Has the threat of a retributive God ever stopped the rich and powerful from doing what they wanted?

A good question, and one I've often used. Still, would Ebenezer have changed his ways if Marley had come back to tell him that God welcomed him home even after he'd turfed all those widows and orphans?

There are those who will do ill no matter what. There are those who will be altrusitc no matter what. Those are the extremes, no less than other extremes we all know.

But a society doesn't run on extremes. It runs on the vast majority who fall in the nebulous middle ground.

I'm sure we still have retributive forces in our collective minds. 

The focus has shifted though.  An big example is health.  "Being good" means exercising, not eating bacon, giving up smoking etc.  "Being bad" is....well you get the drift.  If you're "good", you'll won't get sick, you'll have abs of steel or be able to get an erection.  If ypu're "bad", you're arteries will harden, you'll become a slob, and get cancer.  You've missed the mark.  You've failed.  I'm sure lots of people who are ill feel responsible in some way, feeling they've transgressed some vague "natural law".

Rather than recognizing complex physiological determinants, this model employs the mechanistic cause and effect approach as does classic models of good and evil.  Redemption comes from experts, vitamins, discipline.  If you are diligent, you will be rewarded with glowing health, if you don't follow the "rules" you suffer.  Even though there is truth to some of this, it's the overlayering of morality that has crept into our thinking that replaces heaven and hell.  It's not simple misfortune or luck.

Virtue and punishment seems to find a place here. 

So now that we have eliminated the rich and powerful as likely customers of this angry God can we then all agree that in this scenario religion is the opiate of the masses?

I read a quote not long ago.  It was a conversation between Ella Wheeler Wilcox and Max Heindel....

Ella:  I replied that it seemed strange to me that an omnipotent God could not send a flash of his light into a suffering soul to bring its conviction when most needed.

Max:  Did you ever stand beside a clear pool of water and see the trees and skies repeated therein? And did you ever cast a stone into that pool and see it clouded and turmoiled, so it gave no reflection? Yet the skies and trees were waiting above to be reflected when the waters grew calm.  God and your husband's spirit wait to show themselves to you when the turbulence of sorrow is quieted

Personally I think we should stop throwing stones into the pool.  I don't need an angry God to chastise me for doing wrong, I do that pretty well on my own, but I do need the tranquility of stillness to see beyond myself.

I don't believe we need yet another model of anger and retribution.  It has been tried and it has failed.  I believe this is the message found in the bible.  God began angry and smiteful (I think I made that word up), progressed to recognizing the inherent failure and was willing to sacrifice part for the whole.

Unlike God, we, puny mortals, have yet to grasp that peace comes with profound sacrifices.  It  is harder to obtain peace than to wage war.

I can follow my God because the command is not one of judgement and punishment but one of change and reconciliation.  Without stones being thrown, I can see my reflection in the pool of faces around me.

LB

Peace may sound simple - one beautiful word - but it requires everything we have, every quality, every strength, every dream, every high ideal.              Yehudi Menuhin

Let's take a prison population for example and regard this microcosm of a society that we could safely say is basically functioning without God. What is acceptable within it's walls certainly wouldn't be the same criteria for the outside world, yet the "rules" that have evolved within this system are necessary for survival. There are extreme consequences for those that try to rise above the "rules". What is considered "right" is forged from dire circumstances.

Jump to the outside and  if every citizen of this earth were an athiest would the "rules" not start to get cloudy and murky based on a mentality of doing what's right in order to survive in a fashion that best suits the continuence of the human race? Down the road what would we do with an overpopulated earth? Would it be possible to become acceptable to challenge the validity of the mentally challenged, disabled, the elderly etc.....? Even become over indulgent and more materialistic? Right now we would scoff at such a thought but the earth still contains large populations of believers and whether an athiest wants to admit it or not they are still benefitting from the stability of a general population of believers. Take that away and I truly feel that in time (generational) we would inevitably run amuk. God may not be fire and brimstone, but there is a law of correction and while we may spurn what God has set before us, there inevitably comes a correction that is beyond our control. We see it in nature and I believe we would see it happen within our societies if we lost site of God as the ultimate power that it is. Correction is necessary sometimes and when things become too extreme it's usually welcomed.

I think the world would become our prison if we lost site of God's awesome power.

Wow, I am indeed impressed by the different takes on this subject.

I would have high hope that by now, speaking for myself, to give God what I believe to be due Him.

Not out of fear of the consiquences of our human condition, but out of love in return after the love, grace, & mercy He has shown me in my life.

I beleive God was seen as a vengeful God in the OT because this was how mankind had seen His Almighty & absolute authoritive nature.

This was an interpretation of this & that God is a God who doen't allow His creation to develop a standard in which we as His creation elevate ourselves above Him because this is just not tolerable in the way in which the balance of serenity within the Kingdom. The Kingdom of God just cannot afford it.

The cost is just too great.

I know this sounds all Lord of the Rings fantasy'n all.

But this is how I see it.

Bolt

Waterfall:  The phenomenon you describe already happens.  A society's god's morals change with time, since they are projections of the society believing in that god.  The foggy moral drift already occurs.  We're just not honest about its source.

