I was under the impression that it's a fundamental - and essential - point of belief in Christianity that most everyone else is going to Hell.
It was pretty much
de rigueur in Medieval times – that's the way people thought about things in those days – and its taken a long time to work its way out of the system. But it's alive and well, 'out and loud' in the US, it seems.
(Like the Rapture, Creationism, etc., it's nothing to do with Scripture, it's Scripture being used to validate a culture, rather than a culture aligning itself to Scripture. In it's own way it's no different from the Taliban validating itself via the Qran.)
Heck, Jesus spoke on Hell frequently.
Yes He did. It's a metaphysical necessity if one is going to assume a 'life in the spirit', 'Divine Union', 'the afterlife', on the one hand, an an autonomous nature on the other.
If there is enlightenment, then there must be there is the absence of light ...
Again, the Middle Way is the course of the true adherent in any religion, but they are mostly the silent majority, it's the fundies to the left and the right that make the most noise and fuss and bother.
In one corner, the right wing fundies are the 'Biblical heavies', banging on about hellfire and damnation, the same people who find grounds to condemn anyone who is 'not like me', the same people who are reacting against aid workers coming back from Africa, the type who would have Jesus somewhere between John Wayne and a man in a white pointy hat ...
In the other, the left-wing fundies are the Biblical Lites, banging on about self-determination, self-affirmation, self-divination, etc. Everything's cool, everything's copacetic. It's Pelagianism repackaged for a consumer market.
Most secularists would consider the damnation of others to be somewhat rude and offensive ...
Do they find the idea of 'justice' and 'consequence', 'responsibility' and 'culpability' as being rude and offensive, d'you think?
On the other hand, many secularists who have taken me to task over points of doctrine reveal that they know next to nothing about what it actually says, but rather simply have opinions and make pronouncements about what they
think it says, which quite often I find somewhat rude and offensive.
but if someone quietly believes it, is this fundamentally different from someone who loudly proclaims it?
The problem is the 'weighting' of it. The emphasis is disproportionate, and the message becomes distorted, to the left or to the right, to the point it bears little resemblance to what Christ is
actually saying, what His works are
actually showing.
But it's inevitable. They're the ones sitting at the foot of the cross, dividing up His garments – a metaphor of some importance, because it's recorded in all four gospels.
). Jehovahs Witnesses from my understanding do not believe in a Hell, but they believe only a few thousand will be in heaven (not 100% so don't take this wrong, but I believe they put a number on it.). 
