I don't want to dig TOO deep into RW theology here, but I do want to be clear on a few points.
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You can go to hell according to the doctrine for a variety of absolutely idiotic reasons. Dying without being baptized and cleansed of original sin, according to doctrine you get a trip to hell even if you're a baby. Makes no sense, but it is doctrine.
That's not a correct understanding of the sacrament. The usual functional work-around for this is the age of accountability, but that's a bit non-doctrinal, so why don't we just ask the source:
Catechism of the Catholic Church said:
As regards children who have died without Baptism, the Church can only entrust them to the mercy of God, as she does in her funeral rites for them. Indeed, the great mercy of God who desires that all men should be saved, and Jesus' tenderness toward children which caused him to say: "Let the children come to me, do not hinder them," allow us to hope that there is a way of salvation for children who have died without Baptism. All the more urgent is the Church's call not to prevent little children coming to Christ through the gift of holy Baptism.
...so, "We're reasonably confident God's not sending babies to Hell, guys."
Not getting last rights when dying while having committed a mortal sin, a trip to hell by doctrine.
That's a novel proposition - the sacrements aren't considered universally essential (or else every Catholic would be a priest!), and not having the Annointing of the Sick or the Viaticum (which isn't itself even a sacrament) certainly isn't among the
mortal sins listed in the CCC. Though there ARE a lot of things on there I imagine many Catholics have frequent need of repenting of.
A good Catholic will tell you they don't know for sure, but by doctrine, likely hell. These things are told you to very much in the following fashion, "Well, we don't know for sure, but this is what Catholic doctrine says." So this whole idea of atheists in heaven is not part of all Christian doctrine, not by any means. Just because The Pope says it, does not make it doctrine.
Nah, but it's basically his job to interpret the Bible for Catholics, and he says that God's love trumps all, even non-belief, which I've gotta say, is pretty consistent with the whole religious message of Catholicism. If someone wants to dispute his interpretation, they're going to have to put some effort into actually changing his mind, do some exegesis, develop some Catechismal strategies, not just say "You're WRONG, Holy Father!"
There are many branches of Christianity that very much preach if you have not accepted Christ as your savior, you get a trip below. I haven't practiced Catholicism for a while, so maybe some of this has changed. But for thousands of years the above was doctrine. It affects their stance on many political issues.
Lets not blend Catholicism with the many branches of Christianity - that does a disservice to both of 'em.
(And poor Eastern Orthodox, always the outlier in these convos!) If you'd like to chat about what some Protestants believe in regards to an eternal Hell for non-believers, things get more interesting and more complex in a hurry, especially when you weave in the particularly American branches of fundamentalist Protestantism that tend to dominate religious conversation in the States these days, so it'd be useful to lock down your specific flavor of Christianity before we start talking about what that specific flavor believes. Hell, especially, is one of those things that a disagreement on can give you a reason to start a whole new sect of Protestantism!
I've no doubt that there's some specific flavors who would probably embrace an eternal Hell for people who don't believe their specific flavor, but these tend to be fundamentalisms, which are inherently non-traditional anyway (and, I might add, with a particular interest in tribalism that is quite the opposite of the way most traditional religious theology is expressed), despite the amount of time given in the current media cycle to those who adhere to fundamentalisms. Consistent theology isn't what they're interested in.
If you explore the religions you cited, you'll find things like Muslims believing atheists are heading down to hell no matter how good they are. Many denominations of Christianity believing if you haven't acknowledged the Lord as your savior, you're damned. Many of the old pantheon religions acknowledged the existence of other gods and assumed the gods of a people would take care of those people. For example, this idea that all warriors that die in battle go to Valhalla is false. The Vikings or Nordic people didn't care where other people went after they die. That was their business and not of concern to the individuals. Pantheons handled the people that worshiped them. They left people in other areas to their gods. Monotheism pushed the idea of sole creators that handled everyone.
