If God kicks me in hell for not believing, do I get a 2nd chance at some point, or does he cook me forever?

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The big idea of Christianity is forgiveness and redemption. It’s what separates Jesus from all the other holy men. Anybody and everybody can find salvation in Jesus Christ.

Literally the only thing you have to do is want it. If you lived your entire life as an atheist and then died and went to the gates of Heaven, the only thing you’d have to do to get in is to put one foot in front of the other and join the party.

That’s what Jesus gave the world. He let the whole world know that God’s love is unfathomable and infinite.

The Catholics have the concept of Mortal sin. Read that page really carefully and apply logic to it. But don’t think in terms of punishment for crimes. Think about God’s perspective. God understands what you did and why you did it. He understands your boring family, the lack of salience in how well Christianity is described and taught today, the impossibleness of modern life to hold to the old traditions.

He knows all this way way better than you do. He knows why you committed murder, why you raped that kid, the precise manner in which your mind wasn’t hitting on all cylinders at the time you did that thing you feel so horribly about.

When people focus on analyzing what will or what won’t get you into heaven, they miss the whole point. Your life on Earth is absolutely tiny compared to the eternal afterlife. The Christians never settled this question, but there have to be other places than Heaven and Hell, some parts of Hell are pretty darned similar to Earth.

People go to Hell not because of the things they did. God understands. He’ll let you in, no matter what. Full Stop, the buck stops there.

No, they go to Hell because they believe they deserve to go to Hell. That’s why. They decide to forego an eternity of basking in God’s glory so they can cast themselves in the lake of fire.

The decision to go to Heaven or Hell or somewhere else is left completely up to you.

This is why Christians get so angsty about lost souls. Because the souls that could have been cloistered in God’s loving hands instead wander into the infinite darkness.

In fact, from God’s perspective, going to Hell is preferable to becoming lost.

Because God’s forgiveness isn’t limited to souls here on earth. It is truly, absolutely, unlimited. Yes, he will forgive you even while you are roasting in the lake of fire.

And you’ll go right up into Heaven.

You just have to want it. That’s it. After you’re done flagellating yourself for what you did as a human, you can pick yourself back up, dust yourself off, decide that you’ve had enough, and jaunt happily off into Heaven.

But if you get lost, you’ll never find your way to Heaven. It’s not that God won’t let you in, you’ll just never think to go back. At least here on Earth you have Christians around to remind you. But when you die and all the Christians are in Heaven, there won’t be any left to remind you of this wondrous place where nothing is wanting and everything is graceful and amazing.