Quote:
Originally Posted by hillbilly
If not for the Bible, and as many people fearing burning in hell as there are, how many people would go out and kill others rather than let the law handle it if they knew for a fact there was no God to answer to? Hell, just look how bad some groups act from the middle east .. they act out much different than Christians. Would you want to take it all away, and everyone live in a free for all world where nobody feared any consequence for their actions?
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You are not serious are you? I mean the Holocaust and terrorism are just two arguments out of millions that disprove this theory. Then there is the other side of the coin where man commits atrocities believing God is on their side, or more cynically, victims are apostates so their lives do not matter, religion being an justification for almost any form of inhumanity. ISIS is just one example.
Perhaps on an individual level fear of hell probably influences millions. Get a few people together and a political or financial motive however and that fear goes out the window. Plus in an extreme Calvinist idea of pre-destination it would not matter what one did on Earth if God has already decided your fate in the afterlife. I think there was a sect of this offshoot of Calvinism either in early colonial America or early modern Europe who practiced a sort of hedonism based on this but I could be confusing these with the ancient Hedonists. It is early.