God that would condemn anyone to eternity of torture is more scary thought than anything else. Maybe scarier than there being chance of being damned in the first place. Especially since it would mean that god is not good, forgiving or loving. To think that church would claim such thing as hell would even exist just proves that they have betrayed their mission for secular power. Got to have something to scare the people with so they keep obeying.

Though I think what it says in bible is that hell is that God doesnt protect you anymore, which i think could be conjectured to mean you are free prey to anything and everything or that existence without god would be just as bad. But that church hasnt set the record straight either also tells something.

I once had kind of crisis of faith and sought a priest to talk about stuff. I couldnt find one in the church of my former own religion (evangelic lutherian) so i ended up contacting someone from… i think its called “free church”, as I have a friend who is part of it and he seems quite sensible good to talk to about things. The guy ended up being rather horrible person (as in, he thinks what trump is doing is at least partly good) and it was quite clear all he cared about was to convert me to their cult. I remember questioning he existence of hell to him and from what i recall he answered, he said something along the lines that people have been focusing too much on god’s forgiveness. His meaning being there is too much carrot and not enough stick. It was many years ago and i dont have good memory to begin with, but I still remember the general sentiment. Funniest thing was that i had much better and helpful conversation in my own head before meeting the “priest”, with the mental image of the priest that i hadnt met yet.

It also doesnt help much that christianity is huge amalgam of different religions that have been destroyed and taken over. The whole world “hell” likely comes from norse god Hel and the concept from her domain (people who dont go to valhalla go to hels domain, i think. and valhalla being the “heaven” equivalent in eyes of christian priests as why they would try to understand other religions beyond how to convert people away from them)

I think the core thing from the true god, or whatever would be appropriate term here, has likely always been very simple and clear. Then over time more and more crap got attached to it to serve bigger and smaller goals for religious leaders. Maybe they thought goals justify the means, maybe they cared more about secular power or even didnt really bealieve what they preached in the first place but saw it as handy tool. Sometimes i also wonder if the potential evil thing that rules this world is actively working towards corrupting anything that could help people from being actually saved from here.