Life IS an insanely dangerous gamble. And, yes, most people have lost; because our goal in this life SHOULD be living it so we attain glory in the next life, but that's not what our attention is centered on, is it.
I have a hard time, though, with the commonly held interpretation of eternal damnation in the Bible. I don't doubt the truth of scripture, but I can't understand torture, not for a quadrillion quadrillion years, but for eternity, with no chance of repentance, after an infinitesimally short (by comparison) human life, if a person thinks the wrong thoughts or says the wrong words. That's not mercy to me, it's the most extreme cruelty.
You and many others find this hard to comprehend. And comprehension isn't helped by many of today's mainline religions practicing a Kumbaya, one-big-tent type of Christianity that focuses on God's love and compassion over his equally sincere jealousy and promise of eternal judgment. The problem with this approach is it allows one to look at Christianity as a easy path to salvation. Nothing about salvation is easy. It requires us to believe in things we've never seen, things that don't fit with how we understand things work (or should work), and ideas that at times run counter to our human intellect. A true Christian will also carry a healthy (yes, healthy) fear of God. For we as humans are prone to fall into sin as it's our nature. And we can't escape that nature unless we wholly accept Christ as our Savior, and live our lives accordingly.
A reading of the Bible shows that God makes no distinction among sin. Sin is sin. Sin is living apart from God. There is no hierarchy to sin. How can there be when it is simply that apartness from God that constitutes sin? Thus, those who live in sin (apart from God) will be judged at the end. Those who have found God and show they follow His command and accept Christ as their Savior will be judged also, but their judgment will be to His glory. This young lady's words show her as living apart from God. While we as humans may take her with a grain of salt, or see her as still being worthy of salvation because "God still loves us all, doesn't he?", she is living apart from God and that will be her judgment should she not see her error.
Don't mistake what we as humans see as levels of good or bad behavior as either more, or less, qualifying us for salvation. God, through His Son, will judge us based on whether we've lived our lives apart from Him, or as part of His community on Earth. Our acts (whether in our eyes petty or monumental) will all be judged the same by a righteous God. Either we acted in His name or we acted outside His name. That! will be our judgment. And fear of His decision is what holds us to the one true faith.
It used to be that Christianity was known for its 'Fire & Brimstone' type of teaching. We've actually not only turned the corner on that focus, but have gone way too far to the other end of the spectrum. True Christianity is a balance of the fear of God on one hand, and the acceptance (belief) in His goodness and mercy to those who seek it. When Jesus states: Mat 19:24 "Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.", he's not only referring to richness in terms of what we've accumulated in this World, but to those who choose life apart from Him. Fear of God, fear of His judgment through His Son Jesus Christ, is the element that keeps us focused on who we are, and where we need to be in our relationship with Him. God's blessings to you.
If man is created in the image of God, if we have the ability to reflect His glory on earth and be His honorable servants, how can it be that the defining feature of human life is the ability to guess rightly on a narrow set of ideas and words in order to avoid limitless torture? I cannot see any dignity in a such an existence, and therefore cannot see how it could be the plan of God for those he created. What would that say about Him?
To be clear, I'm in not arguing against turning to Christ for salvation, but I can't see any justice or mercy in this view of damnation. I could understand hell as a kind of purgatory, purifying one of his sins, and I could see eternal damnation as meaning that one will forever be in a state of death until he turns to God.
But, to put it bluntly, the idea that human life is like a game show where the Muslims, the Buddhists, the sincere secularists, and even some Christian sects all must suffer eternally, while others who chose the correct set of ideas gain eternal bliss, I just can't reconcile this concept with a supreme diety. I makes the Almighty into someone capricious. How can that be?
I don't expect you to answer all my theological questions, :) but this is what underlies my reluctance to proclaim Kathy Griffin as a candidate for eternal hell based on her stupid rantings.