It is important to remember that in mythology, and religion; the stories we believe are not literally true, but rather are metaphorically true. At least that is what I believe. So while a literal hell does not exist then, there is a metaphorical hell. Which might be like the difference between going to a hellish place or just watching a movie about hell.
There can also be reconciliation between the Western ideas of sin, hell and damnation, and the Eastern religious concepts of a life cycle or samsara, and reincarnation, and the effect Karma has on future incarnations.
If we postulate that life is indeed eternal, and indeed it is, than we can assume that consciousness has an endless supply of life cycles in which to reincarnate. And if one's karma is continuously bad, than he or she will continue to reincarnate in forms of life that suffer, inflict suffering and continue to suffer ad infinitum. That sounds hellish to me. On the other hand if one's karma is good, and one's sinful transgressions not so severe, and there is a geunine and self propelled effort to repent, grow, love and forgive, that they progress into a state of heavenly bliss and escape the wheel of life and its constant suffering i.e. heaven.
Some question how life can be eternal. That is not the eternal life of the afterlife that we might imagine, but more rather to the impermanence of life as we know it. The life forces and processes at work here on Earth. What happens when the Sun dies, or supernovas or gets hit by an asteroid. Sure, true enough life here on Earth might or will end. But elsewhere in the known universe in all the known galaxies there are billions upon billions of stars and planets, and somewhere at sometime, perhaps in billions of years from now or maybe only millions, or quite possibly millions of years ago, microscopic life is beginning or began the long series of events that lead a people such as ours to a place where it is now in History.
And I bet this story we're living has been told over and over and ago, eons before this universe came into existence perhaps. And there will always be life in some form somewhere for consciousness to become aware of, and for it to become aware of itself.
