We're not saying that the wicked and sinners are going "to heaven", but that they will undergo a change of state where they will cease to be wicked and sinners. Chaff is burnt, but the seed it covered is what's important.
Also, when it comes to "drummed up fairy tales", the pagan philosophers held that myths of endless torment in the afterlife should be formented and transmitted to act as restraints upon the masses. When Christianity became the state religion, these unconverted, deluded pagans brought these beliefs with them. Church leaders, who among themselves acknowledged universalism, found the myths of torment and endless punishment useful in restraining the uneducated masses. So, they encouraged them. This is the doctrine of restraint.
The church also came to find this mythology very profitable. This motive and the mistranslations of the Latin Vulgate and St Augustine produced the current mythology we have today in the church. As Rome and Latin became prominent, the true meaning of the original Greek text was obsured.[/quote]
YEP! Another pagan belief in the church, among a million others.....
