The words that the King James translators translated as hell were misinterpreted. Sheol, the old testament word, hades and Gehenna, the new testament words were never intended to imply that God wanted to torture people forever in fire.
The concept of hell that most of us grew up on were made popular by Dante in his book "the inferno." It was a very popular book at the time and it gave rise to lots of sandlot theology which was quickly seized upon by the fundamentalist denominations.
Church leaders, through out history, have loved to hold onto doctrines that kept people living in fear. How Christian is that? Why would God want his children to live in fear???
Consider this about the idea of hell as a place where you burn forever... If you believe in this, maybe you are more gracious than God himself. How so? Well, you can think of many good people that you would let slide or give a pass to: Ghandi, My Grandmother, some Mormon friend. I know you can think of someone that was not a bad person, but they just didn't follow the church's rules. You can think of many people that you would want to save from hell. But God the father, according to fundamentalist doctrine, sends them all to hell if they have the wrong belief in the slightest manner.
So that makes you more gracious than God. You would give people an out, but God [in fundamentalist theology] cannot. Maybe it is time to change our way of thinking because we are not more gracious than God.
It's a beautiful day in God's world, be sure to see the good.
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