This is based on one belief, many Christian faiths believe that the Eskimo would still go to hell.

I ignore Quora.

I remember that story well. The way Pentecostal believers teach it is that Jesus "freed the captives" by preaching to them during the 3 days he was dead. I always thought it was funny. People who died before Jesus came along and suddenly going to go along with this new dead guy who is wanting others to go along with him as he breaks out of death in 3 days. Was that enough time? What if some did not want to go? It's sort of like watching a prison break movie. This also negates the bible verse that claimed the dead know nothing - Ecclesiastes 9:5. If true, Jesus knew nothing either.

This goes along with explaining what happened after Jesus was crucified and also why Constantine saw a cross in the sky and was told "in this sign you will conquer." Believers wanted Jesus alive and Constantine wanted faithful soldiers. Christianity was growing and if you died in battle you would go to Heaven. Jesus of the lineage of David became the Heavenly Messiah. Rome had then helped believers and accepted and promoted Christianity. Note that this was all some 300 years after the time of Jesus as writings that became our current bible were put together.

"What happened to people born before there was a belief in Christ?"

My answer would've been; "The same thing that later happened to people after a belief in Christ, nothing. They died, nothing happened before or after a belief in Christ. Dead is dead irrespective of what you believe."

That's the beauty of reality, it remains the same no matter what people might prefer it to be.

Good question that the Eskimo thought to ask! I remember being taught that if a baby died before it could be baptized, it would go to purgatory. I was horrified to think there were millions of baby souls in purgatory, led to believe it was a dull dead place.

When my children were born, their dad and I had both become atheists, so chose not to baptize our babies. My mother-in-law argued with me for hours trying to convince me to baptize our first born, just in case I'm wrong. I told her that it saddened me to know that she thought our perfect little innocent baby was "sinful" and that a sprinkle of water blessed by the imagination of a priest could cleanse her of someone else's sin. It's all imaginary and symbolic. I guess I could have just told her we secretly baptized our kids, to make her feel better, but I rather liked to see her squirm.

I remember arguing that only about 30% of the world's population was Christian, so will all those other sweet loving kind caring souls, of other faiths, be going to her hell or their heaven, or just live on in the happy memories of others by being a good person? Funny thing, I wore her down by the time she was about a year away from dying, but other family members were still of the mind that our kids needed to be saved.

We hope the Eskimo's life was not too adversely affected by his encounter with the missionary.