Christianity

Great questions these - all things I have pondered upon myself in the past. Like before, I can't say that I know for certain - as that would be to second-guess God. Also, many other Christians won't agree with some of my comments below, so I'd encourage you to search online for the thoughts of other Christians on this issue to look into it further. But these are my current thoughts on the matter: 1) Most people around the globe today (although not all) have access to the Bible - which does cover heaven and hell etc. Plus, particularly in the West, it would be unusual for somebody to genuinely be unaware of the concepts of heaven and hell - more likely it is the case that a lot of people know about them but simply don't believe in them. 2) For those people who genuinely never have had access to the Bible, then you have to have faith that if there is an all loving God then he/she/it will judge people far more fairly and lovingly than any human judge. It is on this point that I personally can't be certain of what a lot of Christians say is definitely the case - ie that if you don't accept Christ in this lifetime, then you are damned to an eternity in hell. Now, it could be that this is the case, however logically and morally I can't hold to that thought process. I cannot square in my brain the concept of an all-loving God with the concept of someone suffering eternally in a horrible place. Presumably this is based on passages like where Christ says "I am the way, the truth and the life. Noone comes to the father except through me." Two key points: a) Is hell an actual place, or a metaphor for permanent separation from God? (eg it could be that you simply cease to exist if you use your free will to reject God) I believe that life cannot exist without God, and so the likelihood of an all-loving God deliberately keeping you alive in a horrendous existence for eternity makes utterly no logical sense to me. Also, if hell is a place where you are eternally separated from God, then logically I don't see how your life could be sustained. b) Do you get chance to accept Christ/God after you die? The above passage about "noone comes to the father except through me" is very different to saying "unless you believe in God before you die, you're going to hell". I cannot possibly know for certain, but I lean towards the idea that "hell" is simply a metaphor for ceasing to exist - the eternal fire is also a metaphor for permanent and eternal destruction of your soul - and that it could very well be the case that you still get to accept God after you die and when you see him "face to face". However, I have to say here that many Christians do not think this - and it is quite a gamble to assume you might still get the chance to save your soul after you die - so faced with the choice, it has to be far safer to make it in this lifetime! (Pascal's Wager) On the point of God being fair in how he/she/it judges humanity, the way I look at it is to compare how I would parent my young daughter. If she did something wrong, but genuinely didn't realise it was wrong, then I'm not going to punish her in anything like the same way as if she defiantly did something she knew was wrong. If that is how I, as a flawed human being, would administer justice, then how much more fair would an all-loving God have to be?