I am a Christian. Though I am not a fundamentalist, I sincerely believe that anyone who fails to repent and trust in Jesus Christ will go to Hell. Is it ethical to respect the personal beliefs of others and basically let them go to Hell? Or should I warn them and risk upsetting them, not to mention the trouble I might cause for myself? In a live-and-let-live age, many would say that it’s no more your business to stop people from going to Hell, if that’s what they want to do, than it is to stop them going to Wyoming, or to a cinema to watch The Sound of Music for the 197th time or to visit a plastic surgeon clutching a photo of Ernest Borgnine and pleading, “Doc, I want you to make me look like THIS !”; just as it’s nobody else’s business to bully you with their belief that there is no Hell.

In any case, perhaps you should be sceptical of people19 who swear that they are atheists and don’t believe in an afterlife. They may secretly be the most fervent believers of all: it may just be that they like to drive a hard bargain, and that they’re trying to see how much extra they can squeeze out of God in return for finally being won around to his whole Hell concept.

Moreover, civility demands that we indulge other people’s religious beliefs every bit as tolerantly as we indulge their belief that they know how to crack the Middle East crisis, or that their hair actually looks good combed that way.

Anyway, some people actively want to go to Hell. Machiavelli reckoned that the company would be much better there — “popes, kings, and princes, while in Heaven there are only beggars, monks, hermits and apostles”. And you have to admit this: when you watch people going to Hell, it often looks like they’re having a pretty good time making their way there, doesn’t it? JOE JOSEPH