On non-belief and the existence of God

[Jenny A]

Omg. Remind me to steer clear of that Jesus guy. Coming into contact with him puts me in dire jeopardy of going to hell?

In her Memories of a Catholic Girlhood, Mary McCarthy introduced me to a more specific problem. She was assured that unless they were properly introduced to Catholic doctrine, protestants would go to heaven or at least purgatory. But if they heard and rejected Catholicism, they would go to hell. This worried her greatly because her staunchly protestant grandfather was brought into contact with the nuns who ran her boarding school every time he visited her there. And she loved her grandfather and didn't want him in risk of hell. --- I don't know if that's current Catholic doctrine, or even if it was good doctrine in the late 1950s when she wrote. But it troubled her a great deal.