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Here is what I believe: (and in my opinion what you HAVE to believe, to believe in God)

1. God - is the creator. (if he didn’t create us, then he is not God)

#1 is the MOST important belief, since everything that follows is based on that one belief.

2. God could have created ... basically organic robots that do exactly what he wants them to do every time and nothing else. BUT, instead he created us with FREE WILL. Free will by necessity implies sometimes doing things God wouldn’t want you to do.

Now... here’s where we come to the first big fork in the road.

God will either tolerate the beings he created being in his presence while openly disobeying him, or he will not. Or in other words, there are either laws and/or rules in the afterlife, or there is anarchy.

A - If you believe that God will NOT tolerate a being he created being in his presence while openly disobeying him.. then you MUST believe there is a place away from God (we call this place prison on earth, and hell in the afterlife)

B - If you believe that God WILL tolerate beings he created, being in his presence while openly disobeying him... then .... there is no need to listen too or obey God. Because then there are no consequences for disobedience, no enternal justice, and simply anarchy after death.

Now...

we call the place where you are with God, Heaven.
and we call the place where you are away from God, Hell.

What does Heaven look like ? What does hell look like ? I don’t know and to me it doesn’t matter.

Hell MUST by definition be worse than Heaven, since if it were not, then it wouldn’t be much of a punishment for committing a crime (known as sin in heaven).

The article seems to be implying that punishment in heaven for crimes is somehow unjust, and that a loving God would never do such a thing.

I would argue that living forever in a place with no rules or punishment would be hell.

Once you have gone through all the above and decided and agreed that.

1 - There is a God
2 - He created us with free will
A - If we obey him, we will be with him in a good place in the after life.
B - If we disobey him, we will be away from him in a worse place in the after life.

Then what remains is simply to determine what God wants!

(here is where most part company)

Everyone thinks THEY know what God wants! But the reality is none of us know for sure.

We can read and study on the subject for our entire lives and still never know for sure the truth.

But I do know ... that GOD knows.

The best we can do is look at the information we have. Most of which is in the old and new testaments. (Because, unless God descends from the heavens and decides to clarify things to you personally this is the best we can do)

So a smart person who believes in God will do his best to follow to the best of his ability what is written in the old and new testaments.

Now, honest, good, caring, loving people can disagree about what we are being told to do or not do.

But. You can’t argue we are not being told to do or not do anything, and that there will be no consequences for doing the wrong thing! Because to argue that would be to argue that either 1 - there is no God, or 2 - that the afterlife is a lawless anarchy.