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That's absolutely true. The vast majority of people have very stong beliefs in this or that. They believe in the trinity, that Jesus died on a cross, that hell is a place of torment, that God is cruel and not loving. The only trouble with those beliefs lies in the fact that the Bible does not teach any of those things. In fact, it teaches quite the opposite. People believe those things because other people TELL them to believe it. Religions tell them to believe them. I haven't seen any religion claiming to be Christian actually teach their members the truth of what the Bible says. Not one. The scriptures tell us that God is indefinite. No beginning, no end. It tells us that Jesus is his only begotten son. It tells us that Jesus was killed on a torture stake and that hell is the common grave of mankind. It says God can be summed up on the word love.
God created Adam from the dirt. His suffering for eating the forbidden fruit was to take place on earth. And he was to return to the dirt when he died. His crime was discovering the knowledge of good and evil and taking judgment from God...being like God. His hell was on earth. Christianity encourages people to preach about good vs evil which is what gor man kicked out of eden in the first place.
You have hit a gold mine. The fact that God provided an avenue for humans to receive forgiveness is what prevents religion from teaching just that. They want the members of their church to seek forgiveness from them, and that is why they teach hell fire and immortality of the soul.
The Christian hell derives from the Judaic Sheol. Only the Judaic concept of sheol is a little hazy. The word is etymologically similar to the Judaic word for the garbage pits dug outside of cities. Hence, as much as it can be nailed down, sheol was a cold dark place outside of the light and warmth of the city of Yahweh. Some Christian at some point apparently decided that this image was insufficient to deter people from sining, and added fire and brimstone, demons and eternal torment. The Jewish people are too concerned with this world to have put that amount of imagination into visualizing hell so completely.
Well to be sure, there were pagans and opposers of God's Law covenant who were killed, but absolutely nowhere near the estimates you posted as per some scholars. The Abrahamic religions? There were none. The Mosaic Law, or Law Covenant wasn't a religion, it was a set of laws to govern how Israel behaved amongst themselves and among pagans. They involved interpersonal relations, marriage, health, mental health, food and nourishment, and many other things that were for their own good as worshipers of the One True God. The people killed weren't killed off hand and for no reason either. They were admonished and warned repeatedly and failed to behave themselves. Prior to the Law Covenant, Israel was considerably worse and mostly pagan. No governance existed, with the exception of Rome and Egypt's potentates. To be honest, what the scholars call the minor prophets weren't minor at all either. All of the prophets of Jehovah were equally important. Some had larger roles than others, but all were equally valued by Jehovah. I agree that the death of anyone isn't a pleasant thing, but they died mostly at their own choosing and the prophets were merely messengers to Israel from God. Bear in mind that God created all, and is the sovereign of the universe. The ultimate ruler of everyone and everything. Most people don't acknowledge that fact, but are given many chances to see the truth. When the final judgement of the world happens at the Great Day of God the Almighty, it too will happen as a result of constant and repeated warnings from God, so say the scriptures. The current state of the world is in the same position. They have had two thousand years of warnings from God and have chosen to ignore those warnings as can clearly be read about in Revelation. I for one, believe implicitly in what the scriptures tell us as there is ample evidence manifested in my life to prove it to me, as a result of my obedience to Jehovah God. Before I was obedient, no such evidence existed in my personal life, and I didn't recognize any of the other evidence. I made a choice to be one of the ones who isn't destroyed, so I've spent close to 5 decades learning, searching, researching, and being taught. I can, as a result of those five decades of work, sympathize with what you call Christian Baggage. It comes from the religions of man, not from the scriptures.
Those are all metaphors and figures of speech, not literally immortal worms and fire.
Yes, that's true.
The concept of a separate soul that left the body at death began with pagan religions. No prophet of God ever told His people about an immortal soul. No scripture teaches or speaks of an immortal soul. Jesus never taught it. Christian religions carried on the pagan belief begun before Jesus' time on Earth. You also said that hell is a decision. Hell means grave. How can grave be a decision, unless you commit suicide. You mentioned that what saves us are our actions and words. In an abstract way, maybe. If we adhere to God, Jesus, and their teachings, yes, our actions in that direction can effect our salvation.
And look at the effect it's had on Christendom, and for how long it's had that effect. Satan hit a home run with that one.