Climbing stairs for 40 days sounds like its own hell.

The common description of what the rapture is, is what came later. The bible does indeed talk about armageddon and the return of Jesus Christ. The idea people are just gonna be pulled into the sky is the non-biblical part.

Purgatory was one of the big issues that started the Protestant reformation in the first place.

I'm such a degenerate, I saw evangelicalism and thought it was a religion for neon genesis evangelion.

Purgatory isn't a place, it's a process. You go through purgatory, not to purgatory. It also helps to think of the afterlife as more of a state than a place, existing outside of time.