These are all pretty surface understandings of these belief systems. For instance, in Islam,
this Qu'ranic verse can be VERY important in understanding the nature of what belief means in Islam, and under what criteria one becomes an "unbeliever."
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Let's look at Valhalla. Sure, a bunch of warriors get to enter Valhalla if they die in battle. You go to where if you die in your bed with your family? Somewhere pleasant? So according to the religious traditions of the Vikings, failing to die in battle leads to a less pleasant afterlife, in fact possibly a negative afterlife. Is this good? I would say definitely no.
It's not good as most of us would understand it, but it is
fair. If you want a heroic afterlife, die a heroic death. It doesn't matter if you think Thor is unworthy of worship or if you burned down an orphanage or if you saved innocent lives.
The Wall isn't fair, so it fails to be like Valhalla. You don't have to be good to avoid the Wall, you have to be
devout. Which isn't the same (unlike in monotheisms). And you do this in a world where the gods are often not worthy of devotion (again, unlike in monotheisms). Valhalla was never won by praising the gods. who you might understandably often deride - stupid Thor hitting the mead hall with his lightning bolt, burning it to the ground, wreckin' all the mead.
Ma'at and Egyptian religious tradition was not all based on the concept of goodness as you would perceive it. It was based on what Egyptians considered good including obeying your master as a slave. The desecration of temples or blasphemy was considered a violation of Ma'at. Do you think an Egyptian would consider it acceptable to deny the existence of the gods or fail to worship them? Or would that be blasphemy and a violation of Ma'at? The Pharoah was also an integral part of deciding what was and was not Ma'at. If you denied the pharoah's status as god, you would considered committing blasphemy. Once you died, you would be eaten by a monster.
The idea of an ancient egyptian committing blasphemy is entirely ahistorical and irrelevant to both of those ideas. Blasphemy can only happen where there is orthodoxy and there's no such thing as orthodoxy in ancient egyptian religion (in part because there was no central authority - it was cultural).
I'd love to see you debate baptism to a Catholic. Or argue with a priest that excommunicated a woman for divorcing her husband because he beat her. Or talk to a Baptist about atheists and hell. Or talk to a Muslim about what happens to someone that converts to a different religion even if it is still of the book. Or a Viking that dies of old age. Or a Greek that doesn't make offerings at the temple to the gods. Or an Egyptian that defies the Pharoah and denies his divinity. See if their gods according to their doctrine allow them into a good afterlife even though their doctrine says they're heading somewhere else.
I've talked to a lot of those people (though I'd hardly call them debates - there's nothing to prove!), and I've heard from those that are long gone from this world through those that have studied them.
So stop trying to sell people that the Wall is evil by nature. Lots of ancient and even current religions believe worse things. You can be as good as you want, but you don't get baptized or don't do certain things you might consider stupid, you end up in a bad place. The Wall of the Faithless is no different.
So trying to sell us on this false idea concerning ancient religions only works if you are allowed to speak of them in a very shallow fashion. Dig deeper you starting finding out all types of beliefs in religions that you would be complaining about and probably do complain about right now.
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The Wall of the Faithless is a very minor terror compared to some of the absolutely stupid and evil reasons you can end up in a bad place in most real world religions, modern or ancient. You can't tell me much. I was raised Catholic. We have some of the dumbest reasons for going to hell of any of the religions. We also had some of the most ridiculous ways of going to heaven of any religion like indulgences or confession. The Wall of the Faithless is a fairly minor annoyance compared to some of the stuff you have to do as a Catholic to keep your get into heaven card up to date regardless of the new happy Pope's view on things.
I'm not inclined to stop telling the truth. The Wall fails to be like anything in the real world. The Real World afterlives aren't nearly so monstrous. That's fine. It can be monstrous - we can have villains to fight against in our D&D settings. We should stop imagining that it is anything other than that, though, and treat it for what it is - a horrible fate inflicted on undeserving souls for the enrichment of a system whose benefit of this torment incriminates the whole thing as detestable. That's a valid character narrative, and a valid campaign arc, just as overthrowing the lich of Thay is.
