Do I believe Atheists are going to hell?

[KevinM1]

Do you think that hell - a state of place/being that is torturous for those in it - is an ethical solution?

Implicit in your question is that there is another possible solution. Given our free will, our resulting condition of being unholy, God's necessarily perfect holiness/justice, there is not another solution except not to make any people with free will. It is easy to argue that it is, on average, a greater good for billions of people having lived a life than none at all--even if a only a portion respond to God. 

I don't see how that's an easy, or even correct conclusion, given that you're comparing an eternity of torture to a finite mortal existence. It's the kind of statement that makes me question your morality in addition to your god's.

Also, I've yet to encounter a cogent argument for why free will is so important to god, why he wants to spend eternity with lesser creatures, and why, instead, he couldn't directly populate heaven with the kind of creatures he wants rather than go through this test of faith.

But, no, what I was actually trying to get you to think about is the ethical treatment of prisoners. I mean, hell is essentially a prison, is it not? Then how is it morally justified that time spent there is torturous? Doesn't perfect morality demand that the souls in hell not be tortured (either directly or indirectly) by your god?