Agreed. If it were real, why did God not mention it when sentencing Cain, world's first murderer? In fact He made not one peep about it to Adam & Eve, Noah, Abraham, or even Moses, to whom He issued volumes of detailed directives, including information on such mundane topics as how to menstruate. The punchline is that catholicism itself erected the belief in hellfire about the 4th or 5th century when they paganized everything - up until then, the early christian church largely believed in the eventual redemption of everyone, with God's "fires" applied for cleansing and not literal torture/annihilation.

The good news is that the Son of Man is come not to destroy people, but to *save* them.