Not all religious societies are like that. Doing it properly looks more like exercise towards a higher good than fear of failure.

I think it's unavoidable in Christianity. Even if one's immediate religious society doesn't believe in hell, it is trivially easy to find other societies which do, and other societies that believe that everyone is damned except for people who've accepted the 'right' concept in the 'right' way. I can't tell you how relieved I was when I realized I could become an Atheist and mostly put the matter out of my mind.

this is really odd to read, since almost all of the Protestant-related theology in the US West seems to have dropped evil and hell almost entirely. At a graduate theology seminar on the History of Religion in America, Professor Robert McDermott asked the group "How many of you believe in 'evil' ?" and only half the class raised their hands (about a dozen).

You are speaking of what is called "mainline Protestantism."

Catholicism is, by far, the largest Christian denomination in the US.

Moreover, large areas in the south, midwest, and California favor the "evangelical" and "fundamentalist" varieties of Protestant theology, where Hell (and inculcating mass fear of Hell) is very much the central concern today.

Your immediate local community likely does not have many of either group.

Speaking as a Christian I think Hell is often looked at the wrong way. It's easy to fall into, yes, but not because "you're just doing it wrong" but because "you want to". I can't speak for other denominations than Catholic, but no one goes to Hell because they just-didn't-know. They go to Hell because they want to serve someone other than God.

The reason to be afraid isn't "here's someone who's just waiting for you to fail" it's (speaking for myself) "I'm _very_ stubborn and _very_ set in my own ways. Can I do the work of letting God work in me? He's eager to work in me, but He won't without my consent. Can I die to myself to serve the good?"

What about those who never had a chance to hear about God? That is between them and God. But God isn't looking to throw them into Hell - if they go to Hell it is because they decided they'd rather serve "something other than the good" even if they never connected "the good" to God.

Ah yes, I "wanted to" think of hell as a lake of eternal fire that most of humanity, likely myself included, would be thrown into and gawked at by the virtuous. Certainly had nothing to do with what I was indoctrinated with from birth. You realize you literally are telling us we are "just doing it wrong"? Worse, that we're doing it wrong because we want to?!

Hell is a fantasy that causes more mental illness than any marginal reduction in antisocial behavior.

How many lifetimes were wasted fearing/sacrificing, arguing, killing, and dying over meaningless and unprovable silliness like heaven and hell? How many children scarred by things they read for themselves after years of being told it's--some measure of--the highest truth?

"Fall into" was a reference to the act of choosing "something other than God" in a permanent way (that is, "fall into Hell") not the act of being afraid of punishment (that is "fall into fear of Hell"). I am sorry that you have had to deal with such a fear!

I 'chose' God for decades until it became clear he/she/it doesn't exist any more than santa, the toothfairy, and leprechauns. So until there is some evidence besides vibes and evidence-free testimony, I'm choosing to believe there is no God.

Thankfully beliefs aren't permanent, or I'd still be anxious and miserable. Perhaps you should not permanently choose a god who has caused so much harm for no benefit.

I hope and pray that you are not anxious or miserable and that you can find your way to the path to permanent happiness and stick with it to the end!

That's a caricature of any serious grasp of what Hell is.

If God, as Ipsum Esse Subsistens (i.e., not the straw man sky fairy), is the Summum Bonum, the Highest Good, and the only thing, in its infinity, that fully realizes Man, makes him whole, fulfills his nature, brings him everlasting peace, joy, and happiness (and all who are old enough can agree that nothing on earth can accomplish this end)...

If sin is willfully choosing inferior or illusory goods over and above the Highest Good, acting against what is objectively good instead of conforming to it, choosing a path away from the Highest Good toward something else...

If Man is created with the capacity to know the truth and the freedom to make choices and thus be responsible for those choices...

...then Hell is, first, his voluntary rejection of Heaven, which is unity with God and what is called the Beatific Vision, and second, justice received for committing the greatest injustice of hating God, which is frankly a kind of self-hatred because it involves hating one's own highest good. In other words, God, having made us free, does not violate the free exercise of choice, as love cannot be forced, but free. And since following one's own way away from the objective truth and the Highest Good necessarily leads to misery, and God permits that to occur even if He may "propose" through life events a change of heart, someone obstinate in his evil will be allowed to go exactly where he is choosing to go, much like a drug user can follow his drug use to his own self-destruction.

And because being forced into Heaven would be hellish for anyone who doesn't want to be there, Hell is actually a kind of mercy. But it is ridiculous to expect Hell to be a wonderful condition, as what satisfies Man is a matter of objective fact, not subjective fancy. In other words, it is not a false ultimatum between loving God or getting it good and hard, as if it were some kind of threat. Human nature points toward Heaven, something we can know to be the case, just as we can know many things that are good for us, and that by refusing them, we harm ourselves.

If thoughts of Hell are paralyzing to you, instead of instilling a healthy kind of vigilance and humility toward God, then you may come from a strange sect that is confused about the topic, suffer from scrupulosity, or have a burden of unaddressed guilt.

It's not a question of what team you're on. That relativizes the truth, making "religion" a matter of some kind of personal and preferred fairy tale. Truth is the only consideration. If these claims are untrue, then they're nonsense and should not be followed. It would be dishonest to do so. While we can tolerate a certain range of sincerely held beliefs that are obviously false, and a certain measure of that is necessary for any society, it is bad faith and a lack of integrity to "believe" instrumentally, for a purported practical result of doing so.

The universal human intuition of the concept of God is equally valid as the human intuitions on causality that stands as the ultimate fundamentals of modern science. Math is the mother of all sciences, philosophy the root of math, human intuitions the root of philosophy. The very psychologist under his article we're talking, Jonathan Haidt, have proven this, that the concept of God exists from birth even in Japanese kids raised in Shinto culture, commenting 'extraordinary' on his research being an atheist himself.

There's no point in favoring one natural human intuition over the other.

Then the number of people througout history who claimed to have taken revelation from God must be evaluated for authenticity of their miracles, one of which can still be verified today as his entire life is preserved through formal chain of transmissions: Muhammad (pbuh). Jesus, we can't even agree on the exact wording of the revelation he received let alone his life.

> The universal human intuition of the concept of God is equally valid as the human intuitions on causality that stands as the ultimate fundamentals of modern science.

This makes no sense. There are myriad cognitive biases that prevent or hinder the ability to model reality, that may or may not be advantageous to an animal depending on the environment it is in.

> I also grew up with constant anxiety about sin and hell.

Erik Butler has a fantastic book on this overall subject called "The Devil and His Advocates" that you might be interested in.

Between Christianity as a false religion with its unintuitive teachings ultimately and rationally reading to atheism and the modern American way of life with its freedom extremism at the expense of everything elde, there's a third, albeit unthinkable to many, option: Islam.

We're doing great in terms of societal bonds.

Please don't start religious flame wars.

Two other contenders: Vedanta & Buddhism.