I've been thinking alot about how I'm going to teach my children about the after life when they are old enough to start asking questions. I've been thinking about it because I do NOT want to leave this up to whatever church I happen to be going to at the time. I think I will use the following parable:
When you die you go to a road that stretches out in two directions. One goes to Heaven, the other goes to Hell. You are free to choose the path that goes to Hell but before you get there you will encounter the body of Jesus blocking the path. You will have to step over Jesus' body and jump into Hell. No one will force you to jump in, but you must step over the body of Jesus and jump in yourself.
If you choose the path that leads to Heaven, then all along the path you will encounter the times you hurt others and hurt yourself. Each encounter will have a lesson for you to learn. Once you have learned all the lessons of all the times in your life that you hurt others or hurt yourself you will be able to enter Heaven.