Do Christians really believe most of us are going to hell?

[ShaMan]

Strangely enough, many of the Christians I know do not believe in a literal hell

[The Grand Nudger]

Of course not, despite their beliefs - they're probably decent folks. Then again, they are christians....so, probably not.

[Ravenshire]

Another view, which I lean to more, is that those people will go to hell for a time and will eventually come to faith in Christ and will spend eternity with God.

For fucks sake, please no! Eternity with your gawd would be no better than eternity in hell. No, really. Consider this. After a couple hundred-thousand years of paradise, you're going to be bored stupid. After a couple hundred-million, you're still going to be bored stupid and you'll be completely out of novel things to to. You're still, after a couple hundred-million years, right at the beginning of the eternity timeline. Unless your gawd is going to constantly be creating new and better shit for people to do (ever had to entertain small children for even a week?) or he wipes their memory every few thousand years, paradise will become unbearable without even the comforting thought of death.

Eternity is the most ridiculous reward/punishment system ever devised by man. The initial conditions aren't even relevant on the time scales eternity encompasses because no matter how horrific or delightful the initial conditions are, given enough time, the results are the same. Unbearable, unchanging sameness.

[The Grand Nudger]

Indeed. Christian theology has had a thousand years of refinement and still aims no higher than the "candy, forever" bar.

[Wyrd of Gawd]

According to the fairy tale if you don't get tossed into the lake fire and end up in the golden cube, you will spend eternity singing God's praises. In exchange he will give you one piece of fruit per month and water. That's it. There's nothing else to do. The golden cube is surrounded by a high wall. The planet doesn't have any seas or islands. There's no sex. There's no darkness. And the damn place is called New Jerusalem.

[Huggy Bear]

According to the fairy tale if you don't get tossed into the lake fire and end up in the golden cube,

Where are you getting this cube from?

[vorlon13]

A quick perusal of the Christian Scriptures leads me to, ahem, believe, ahem, the odds of most Christians avoiding Hell is microscopic.

It might dampen the fun the rest of us are hoping to have there if it turns out most all of the Christers are damned too.

[Lek]

A quick perusal of the Christian Scriptures leads me to, ahem, believe, ahem, the odds of most Christians avoiding Hell is microscopic.

It might dampen the fun the rest of us are hoping to have there if it turns out most all of the Christers are damned too.

Sorry to take away your fun, but nobody who dies as a christian will be in hell. Then there are those who claimed to be christians who will be there to give you company. I guess you can tease them and laugh at them, except there won't be anything funny there.

[vorlon13]

I'm claiming those claiming to be Christian will staggeringly, amazingly, and enormously outnumber the 'real' ones.

(and whatever the fuck 'real' means there)

How many serpents have you handled ??

[alexwenzel]

I personally don't think that most Christians really believe that we're going to hell.

Anyway, I decided to google about this as I was pondering this and stumbled upon this article written by an atheist:

http://commonsenseatheism.com/?p=1852

This guy said exactly what has been on my mind all this time. I know when I was a Christian, I didn't act like I was as concerned as I should have been about my loved ones being in eternal danger, even though I'd go out of my way to protect them from real danger.

So I, in a contradictory way, accepted with certainty that hell was eternal and most were going to suffer there eventually, but never acted like I cared enough. And now when I think back, I probably never really believed most of the stuff preached by Christianity but just was never conscious of that fact until near the end of my former faith.

I don't believe so. It is not what the bible teaches