Faith vs. the Fear of Death

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FatherMerrin said:
I think Father Barron has one of the better views on the subject:
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Those who are sent to Hell by God are not those who have rejected his love as the modernist propaganda likes to say today, it is indeed absurd to believe that someone can refuses the love of God. But it is those who, after having received the love of God, did not want to love God in return, because to love God as God deserves it, requires sacrifices, and many do not want to make sacrifices for God.
 
Jesus could just say to us, your sins are forgiven, and they would be forgiven, as he did with the crippled man before he healed him.

But Jesus went even further, he died for each and every one of us, he didn’t have to die. This just shows the extreme lengths that he has gone through to help us. The majority of us have not earned or deserved salvation, it is a gift from God through his great mercy and compassion, none of us can understand the extent of God’s grace and mercy.
 
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Yes, but he did all that, so that in return we would do the same for him. And that’s where there is a problem! people do not want to love God with the same love that he himself has loved us. We like to talk too much love, but it is only in one direction (from God to us).
 
Could you elaborate on what you mean by “sacrifices for God?”
 
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To ask a viril homosexual to remain continent all their life for God is to ask them to make a great sacrifice.
To ask a woman who does not find a husband, not to have children outside of marriage, in certain cultures, is to ask them to make a great sacrifice.
Jesus asked the rich young man to sell all his goods to follow him, there God also asked him to make a great sacrifice.
Etc., etc
 
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And erring from these sacrifices, even slightly, warrants eternal hellfire? That seems more like a case of the punishment far exceeding the crime. No offense, but you’re making God out to be the same unforgiving bully that atheists like George Carlin are always lambasting and lampooning.
 
Christianity is really inefficient if its purpose is to stem a fear of death. Pretty much any pagan, animist, or pantheist religion does that minus all of the counter-intuitive demands of the Cross. Some faith groups don’t even believe in a kind of resurrection, aka the Sadducees.

Some people are really afraid of death. Some people aren’t. Oblivion isn’t a very frightening idea imo. Neither is death. A lot of people are more concerned about the dying part than the death part. There are reasons for strong phobias related to psychology, past experiences, childhood experience, habitual patterns of thinking, etc., that can create inordinate fears.

You can’t pin an easy motive behind religion. People seek religion for (literally) millions of different unique reasons. Yes, most of those reasons are selfish.
 
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FatherMerrin said:
And erring from these sacrifices, even slightly, warrants eternal hellfire? That seems more like a case of the punishment far exceeding the crime
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We will see the real consequence of our actions when we are on the other side, in front of our eternal judge. For the moment let us accept with faith that an act is grave when the Church has taught that it is grave. To take a comparison, a person can destroy a diamond vase just for fun, without knowing the value of the diamond, for him these are just worthless pebbles. It is when he is facing the judge that he will realize the real damage he has done, and that it is juste for him to do hard labor the rest of his life to repair his act.
 
TK421 said:
You can’t pin an easy motive behind religion. People seek religion for (literally) millions of different unique reasons. Yes, most of those reasons are selfish.
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Then what are you doing here in the first place if you feel a person’s desire for religion is motivated by selfishness? (If you don’t mind me asking.)
 
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I’m a practicing Catholic.

Human beings are selfish by nature. This is part of Original Sin.
 
Thanatophobia would seem to only be a motivation for universalism. The prospect of eternal damnation, which should cause a greater fear than non-existence, balances out any fear that is mitigated by the prospect of eternal beatitude.
 
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Faith in God can help our lives in profound ways. I have been a Street pastor since 2008, we wonder the streets of our town until about 4 am on a Saturday morning. Everything we do depends on prayer and trusting in our Lord.

I can remember the first big fight we intervened in; it was about 3am. We saw a group of about a dozen drunken people suddenly start fighting, they were about a hundred yards down the road. We have a dilemma, on the one hand we have all our health and safety policies, risk assessments and we have phones with a direct line to the police, on the other hand, we put our trust in God and pray as we go.

As we approached this group, I saw one man punched to the ground, another man was being kicked on the ground, and I saw a man swing round and punch a lady in the face.

We walked in the middle of the fight, and just tried to keep people apart, you cannot talk to angry people. You cannot calm other people down, you can only calm yourself. I cannot explain the profound sense of peace that I experienced, it was beyond my understanding. It almost seemed like a power exchange, they absorbed our peace and we absorbed their anger. We stopped with them for maybe twenty minutes after the fight stopped, When it was time to leave, we had lots of handshakes, hugs and kisses.

I was in my early sixties at the time, and I was with two older ladies, one in her seventies. The ladies in our teams are amazing, they seem to bring a sense of peace in places of hostility. We did not see any police that night.

Faith helps me overcome fear of injury or death, it is beyond my understanding.
 
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