No Heaven for Me

I have had many conversations with Evangelical Christian friends.  One thing we have discussed is our differing views on heaven and hell.  As I understand it, the Evangelical view is that heaven and hell are very literal, the one being the ultimate joy the other being the worst imaginable pain and torture and that each lasts forever.  The only requirement to enjoy heaven rather than hell is to confess Jesus as your personal savior.  I am not exactly clear on what constitutes a valid confession, but it seems that it would be very important to get it right given the extreme difference of the two possible fates.

Every Evangelical I have spoken with is quite confident that they are "saved," and they speak of it in the past tense even though being saved is presumably something that happens in the future (i.e. going the heaven instead of hell).  This is something I do not understand at all.

Apparently, very few will actually be saved.  The vast majority of humanity is doomed to endure the fires of hell for eternity.  As some have explained it, we all deserve this fate, but God in his mercy chooses to save a few of us if we are lucky enough to know we must confess Jesus and then we actually do it.

I don't see how we all deserve such a horrible fate.  We did not choose to be created and we did not choose to be a part of such a seemingly arbitrary and extreme system of reward and punishment.  Since God basically put most of humanity into a no-win scenario, I think that he is the responsible party.  (I am only speaking about this hypothetical God as described to me, which is not the way I personally view God.)

If this system is true, then I am afraid that there can be no heaven for me.  Here is the problem.  I would never be able to enjoy heaven with the knowledge that so many were suffering in hell, including friends and family members.  How could parents enjoy heaven if even one of their children were not with them?  I would rather go be with them and stand beside them in their suffering, in solidarity and silent protest of such a cruel system.

Don't misunderstand me.  The Evangelicals I have known are very good people.  They are concerned with the fate of humanity, which is why they try so hard to convince others so they can save as many as possible from the fate of hell.  However, beliefs such as this can make people behave irrationally and even cruelly, doing things like flying planes into buildings, because no earthly suffering can compare with hell.  Therefore any means can be justified if it can only save some from this fate.

My own view is that hell is mostly self inflicted.  I would rather focus on alleviating suffering, if I can, here and now in the only world that I have any firsthand knowledge about.  Sometimes I wonder what it says about someone who is attracted to such a cruel and exclusive world view.  It probably plays right into the natural human tendencies to want to be unique, special, and right.