I know numerous people who primary motivation is avoiding hell. They are apostolic.
Do they ever speak of the Kingdom of God being right here in our midst, within reach?
Their primary motivation is avoiding hell at death
It grieves me to hear that. In all my years/decades as a Catholic, I have (and I mean literally) heard three homilies on hell. All the others was about putting Biblical teachings into practice in our everyday lives.
Maybe you could have noticed the other typos in that post and what I was asking you to explain (i.e. your logical thought progression), and the relative location of “k” and “m” on a QWERTY keyboard, and thought “maybe he made a typo here”?
Not just In line but alive. No one had any idea what was Happening day to day, but they knew they watched Murray eat a shellfish and his face swelled up in front of them and he stopped breathing…so put that in the book; don’t eat shellfish. And so on and so on.
Was it?! Ha! That’s very funny! You see, I try to read exactly what someone says, instead of reading into it or expanding on it. Spell check and typos did not cross my kind. 
a) Fear of death pervades all our culture- much literature, poetry, music, and art has been devoted to it. It’s utter lunacy to pretend it doesn’t. We don’t have to consciously face it all that much…take great pains not to do so, but the fear of death is most definitely there. Denial of reality to assert “most people aren’t bothered by death”.
b) No one fears birth or thinks of “the mystery of birth” because birth is in everyone’s past. That being said, birth is most DEFINITELY a foundational concept of much religion. If you “see nothing to support this” you aren’t looking very hard.
c) All those other fears, including the ultimate “fear of death” can be summed up as “fear/mystery surrounding the unknown”. And that’s ultimately what religions are…stories to explain the unknown. A mythos that grows up to try and impart meaning and order to life.
d) You have this bad habit of falling back on your own experiences and using them as the end-all/be-all measure of how and what religions are about. Your answers to people reveal this…you do this ALL the time. Someone tells you “Fear of hell and punishment after death permeate many religions” and your response is “How terrible! That’s not MY experience”. As if your experience somehow negates what was told to you about other religions/denominations/beliefs/experiences. You really need to understand this is not an answer to people’s questions/statements. REGARDLESS of your personal experiences of religion, it is a FACT that a foundational concept of many religions, INCLUDING Christianity, is eternal reward for belief, or eternal punishment for unbelief, after death.
In case you ever wonder why people get upset with you, this habit of yours is probably the main reason why. It comes off as extreme arrogance…that we are your pupils, and only you have understanding.
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This. Theres nothing wrong with sharing it, but it isnt very valuable when discussing history of human civilization and all the ways religion has manifest.
[quote=“JayJay, post:212, topic:101247”]
You have this bad habit of falling back on your own experiences and using them as the end-all/be-all measure of how and what religions are about. Your answers to people reveal this…you do this ALL the time.[/quote]
Correct. I ALWAYS use my own experiences and studies. I cannot and do not speak for others.
Personally, I don’t see my experiences as negating anything. How can they? All they do is add to data already collected. What I add should not take away a thing. What is added after I respond certainly doesn’t have me feeling something was taken from me. Rather, I feel something has been given to me. (Another instance of where I apparently see things differently than others do.)
And I believe, based on my own experiences and reading the experiences of others through the ages, there is more to it than fear of death. As I mentioned earlier, this really sparked my interest years ago, and I did a lot of research on it, which I presented here, noting that it was years old. Again, adding to what is being presented, and subtracting nothing.
Actually, I am concentrating on the topic, and what people may think of me isn’t worth the time of day compared to an interesting topic. As I can’t help what online people think or even be certain as to what they are thinking, I pass on that element. Thank you for saying I am arrogant. No one in real life thinks anything I say amounts to arrogance. In real life I’m just another opinion based on my lines of research and my own experiences. Everyone else sees what they offer based on their experiences and research to be equally as valid–often more so. But they say they enjoy my input. It’s different.
Also, once people leave the topic and begin discussing me, I ignore them. I am not interested in me. That I responded to this part of your post is an exception that likely won’t happen again in years, if ever.
I am not intimidated or upset by different opinions, perspectives, and experiences, and it astonishes me that apparently others are. My view is we are re just talking, sharing information, perspectives and experiences. I enjoy it, and am disappointed that others do not.
Again, I will not be responding to any more personal posts, and will return to ignoring all posts of a personal nature. That is what works best for me.
There is no pretense on this. The question was whether it is enough to develop religious beliefs. It just occurred to me that there are many other topics covered by literature, poetry, music, and art that are not proposed as the cause for religion to develop.
In short, by being satisfied that religions were created by man due to death, could we have overlooked something? If so, what might we have missed?
Except… when, you know, you use your experience to negate things:
Are you not here saying fear is a historical motivator in religion?
Part and parcel of religion is also addressing what is known; what experiences have worked, and what has not. I would say that, overall, the Bible falls more into this category.
I am asking whether they may be a stronger motivator than fear.
Ok, for clarification, you agree that fear of death has been a motivating factor throughout history?
No. I am saying I do not know. I am noting that my experience and research do raise the question of whether mankind has such an innate fear of death it resulted in the creation of religion. So I am asking, how much do you fear death? Enough to start a religion? Enough to join a religion?
People definitely fear punishment in the afterlife. People have had near death experiences and didnt become religious. I’ve already said fear of death isnt the only way.
You really dont believe fear of death played a role in our development of religion?
I have already said several times that I don’t know. What I do know is that people I have talked with (both atheists and people of faith) have said they don’t have any particular fear of death. So, to broaden my data base, I looked into research others had done. People wonder about death. Most don’t care to die any time soon. But nor does either atheist or believer (as a whole) have any morbid fear of death. Since everyone knows its going to happen, there is more of an acceptance that one day…
Look at our commercials. Seems like most people have a greater fear of looking old than they have of death!
Yet, many people today fear punishment after death. Many people believe in hell.
58% of US adults
How deep were your studies?
For disclosure I am a cultural Christian. I have heard it called “Anglican Atheist” before. People like Richard Dawkins and Douglas Murray refer themselves as this. Basically we believe Christianity has worth in our society. There is a good argument that human rights came in essence from our Anglican Christian society, so there is worth to it, in my belief.
Where cultural Christians differ from atheists is we don’t war on our countries religion, and yes this is technically and Judeo/Christian/Secularist country. Literally every poll published shows religious people are happier than atheists, by a large margin. As well as social conservatives (not Fiscal) are much happier than progressives.
Who am I to take that away from them? Also if one looks deeply they can see what religion is being replaced with in far left enclaves like Portland. Politics is becoming the new religion, were you are sinner for having a different opinion (And redemption isn’t easy). In my view sometimes it’s not a bad idea to keep the rabbit in the hat.
