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I can state where I'm personally coming from, maybe it'll help some, but it'll probably unintentionally offend others.
Recently I've done a deeper dive looking at my personal fears (common stuff like will my children grow to be happy and healthy, will I die young before I make a big enough impact on their lives, financial fear from childhood) and realized the fear if from me wanting to control the future. So if I give up the desire to control future outcomes, the fear dissipates and I can focus more clearly on my present situation.
I also accept my own limitations and I think it's driving me to try to become better in general and make more of a difference. But this feeling of inner peace and moral conscious is without any specific religious beliefs.
I doubt that anyone reading this, if they're entirely honest and over the age of about 40, can claim their life turned out exactly as they envisioned it. My life doesn't remotely resemble what I envisioned for myself and in some ways is the polar opposite. The road from the far west Chicago suburbs to upstate New York by way of the desert southwest has gone over MANY dams (and damns). Trust me, your decision is the only rational one. By "doing no harm" and doing your best, you can weakly influence your future, in a very general way, and that's about it. Let the rest sort itself out (or if you prefer, let god sort it out, but in my experience he's a pretty awful sorter, and you'll just add betrayal and frustration to your emotional pallette).
Lest anyone think I'm being negative, there are important aspects of my life that sorted themselves better than I'd hoped for (mainly professional) or I probably wouldn't bother to be here to speak of it. It's not all downside, it is just kind of random. In my case the stuff I originally considered peripheral has turned up roses and the stuff I considered critical went south. If it had been the other way around I'd probably be trumpeting how in control you are of your life. It didn't, and I'm not.
Combining a belief that detailed, reliable control over ultimate life outcomes is possible with how reality tends to actually play out is a GREAT recipe for anxiety.
I doubt that anyone reading this, if they're entirely honest and over the age of about 40, can claim their life turned out exactly as they envisioned it. My life doesn't remotely resemble what I envisioned for myself and in some ways is the polar opposite. The road from the far west Chicago suburbs to upstate New York by way of the desert southwest has gone over MANY dams (and damns). Trust me, your decision is the only rational one. By "doing no harm" and doing your best, you can weakly influence your future, in a very general way, and that's about it. Let the rest sort itself out (or if you prefer, let god sort it out, but in my experience he's a pretty awful sorter, and you'll just add betrayal and frustration to your emotional pallette).
Lest anyone think I'm being negative, there are important aspects of my life that sorted themselves better than I'd hoped for (mainly professional) or I probably wouldn't bother to be here to speak of it. It's not all downside, it is just kind of random. In my case the stuff I originally considered peripheral has turned up roses and the stuff I considered critical went south. If it had been the other way around I'd probably be trumpeting how in control you are of your life. It didn't, and I'm not.
Combining a belief that detailed, reliable control over ultimate life outcomes is possible with how reality tends to actually play out is a GREAT recipe for anxiety.
Similar here, mordant. My life turned out nothing like I thought it would, and I ended up with a fairly successful professional life that I never sought or wanted. I simply found myself in need of supporting myself and my child and paying off the debt accumulated from a marriage to a person with bad habits. It was a positive in the end, because from that professional life I have a public pension sufficient to live on for the rest of my life. The trade-off was the happy, long-term marriage, multiple children, and beautiful home I thought I would have but did not, although I am grateful for my daughter. The material things I once desired are no longer important to me.
I refuse, however, to live with sadness and regret over the things that were or never were. I won't blame God; instead, my interaction with what I believe is God has simplified itself into asking for guidance as I move through the rest of my life and practicing gratitude for the gifts I am given. Sometimes those gifts are as simple as the joy of realizing that most of the sunflowers I planted have sprouted and much more valuable to me than a center-hall colonial in the suburbs ever would have been.
To the OP question, I have little fear left, and no fear of death. That is not to say that I wouldn't react if I were in danger, but I used up pretty much my lifetime supply of fear on September 11, 2001, when I experienced the possibility that I might actually be facing the moment of my death. Something cracked open in my psyche that day as hundreds of souls in my vicinity went through what I perceive (in that cracked psyche, lol) as some sort of portal through which some went while the rest of us stayed. It never closed all the way, and I still have one foot on the other side. That portal is right next to us, and it's nothing to fear.
