"And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell." â??Matthew 10:28

"But I will forewarn you whom ye shall fear: Fear him, which after he hath killed hath power to cast into hell; yea, I say unto you, Fear him." â??Luke 12:5

Read your Bible before you go off saying that Jesus portrayed a God we should not fear. Remember that Jesus and the New Testament introduced one critical new element that was absent in Jewish theology: eternal hellfire. Jews don't believe in hell. That's a New Testament thing. Jews fear God for reasons other than the idea that he'll kick your ass after you're dead if you don't play nice.

It's no surprise lots of Christians who later wanted to manipulate the masses latched onto this idea of a God we should fear because he'll send you to hell if you don't beg him for forgiveness. Fear is an excellent way to manipulate people, and when they fear the almighty creator of the universe, they will play right into your hands so long as you appear to represent that being.

The teachings of Jesus are so effective at trapping people into fear precisely because on the surface the ideology he promotes seems so nice and peaceful. Love thy neighbor, love thy enemy, turn the other cheek, give to the poor and forgive people...yeah, these are good ideas, we say. This Jesus guy sure must know what he's talking about. He tells us he is the only way to salvation, and he seems like a charming enough fellow, so why not trust him? Oh, then he mentions that if he doesn't forgive you for every sin you commit you face everlasting punishment.

Everlasting fucking punishment. From a God who is supposed to be loving and forgiving. But hey, the Lord works in mysterious ways. We can't possibly understand why eternal torture is really merciful. Besides, if you don't believe in this God and you're wrong, well, you're pretty fucked, so you might as well err on the side of caution and do what the priest and the holy book say God wants you to do. Such was the thinking for millennia.

But the influence of Christianity is waning. Christians themselves are slowly starting to abandon a lot of the core ideas that drove their ideology for all this time, especially the concept of hell. I've seen lots of Christians totally ignore those passages about Jesus promising everlasting punishment, and just not believe in hell anymore. Their concept of morality is becoming more and more nebulous. For most Christians, it has seemed to dwindle down to one line by Jesus about loving your neighbor. Be nice, basically. Which is the morality most people have anyways, so the Christian doctrine no longer plays a significant impact on most people's everyday moral judgments.

And God himself is becoming more and more nebulous. No longer is he Yahweh the sky god who lives above the firmament upon which the celestial bodies are affixed. He is a vague energy that permeates the cosmos, or maybe he's the entire cosmos itself. He is still intelligent and self-aware in these people's minds, but he is something you can't understand, can't communicate with, can't detect in any way shape or form, and is just there, subtly influencing events in ways we can't directly observe. He's just a mysterious force field that's "out there" and generally making sure there's a certain amount of goodness in the world in some vague sense.

Hopefully these ideas will become more and more nebulous to the point where Christianity is totally irrelevant. I am happy to report that it is well on its way, at least here in the blue states, and apparently over in Europe too.