I would agree that the above methods are wrong and detrimental to the Gospel.
They're detrimental to people, too. But that wasn't the point. You asked, "How do you "coerce" someone into Christianity?" and I answered. Of course, coercion isn't the only tactic. Indoctrination (Sunday school), temptation with promises of pie in the sky, and steering people away from secular education have also been effective in keeping people in the fold.
The eternal punishment does not mean eternal torture while alive but dead. It means death with no possibility of a resurrection. Nothingness. Completely dead.
Yes, there's one of the new approaches to which I referred above. The problem here is that you've lost the stick of hell fire. What's the incentive to be a Christian even if you believe that this god exists and heaven is an option? Heaven isn't much of a carrot, and frankly, I'd take extinction at death over forced and inescapable immortality. Think about that for a moment - no way out.
The fire described in the Bible is symbolic of eternal death
I've gone a little further than you in taking liberties with what I will consider symbolic in the Bible and what refers to reality. The resurrection represents the death and rebirth of Greco-Roman culture following the collapse of Rome and leading to the Renaissance (French for rebirth) followed by the Age of Reason and the Enlightenment. God symbolizes man and his potential to shape and create his world.
Literalists don't allow that kind of freethinking, but those who decide which parts to take literally and which to call symbolic can make the religion into whatever they like, including humanism as I've just done. You've taken the first step by rejecting literal hell theology, and you did it the way a humanist does. You realize that eternal suffering for unbelief or disobedience is a grossly immoral concept, one that does serious damage to the claim that this god is loving, just, or merciful, and simply refuse to believe that a god would do that. You see that the only evidence for it is words, and don't feel obligated to believe them as written by faith like so many of your fellow believers.
But isn't that also the atheist's argument for unbelief? All we see are words and we reject them as written, the difference being that we don't share the theist's agenda of promoting this religion, and so reject not just those that damage the religion as it seems you are doing, but all of it that doesn't bear rational scrutiny. If you look at
@Kenny 's comment above, that's also what's on his mind when he disavows certain teachings. If you look where I went with that freedom, you can tell that my agenda is separating justified belief from unjustified belief and avoiding the latter, not making the religion seem less off-putting to potential adherents.
I wouldn't resort to hellfire with you, I would explore (my assumption) that you had religion, not relationship.
Why would that be of interest to the non-Christian? Why would he or she want to explore that with you?
Jesus emphasized a relationship in the Bible, God with people as individuals seeking Him. That's biblical Christianity.
But you're dealing with a non-Christian, and often a former Christian, who no longer cares what the Bible says or what believers believe. They no longer believe that there is anything there to have a relationship with but the religion itself, and they don't want that. They also wonder what a relationship with somebody who's never there would look like. I understand that you believe that Jesus and God are there, but they're pretty quiet.