I can state where I'm personally coming from, maybe it'll help some, but it'll probably unintentionally offend others.
Recently I've done a deeper dive looking at my personal fears (common stuff like will my children grow to be happy and healthy, will I die young before I make a big enough impact on their lives, financial fear from childhood) and realized the fear if from me wanting to control the future. So if I give up the desire to control future outcomes, the fear dissipates and I can focus more clearly on my present situation.
I also accept my own limitations and I think it's driving me to try to become better in general and make more of a difference. But this feeling of inner peace and moral conscious is without any specific religious beliefs.
I think so too. Fear of death (never mind the additional fear of punishment for not believing, after you die) is just one factor. There is also adulation for the dear leader. I think the desire to adore the Representative is a strong instinct. And with that goes a desire to gloss over any nasties. Even deny them (1) and there is the odd Stalin Factor. The amazing adulation he had even everyone was terrorized by him. It's in the religious mix, I'm sure. But it enables the believers to claim that it's love, not fear. But I know for sure that deconverts lose the Love very quickly, but fear of Hellthreat can remain for a long time.
(1) note Hannah Reich (Hitler reference ) who refused to accept that he did anything bad. I'm reminded of Sally Brown writing an essay on George Washington. "If he had any faults, I don't know what they were. Which is just as well."
Last edited by TRANSPONDER; 12-12-2017 at 10:53 AM..
I can state where I'm personally coming from, maybe it'll help some, but it'll probably unintentionally offend others.
Recently I've done a deeper dive looking at my personal fears (common stuff like will my children grow to be happy and healthy, will I die young before I make a big enough impact on their lives, financial fear from childhood) and realized the fear if from me wanting to control the future. So if I give up the desire to control future outcomes, the fear dissipates and I can focus more clearly on my present situation.
I also accept my own limitations and I think it's driving me to try to become better in general and make more of a difference. But this feeling of inner peace and moral conscious is without any specific religious beliefs.
No. Fear of hell is not the primary reason I worship God. But it is a fact of life that sinners will be judged by God.
I know that if I step into traffic and get hit by a bus, I'll die. I'm pretty certain of that. Knowing my own frailties does motivate me to not do the things that would result in my death. But it does not mean that it is the only motivating factor behind me driving a car instead of walking.
I doubt that anyone reading this, if they're entirely honest and over the age of about 40, can claim their life turned out exactly as they envisioned it. My life doesn't remotely resemble what I envisioned for myself and in some ways is the polar opposite. The road from the far west Chicago suburbs to upstate New York by way of the desert southwest has gone over MANY dams (and damns). Trust me, your decision is the only rational one. By "doing no harm" and doing your best, you can weakly influence your future, in a very general way, and that's about it. Let the rest sort itself out (or if you prefer, let god sort it out, but in my experience he's a pretty awful sorter, and you'll just add betrayal and frustration to your emotional pallette).
Lest anyone think I'm being negative, there are important aspects of my life that sorted themselves better than I'd hoped for (mainly professional) or I probably wouldn't bother to be here to speak of it. It's not all downside, it is just kind of random. In my case the stuff I originally considered peripheral has turned up roses and the stuff I considered critical went south. If it had been the other way around I'd probably be trumpeting how in control you are of your life. It didn't, and I'm not.
Combining a belief that detailed, reliable control over ultimate life outcomes is possible with how reality tends to actually play out is a GREAT recipe for anxiety.
I am under 40 and that's a good point. I could still point out and dwell on regrets or guilt but instead I choose to accept that life isn't perfect and I'm limited to my own genetics, body, and mind. I can still learn from the past and work to improve myself.
I wouldn't be surprised if it's more common for young people to want to control the future and seniors to desire to have changed the past. Both things we cannot control. I don't think there's a one size fits all, but personally instead of feeling the need to surrender that control to God and follow doctrine or take leaps of faith, I try to surround that control to logic.
