The Devil was a pagan creation hundreds of years after Christ walked the Earth. I don’t buy it one bit. God is not a sadistic bastard that says love me or else.
So who tempted Jesus in Gethsemane on the night before his execution?
Have you even read the bible? Satan is referred to many times in the Old and New Testament.
Jesus certainly refers to Hell as a firey place but that does not mean it is a literal fire. He is just trying to come up with the best way of describing horrific torment and being on fire I think is most peoples idea of the worst kind of pain imaginable.
I have no doubts that Hell exists but I think there are different levels of it and conversly, likely different levels of heaven. However, the theme of this article is spot on, many will reject heaven because humility, chastity, obedience, kindness, compassion, forgiveness is just not their thing, in other words, its just not as much fun as cruelty, revenge, perversion, lust, mendacity etc. People clearly make this decision in life and it carries on into the afterlife.
The best description I have read of Heaven and Hell and the decisionmaking process that leads to either is C.S. Lewis’s “The Great Divorce.” The City of God by St. Augustine also is good but a difficult read, at least it was for me.