To conservative/religious redditors with liberal/atheist parents: What's your story?

I'm not the guy you were asking, but I'll give it a shot.

First, there are a couple of concepts in modern theology you need to understand. The first is the idea that men are, in general, flawed. Romans 8 says that "All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God". Basically, this means that God demands perfection, and nobody is perfect. However, it's ok because Paul also says that we have been "saved by grace through faith". What does this mean? It means that since Christ took our punishment and "defeated death", then those that have faith in God's power to forgive them through Christ's sacrifice are forgiven. It is only those that reject forgiveness that go to Hell.

At this point you may ask, "What about the people who have never heard of Christ?". Well, in the Bible, God speaks to Man in two ways. General revelation is when God reveals himself through his creation (life, the universe, etc). The second is special revelation, which is when God speaks through the Bible, or through Jesus. People who claim to have heard God speak to them or to have had prophetic dreams fall into this category, but the legitimacy of those claims is another debate. Since, everyone has access to general revelation, everyone is responsible in some way. If they have heard the Gospel, they're responsible for what they do with that information. If they haven't, they're responsible for what they have heard.

Now the big question, how does God decide who goes to Hell? Imagine it like this:

Your boss tells you that he wants an absolutely absurd amount of work done by each individual in the office. On your own, there's no way you'll finish by the deadline. However, your boss also gives you a program to make this work way easier, such that there's basically no way you couldn't finish by the deadline. Whether or not you use the program is up to you, but it's still there in case you want it. In the same way, whether or not you believe that God can forgive you is up to you, but it's there if you want it.

Also, in regards to the crazy ones, like the WBC, young Earth creationists, and snake-bite healers: a person can adopt any label they want, but it doesn't mean they fit that label. Jesus taught love, tolerance, and service, not hatred, condemnation, and arrogance. Real Christians don't act like that.

/r/AskReddit Thread Parent