No Hell? He'll Know!

I promised to respond to Ernie's epistemology post.

While Ernie wrote about epistemology in response to this post, he did not address or even mention what I described as "my most important problem with Christianity": eternal damnation for disbelievers. Trying to agree on what we can and cannot know is fine as far as it goes, but I am concerned about getting mired down in philosophical hair-splitting and that we will lose sight of this simple yet powerful issue.

So I would really like to hear Ernie's point of view here. Does he believe in hell? Does God send people to hell, and if so, based on what criteria? Is eternal torture ever justifiable? If so, how?

Is rational disbelief in God possible, even if rational belief is also possible?

I apologize for the title. Pretend that it was a valiant attempt at wordplay involving damnation, epistemology, and (near) homophones.

Sincerely,
Physical Plant

(That was an inside joke: Ernie was always fond of puns, and he wrote a skit for IVCF where the characters were different kinds of vegetation. Guess which one I was?)