h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

A christian acquantance of mind recently worked out that the christian concept of 'hell' wasn't terribly just, and wasn't the sort of thing he expected an infinite creator to come up with. However, a personal vision of God (sigh) had made him incapable of simply rejecting the whole thing as baloney. Therefore, he decided, the original word of God must have been corrupted by mere mortals, and what God actually intended was a *Remedial Hell*. After a short bout of pain and suffering, he expected people to acknowledge their mistake, and from there, God would raise them up into heaven.
He had a whole bunch of other beliefs, where he filled in the gaps where traditional christian theology just seemed wrong - it was really quite interesting - the result was a good deal more humane, and actually made sense, though of course for non-christians it was flawed as he now had absolutely *no* evidence to back up his word...

Lucinda, I'd like to point out that there are (and always have been) many Christian believers in a 'Remedial' (not permanent) Hell. There are those who believe in Universal Salvation and subsets of these who believe it's by means of reincarnation. (See my Guide Entry on reincarnation for starters.)
Your friend wasn't a lonely heretic at all, there are squillions of us out here - and *plenty* of evidence in the New testament to support his views, ideas held by some very famous people, BTW.

Thanks for the info.

You're welcome. I might talk more, later - I can't deal with anything much right now... for - reasons.