Are your religious beliefs contingent to a certain degree on your fear of Hell or death (oblivion), dependent on your particular religion?
What makes Judaism so difficult at times is not so much the hundreds of commandments G-d tells us to follow, but the lack of certainty regarding the existence of an afterlife, something that neither Christianity nor Islam has to contend with. While present-day Orthodox Judaism, based on Pharisaic tradition, does, for the most part, believe in an afterlife, there are no definitive answers according to the Torah or the Tanakh in general (Hebrew Bible/Old Testament), and certainly no description of any particulars with regard to Heaven or Hell. There seems to have been an evolution in Jewish thought expressed in its Oral Law (Tradition) as well as Written Law, on this issue: from the concept of Sheol, a dark underground “place” where all souls go, both good and evil; to Gehinnom, first defined as a place where only the wicked go and where their souls are annihilated, and then taking on the meaning of Purgatory, where most souls go for purification before entering Heaven. However, there are still different viewpoints concerning the afterlife even among Orthodox Jews, let alone other views in Conservative, Reform, and Reconstructionist branches of Judaism.
One of the reasons why it is believed by Jews that the Torah is so vague about the existence of an afterlife is to contrast Judaism from the ancient Egyptian religions, which seemed to have been obsessed with it. Another reason I think is so that we can focus on love of G-d rather than being preoccupied with our own salvation, as well as that of our loved ones, including family, friends, and pets. Christianity and its doctrine of salvation through Jesus changed the focus (of course, not entirely) from the here and now to the afterlife and Islam followed suit in its own way.
So, after all this preamble, my main question is how much of your love of G-d, whatever your religious belief–Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant, Quaker, Mormon, Jehovah’s Witness, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Taoist, Shintoist, Confucian, Native American, Pagan, Baha’i, Zoroastrian, etc.–is based on your love of G-d alone and how much is contingent on your fear of Hell or death? Would you love G-d just the same even if there were no afterlife reward? Try to be as honest as you can.
This thread might have been part of the Philosophy Forum as well; however, I wanted to elicit ideas from a variety of religious beliefs.
