hell to me? well i don't know.
i believe in universal reconciliation but i also believe that there is hell. i don't bother trying to articulate my beliefs around such a mythologicla place that renders torment, or even seperation from God. so hell isn't really involved in my beliefs, or i should say more correctly, it isn't the most pivatol issue...anymore.
when it comes to the mythological place of hell, i see several possibilities. Sheol, or maybe it's non-existant. it seems a bit odd to me, to think there are two eternities in one existance. that just seems utterly chaotic.
i don't know if one can know what "seperation from God" in its entirity. for sure our actions that people may do against what Christ taught to the His disciples and now preached to the world, may lead to a finite, temporary life that is seperated from God, but God is beyond this temporal world. but even with that, i believe also that God is within this temporal world. He is transcendant, so the possibilities are infinite. and if God is not seperated, in the FULLNESS of what seperation entails, then the idea of being seperated from God is wrong, and then the worse part of the afterlife would be going to heaven, and smelling the flesh of your loved ones, or just human beings in general burning away, or at least knowing it, plus with the conflicting idea of there being two eternities in one existance, how could you just forget about those people and be in some worship service for all an eternity? is that a Christ-like possibility? i don't see that as being a Christ-like idea.
but i see the more possibility of hell being more along the lines of with the here and now. if eternity begins today, because of everything we do will be judged upon, if we are not to worry about tomorrow, which there seems to be rightful reason to not even worry about the after-life with that, especially if we are to believe/trust in an omnipotent being. then look at the call of the ministry of Jesus, giving us a message for the here and now, entailing what the Kingdom of God is, and it is now. and living outside that, is utterly hell. we see eternal destruction being lived out all around us now.
so in the end, i don't know about hell. i see there a time punishment, finite punishment for finite mistakes, or maybe Sheol, a place a waiting for judgement where all the saints and sinners go. but i'm much into pagan mythological, thus i don't really hold to some literal interpretation of hell as described by pagan mythologies, or even most Christians.
(this post is not to debate with anyone, just my personal response to the OP.)
