klatu

Fear plays several useful roles in our lives. Law for example is the offer of freedom for taking responsibility, abiding with law and the sanction of punishment for abandoning it. thus we 'escape' a cultural fear by staying within the law.

Freedom from the fear of cancer or aids or other serious disease for example is a question of knowledge. Unfortunately the limitations of medical science and nutritional understanding make this escape most unlikely.

As already mentioned, fear also exists as a useful warning, like straying too close to the edge of a cliff or not crossing the road while listening to our mp3 player and walking into a car, if, and that is sadly a big IF, we have the wisdom to take its advice.

Fear of God, the ultimate wisdom, if one accepts that there is a God [?] is a question of a different order. As the history of the Christian religion is mostly one of disagreement, and the breakup into different denominations, it is unlikely we have understood that reality sufficiently. but I would suggest that like Law, to escape the fear of divine retribution, [the sanction] would requires an obedience to a conception of responsibility called righteousness humanity has yet to comprehend.

I say yet to comprehend because I can see no evidence of any cultural construction able to live in a peace with a justice which would confirm an ethical/moral integrity worthy of the very notion of God.

For that reason, I can only wonder if the theological construction we call 'christianity' has anything to do with God?