i think that different people have their different beliefs. some people who believe in god (or who consider themselves to be a member of / believer of a particular religion) think that all the good people (whether they are believers or not, whether they are believers of their particular religion or not) will be treated kindly in the afterlife. others don't think this, however. i think it has to do with how much of a literalist the person is about their religion.

if someone believes that i'm going to hell then i suppose that is their belief and they are entitled to it.

if that belief manifests in their feeling a great concern to convert me to save my soul or if it manifests in feelings like pity for me or condemnation of me then i find that i'm unable to be very good friends with such a person. i mean, forget about religion for a while, it simply is hard to be close friends with someone who insists on periodically expressing that they think you are seriously misguided or doing the wrong thing. if they didn't express any of it i suppose things could tick along okay, but if they express it it makes things considerably harder.

it IS hard though. lets say that i marry some guy and he beats me up a lot. i want to stay with him because i love him. you tell me that you really think that i'm making the wrong life choice and you really wish i would leave him. but lets say that i simply won't do that. the friendship could be in danger if you tried to convert me. you would have to be pretty strong in yourself, however, for me to be able to come talk to you weekly about how upset i was about being beaten up while not expressing any condemnation of my choice and the like. it is possible to support someone while disagreeing with what they are doing, but it makes it jolly hard. typically friendships tend to suffer as a result.

the way around this in the above case is for me to realise that you are not a person who i should come to when i'm feeling upset about being beaten UNLESS i'm wanting help with actually leaving. if i appreciated this and acted in accordance and you simply refrained from trying to persuade me to leave him then we could still enjoy a great friendship of going out together and talking about all kinds of other stuff but the relationship preserving / maintianing thing to do would be to mutually respect differences by not talking about that. it wouldn't be lying because you would both know where the other person stood. but it would be a way of maintaining the relationship.

same with respect to god, i reckon. if my friends think that for all the problems i'm having the simple answer is to repent then it might well be the case that i can't talk to them about stuff that is going on in my life without them feeling upset with me for not repenting. friendships can indeed be strained in such circumstances (which is of course why we tend to get on better with people who share similar beliefs about such things).

just how religious are your friends, deneb? did it come up in the context of 'anyone who isn't a member of my church / anyone who doesn't share my beliefs is going to hell' (which is hard to take)... or did it come up in the context of 'does anyone think that there is a god?' the latter kind of reflections aren't so likely to lead to their condemning your beliefs (should you choose to express them).