self identification unless we have an extremely compelling reason to believe otherwise. Voting neg in this debate requires not only rejecting my arguments, but giving my opponent the power to define the beliefs of a community of over 2 billion people. I contend that most, if not all, attempts to limit who can identify as a Christian are fallacious under the no true Scotsman fallacy and run contrary to the message of inclusion that makes Christianity so appealing in the first place. Remember the very definition of a Christian is one who professes to believe in the teachings of Jesus. If one professes to be a Christian, we should accept that. II. Christian doctrine is open to interpretation Christianity, like any doctrine, is open to a variety of interpretations. While there are arguably some beliefs that one absolutely must hold in order to claim to be a Christian such as the divinity of Jesus, unless my opponent proves that Hell is one of these beliefs you should vote Pro. As it stands, there has been debate among the Christian community about the nature of the afterlife for the damned since almost the beginning. A reading of the History section of Wikipedia's article on annihilationism[1] is instructive to show just how far back the debate goes--all the way back to the Church fathers. Con is denying the label of Christian to people who have done more the spread the Gospel than he or I ever will. Con also has to prove that to be a Christian one must believe in the inerrancy of the Bible as it's currently interpreted or else I can just reject verses that suggest Hell as being untrue for going against reason.III. Hell probably doesn't exist Most of case will center around the argument that Christians should reject the doctrine of Hell because it's likely false. If the doctrine of Hell is false under Christian theology, clearly one can reject such a doctrine and still be a Christian.In The Evangelical Universalist[2], the author explains that Christian theology is guided not just by scripture but rather by multiple sources including tradition, reason, and experience. When scriptural doctrine conflicts with one of these other sources, Christians have to reconcile their differences somehow and this includes revising our understanding of the scripture in the same way we revised our understanding of the scripture when reason proved geocenterism false. In this round, I'll show how reason tells us that the doctrine of Hell is false and so we should prefer a Universalist interpretation of the Bible. In the next, I'll refute my opponents arguments to show how a Universalist reading is compatible with scripture. All reason and decency goes against the idea of Hell for a number of reasons. A multitude of verses describe God's love for humanity. As 1 John 4:7-8 puts it: Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. I doubt seriously that Con is going to argue against God's love, nor His benevolence or justice. If he does belief in God's love, benevolence, and justice should be prioritized to belief in Hell because they are much more grounded in scripture and tradition and because make Christianity more appealing and therefore help bring more people to God. Condemning people to eternal conscious torment is not something anyone would do to someone they love, nor is it a merciful act for a variety of reasons. a) Infinite punishmentOne problem with the idea of Hell is infinite retribution. In order to be just, a punishment must be proportional to the crime--a murder is not the same as stealing a candy bar. This is a fundamental tenant of every theory of justice and to deny it would be denying millennia of human moral experience. Because humans lead finite lives, there is no possible crime one could commit that justifies punishment of an eternal nature. For God to eternally punish people for finite crimes would be unjust and I contend the belief in God's justice is much more important in Christian theology than the belief in eternal conscious torment, because a belief in an unjust or non benevolent God undermines the entire idea behind Jesus--that God so loved the world that he was willing to give his sinful creation Jesus due to his benevolence. b) Equal punishment for unequal sinUnder the traditional doctrine of Hell, all who did not accept Christ suffer the same penalty for all eternity. Belief in Hell means believing that Ghandi is suffering the same torment as Stalin, and not for any actions either of them committed but rather because neither of them were Christians. Despite Ghandi coming from a heavily Hindu background and thus being predisposed to disbelieve in Christian doctrine and leading a moral life, he faces the same punishment as Stalin who came from a Christian background and persecuted/murdered Christians. This kind of summary judgement is grossly unfair. c) Joy in HeavenAnother issue is the joy of those redeemed in Heaven. In order to be able to properly worship Christ in Heaven, it seems uncontroversial that we must be able to remember our own sin and how He redeemed us. Anything less would be selling Christ and His mercy short. The problem with this is that if we retain our memories of our lives, we will also retain memories of those we knew who were damned which would detract heavily from our joy in Heaven. If I knew that someone I loved was being tormented for all eternity, I could not look on their suffering without suffering myself. Unless God hardens the hearts of everyone going into Heaven to not care about the suffering of others, there cannot be true joy in Heaven. d) God's love God is supposed to love his children. Matthew 5:43-48 tells us to love our enemy and to attempt to be perfect as God is. His love for even His enemies is why He chose to redeem us in Christ in the first place. Anyone who has experienced love would agree when I say that, save for going to Hell myself, there is literally nothing I wouldn't do to prevent someone I loved from going to Hell. If God truly loves those He made in His image, He will spare them. At the very least, He wouldn't create a situation where some people have never even heard of Christ.e) Redemption after death There is literally no reason for God to not extend Christ's offer of reconciliation beyond the grave. God loves and wants His children to come to Him willingly, so the rational thing for Him to do is to give them more than one chance to be redeemed. Pro has to offer an explanation for why God does not allow people to have second chances. If He loves us so much, it seems like a no brainer.f) AnnihilationIf people exist who absolutely will not under any circumstance accept Christ, the just and merciful thing for God to do would be to annihilate them instead of torturing them. Unless Con believes God cannot destroy a soul, in which case he is not all powerful, the sensible thing to do is to destroy those who won't accept Christ. If God cannot tolerate sin keeping unrepentant sinners alive eternally and hence tolerating sin forever is a funny way of doing it.Reason tells us that the idea of Hell should be rejected. If we must conform to scripture absolutely, we should prefer a Universalist reading. Sources:1. http://tinyurl.com...2. MacDonald, Gregory. "A Hell of a Problem." The Evangelical Universalist. Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2006. Electronic.