Where Would the World be without “Fear” in Religion?

Since the dawn of mankind, there has always been some sort of “Fear Factor” within the day-to-day life in regards to what wasn’t known. For example, the cavemen probably thought that an erupting volcano has something to do with a higher force that they must have made angry by doing something that “The Volcano God” didn’t like. Could you just imagine living in that time, afraid to do anything? And it all came down to one, know-it-all caveman who decided that he himself knew what this deity was upset about. And since the other cave people didn’t have anything else to go on, they believed the enlightened caveman and followed his rules. This, I believe, is the basis of fear in religion- “Don’t do that or God will get mad!”
Fear has stricken the hearts of countless generations throughout all of history, simply because one person decided that they knew what was going on. A personal favorite story on this is American Founding Father- Ben Franklin, who, when given the opportunity to think for himself, invented some of the most popular, life-saving and life-improving items used even today in modern-day society. Ben had an idea about redirecting lightening to a rod placed somewhere away from combustible materials, thus saving lives of innumerable people who would meet their untimely death in a fire caused by a strike of lightening. It was called a “lightening rod”. The townspeople all thought that Ben was insane, as he would be standing in the way of the “Wrath of God!” At that point in history, people had a “fear” of God when it came to lightening. They felt that lightening was a way that God was punishing them for doing something wrong. If your home was struck by lightening, you had obviously done something wrong, made God mad, and obviously deserved to have your house burn down, so Ben was obviously a nut for messing with the Almighty.

So Ben pressed on with his idea and crafted a lightening rod. He came up with idea after being the first person who survived(key word here is survived) standing out in a thunderstorm with a key attached to he bottom of a string flying a kite. The lightening found the key, therefore directing the force to a specific spot.So what happened? It worked! Did Ben have fear when he did this? Probably. Did he listen to everyone that told him that he was crazy? No…he did what he felt would work, and he succeeded, all because he thought “outside of the box” with the freedom he felt inside, without fear of religion standing in his way.Ben inspired so many, all based on a “lack of fear of religion”. Since that time, the incandescent light bulb was invented, automobiles, radios, televisions, and basically every other item in modern day society that we simply feel we can’t live without. All of this took place in the last 250 or so years because Ben stuck his neck out on the line to prove that God’s wrath had no real backing, and was simply “fear”.With this in mind, think about where the world would be if such a “Fear Factor” had been dissolved before the US was established. Before then, there were ships and catapults and wheels…all of the good stuff had been invented, right? If we have come this far in the short amount of time since the Founding Fathers, imagine where we would be if we had the freedom to think for ourselves, without fear of God and his wrath, before the birth of our nation. Perhaps we’d be free of disease and all live to be 200. Perhaps we’d be flying in our space-cars to the supermarket in a pollutionless environment. Perhaps we would be able to let our kids out to play without worry of them getting hit by a stray bullet. I don’t know for sure, as nobody does…but it’s something that’s definitely worth a thought or two.