You would think the bible would be clear on these things, but its not.
It can't be clear, because it has to establish a dichotomy between either heaven or hell, and leave people in the maximum amount of anxiety, so they then try harder to adhere to their peer group's demands. Islam establishes 7 levels of heaven, so you can kid yourself, that if you are moderately good, you can get into the bottom level. Jesus is supposed to be on level 4 or 5 (I forget).
Christianity just has one generic hell, and one generic heaven... unless you are one of the 144,000 virgin males, spoken of in Revelation. This leaves the possibility that if you are 1% badder than someone who
just scrapes into heaven, you will burn for eternity, instead of joy for eternity. Christians are generally in denial that this is the case, and cite Paul who espouses being saved by belief, rather than deeds. But, that never washes, since they can't prove whether that works, either.
Although Christians can stomach adults going to hell, because they were 1% badder than someone else, their badly thought-out paradigm falls on its arse, because children can't possibly have been saved, or have done any good deeds. They then need to pretend that God saves people based on predetermination, and other magical principles, not mentioned except in-passing, by Paul - rendering the whole act of Christ, and living, to be nearly pointless.
It was sooo important for God to sacrifice his one begotten son, at a fairly late date in history, so that modern humans could know about it, and try to force people to associate with the brand name Christ™.
In other words, if you believe in hell, the Christian paradigm falls apart, and if you don't believe in hell, the religion can't compete against other religions that have a larger threat. The compromise is to have a religion that doesn't make sense.
