Hell is optional.

People think that God sends people to hell, but He doesn't really. The "lake of fire" was created for Satan and the angels who rebelled against Him. Satan hates God and, thus, he hates people. He's already defeated, but he's determined to take as many down with him as he can. Which kind of makes sense - if your enemy defeats you, the only thing you can do is hurt Him as much as possible on your way out.

The world as we know it is coming to an end. God's kingdom will last forever, but creation - in it's current condition - is coming to the end of it's time. Jesus is going to come back and whether it's in five years or fifty, death will finally be no more.

So you have to be somewhere for eternity (because your spirit is eternal), and when Jesus' 1000-year construction project is finished, and heaven and earth come together as one, there are only going to be two options: in God's presence, or not.

The first is difficult. God is perfect. Sin cannot exist in His perfect presence ... because then it wouldn't be perfect. And God is more powerful than sin, so sin loses.

If you are tarnished by sin, then (no matter how small it seems to you), you can't be in God's presence. It's not because He's mean or cruel, it's just the way it is. A does not equal B.

Still, He loves you inordinately, so He made it really easy for you to insure that you could be forever in His presence. When you commit your life to Christ, He commits His to you, and He cleans you up so you can have Option A at the end of this age.

So when Lex said that people go to hell because they chose to, she was talking about people choosing to ignore Jesus. It's a simple choice that everyone has to make, and no one will have an excuse for their choice when the time comes to answer for it. You either chose Jesus or you didn't, and if you didn't, you chose to not be in His presence.

Hell is where God is not, and it's not the Vegas casino that Hollywood portrays it as. It's not a lustful, fun, guilt-free environment because the Moral Police is finally out of your hair. God is love, justice, mercy, compassion, joy, gentleness, etc. Where God is not - those things are also not. Without God you're left with hate, anger, pain, suffering, guilt, shame, rage, torment, etc.

Everyone has to choose. Some people choose Christ. Some people choose hell.