Why is there a belief among some people that religious faith is forced upon mankind ONLY AND ONLY AND ONLY by fear?
That's certainly not my belief. People seek many things from religion besides comfort from manufactured concerns. False comfort from real concerns; real comfort from real concerns; to engage in social reciprocity; to participate in group projects; to form committed relationships with others; etc. Many of these things do not require some "secret sauce" that only the church has, but they have successfully branded it as such for countless generations and it's all many people know.
Quote:
Originally Posted by GoCardinals
So far as the fear of God goes - I believe this serves as an additional deterrence for the believers to abstain from doing injustice and bad things to others.
A believer should think twice and FEAR from God before he does injustice to someone or hurts and harms someone. THATS the fear of God.
I will read this sympathetically rather than as you wrote it ... I do not believe you meant a believer should fear that god might do some injustice or hurt or harms someone. I think you meant that a believer should think twice before doing those things because god will then do something like that to THEM. I am not sure however which is a worse thing for people to be thinking about your belief-system.
Here in the real world we can ask ourselves whether a child is more apt in the long run to emulate a parent who models good works from healthy motivations or one who merely demands them on pain of ... well, of whatever. And then we can ask ourselves which child will be doing good out of the right motivation. My suggestion has always been that people should do good because, at a minimum, it's in their rational self-interest, and preferably, because it's in the rational self-interest of everyone concerned. Not because someone might smite them if they don't. Because this suggests that people in the main will not willingly do good unless under some horrible threat. I do not have such a pessimistic / nihilistic view of life.
No. Fear of hell is not the primary reason I worship God. But it is a fact of life that sinners will be judged by God.
I know that if I step into traffic and get hit by a bus, I'll die. I'm pretty certain of that. Knowing my own frailties does motivate me to not do the things that would result in my death. But it does not mean that it is the only motivating factor behind me driving a car instead of walking.
That is a fair representation of what I would have said, posed the same question some quarter-century ago when still a believer. It is not necessarily true that fear of eternal perdition is a motivating force for all fundamentalists, or even top-of-mind. I regarded it as something already dealt with when I accepted Christ.
I did however meet more than a few fellow travelers for whom it was quite top-of-mind and a real fear. I met a pastor who found it a vexing, recurring matter that he had to deal with; it seemed to him there was always someone in his office hand-wringing on this issue, and nothing he said seemed to help. It effected the way he preached and how he presented things, he tried to properly qualify everything and avoided overt hellfire-and-brimstone or even really including it much in his presentation of the evangel at all; still, the problem persisted. In fact it got worse because I think his reputation for a gentler style attracted beleaguered anxious people who had sat under more strident preaching. These people had professed / confessed the right beliefs, very earnestly, said the right prayers, in the right ways, and lived a clean life by faith and yet never "felt" saved and in fact felt subjectively doomed.
I never did figure out how much of this to lay at the feet of "sawdust trail" types and how much of it to chalk up to personality issues that maybe should be referred for mental health treatment. I'm sure it was to an extent the intersection of both factors.
No. Fear of hell is not the primary reason I worship God. But it is a fact of life that sinners will be judged by God.
I know that if I step into traffic and get hit by a bus, I'll die. I'm pretty certain of that. Knowing my own frailties does motivate me to not do the things that would result in my death. But it does not mean that it is the only motivating factor behind me driving a car instead of walking.
You may assume it. You may have faith in it. But it is not a fact. Faith does not equal fact.
Fear is the bottom line for christians and muslims -I don't know much about other religions.
In "real" Buddhism, fear is not so much involved.
But, the less well educated Buddhists who do not really fully understand what Buddha taught are more apt to get caught up in ideas like literal Buddhist hell (hence some of the gory paintings and other depictions of Buddhist hell in some temples). This is a reasonably good explanation of it: Heaven & Hell in Buddhism | Synonym
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) who refused to accept that he did anything bad. I'm reminded of Sally Brown writing an essay on George Washington. "If he had any faults, I don't know what they were. Which is just as well."
