The following is an open letter to the author of the Oct. 8 commentary entitled “Columnist gets people to respond.” The commentary was brought to my attention by my 85-year-old father who, understandably, has issues regarding death and the afterlife. After I perused the write-up I spoke to my father about the issues the author raised that seem to worry him. “Why would Jesus send people to Hell?” he queried with a small, yet quite detectable degree of angst in his voice. I explained to him that the author of the commentary was, most likely, some sort of fundamentalist Christian and that just happens to be what all fundamentalist Christians believe. It is just part of their playbook I assured him; they all say exactly the same things in approximately the same ways. “It is part of their groupthink mentality” I went on. “They feel much more secure (in this existence) having a shared sense of identity with their fellow fundamentalists.