There was a megachurch pastor named Carlton Pearson who changed his mind on this topic. It occurred to him that Jesus died to save everyone. He came to realize that a God who would condemn people to Hell was incompatible to what he knew about God and love. He started preaching a gospel of inclusion as opposed to a gospel of exclusion. People walked out on him. His church went from thousands of people every week to only a few hundred. It turns out, that people like Hell. Take away Hell and you take away the draw. Many in his congregation didn't even want to listen to his opinions. Whereas once they were content to "learn" from him, as soon as he said something controversial, he was no longer credible in many of their eyes.
It seems that no matter how much one studies or knows about the Bible or religion, certain fundamentalists will ask you certain qualifying questions. If you answer simply (no room for complications or shades of meaning) and correctly according to their party line, they will listen, so long as you say what they already believe.
Fundamentalists like this remind me of dogmatic kindergarteners who think they know about math. They have been taught about counting and addition and think they know math. An older sibling mentions negative numbers and multiplication and division to them. The dogmatic kindergartener knows that this so called "math" is contrary to what he has been taught. He tells is older sister that she is wrong and refuses to listen to her.
The adult kindergarteners in Pearson congregation were like this. They knew their kindergarten theology and when something contradicted it, they dogmatically refused to listen and consider that just maybe things are more complicated that what is taught in kindergarten.
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