Hey Morte, interesting questions.
May I suggest the books Mere Christianity and The Great Divorce by CS Lewis? I think they will possibly provide an answer for some of your questions.
However, I'm presented with the idea of a loving, benevolent God... who condemns souls to damnation for simply not believing in the right idea.
In the Great Divorce Lewis shows through a fictional story how hell is the direct results of our own choices. I believe that no one will go to hell without making the choice to reject heaven. It is not a matter of accidently believing the wrong thing. At some point you will have a choice to accept or reject God, based on your own free will. (in The Great Divorce people get this choice
after they are dead!)
I cannot control my thoughts; why should I be condemned for them? If you ask me, it seems that having such thoughts and still resisting temptation to act upon them is a sign of strength of morality, rather than evil nature.
I'm not sure what you mean... I can control my thoughts - everyone can. Thoughts become sin when we deliberately and purposefully think evil things - fantasize about about killing someone or having sex with someone, or just having a simmering anger and refusing to stop being angry and forgive someone. (Basically what jar said)
But - and here's the thing - that analogy isn't really analogous, they're not comparable. If you believe that Jesus took all of the sins of humanity upon Himself on the cross, why should His sacrifice then only take care of those who believe that He was divine?
In Mere Christianty Lewis addresses this issue. His take on salvation is that humans are in a state of rebellion, and are unable on their own to completely surrender their will to God's will. When Jesus died on the cross he was perfectly surrendering his will to God, and that experience can be transferred to us in order to make it possible for us to completely surrender our rebellious will and come into a relationship with God. (It's been while since I read the book so I'm not sure if I'm summarizing Lewis very correctly, but I think that is the gist of what he wrote) However we have to want to try to surrender in the first place - if we don't even try Jesus cannot restore our relationship with God.
Anyways, I highly recommend those books to you and to everyone.
If you say there no absolutes, I ask you, are you absolutely sure?
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