For me examples of an angry and retributive God is found only in the Old Testament. And in the Old Testament also there is support for violence and war justified by God. The message of Jesus and those following has been totally different. No longer can we justify war and violence against each other in the name of God

I agree with troy on this one.

Shalom

Mate

The Law  <---Karma in action.

We may think we are done with karma...but it's not done with us!

As-salaamu alaikum

-Omni

Flattery will get you everywhere.

It doesn't terribly matter if we could make use of a "retribution-minded deity", because there is no evidence for any deity in the first place, retribution-minded or not.

You seem to have a thing for equating those two as "fundamentalists".  Brett is abrasive, sure, and DonnyG is out of his gourd, but I don't think "fundamentalist" fits in either case.

Back on topic, I agree that belief in such a deity is at an all-time low, but the threat of an all-knowing, all-seeing god didn't exactly prevent bad things from being done before, so why should it today or tomorrow?

As kids, we have our parents.  As adults, we have our consciences.  Both are real, powerful forces that influence our actions.  God is an imaginary force that acts on some, but not even all of the faithful.

The real problem, to me, is when people replace their internal sense of right and wrong with a biblical version.  The religious often ask the non-religious, "If there is no God, then why be good?"

I think the vast majority of people are good, and want to be good.  We want to be treated well, so we treat others well.  We want a future for our children, even if they do annoy us.

But the argument has been made by some of the religious, that if there was no God, they would be capable of theft and violence and murder.  If that is the case for you, please, please keep believing in God.  Stay on that wagon, partner.  Just don't assume that your natural proclivities are the same for others.  And really, I doubt they are their true intentions, either.  These people are just trying to make a case for God, and are failing in spectacular fashion.

So no, I don't believe we've outgrown the need for a large stick-wielding god.  I don't believe we needed him in the first place, and I think our invention of him gets in the way more than it helps.

Basically, I reject the notion that I would be a better person if I believed I was under 24/7 surveilance, and I reject that this would be a good thing.  I think Orwell wrote a book about it.

The image of the angry man in the clouds has not inspired the great poetry, music and art of this world. It is the glory of the redeemer God, the healer, creator, reconciler who touches our hearts. The angry God is the tool of the Principalities & Powers to control others.

The evangelical world is realizing the limitations of the angry God of judgement. Leonard Sweet expresses this in his emergent manifesto.

http://www.leonardsweet.com/article_details.php?id=48

The image of the angry man in the clouds has not inspired the great poetry, music and art of this world. It is the glory of the redeemer God, the healer, creator, reconciler who touches our hearts. The angry God is the tool of the Principalities & Powers to control others.

The evangelical world is realizing the limitations of the angry God of judgement. Leonard Sweet expresses this in his emergent manifesto.

http://www.leonardsweet.com/article_details.php?id=48

Which do you think have inspired more poetry, music and art?  God, or pretty girls?

Hi GoldenRule,

I'm not sure that we really had a need to be threatened.

I do believe that weak leaders resorted to threat and as will happen, somebody blinked and the threat was all over.  It is really hard to put that genie back in the bottle.

Of course, now we have access to our scriptures in languages that we can read and there is no foundational separation between the revelation of God and the people of God we can see that God is not at all what we had been told God was like by those who used God as an instrument to control.

I don't know if it is a matter of out growing image so much as lifting the curtain on it and finding that behind the fierce visage of the great and mighty Oz there is really someone not so frightening at all.

The chief difference being that God didn't create the spectacle so much as others tried to hide God behind it.

We don't need God to be decent people.  Frankly, Jesus says as much in scripture.  God is needed for something else.

Grace and peace to you.

John

Google Search....

53,400,000 for god poetry.

27,400,000 for pretty girls poetry

God wins the poet's pen 

LB

Poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese.       G.K. Chesterton

Don't tell me what the poets are doing
Don't tell me that they're talkin' tough
Don't tell me that they're anti-social
Somehow not anti-social enough, all right

-  The Tragically Hip

Just a favourite quote of mine.

While not exactly scientific, that is actually an interesting google search result.

Chansen, it is the searching that is interesting

Where else could one find such, um, poetry...

I couldn’t understand why she had to leave

Told myself ‘tis is it I’m headed to the seminary’
[...]

Girl, you’re God’s best pottery
What man to do but write poetry!  

Girl, You're God's Best Pottery   BY Nikko Tanui

LB - ah, to posses the courage of a poet and feel no fear of a pedantic god

Sorry it's taken me so long to get back to this.How about a different analogy? -

The traffic on the 401, major link across southern Ontario and into Quebec, is supposed to max at 100kph. Average speed on the highway is 118. Why? Because 120 is the point at which people believe, accurately or not, that the cops will bother to pull them over. Do some people go over that "trigger point"? Absolutely. They're like the richa and powerful, believing they'll never be caught, or that the risk is worth the reward. Do I? Nope, I set the cruise control at 118. Simple observation out the window says the majority of drivers do the same.

If, instead of a speed limit, there was simply an appeal to our conscience on the side of the highway that said "We're not looking, but please don't go faster than 120. Studies show that at higher speeds, you will become a hazard to yourself and a danger to others."

Hands up those who think the average speed would remain 118.

My Hebrew professor taught us that the KJV phrase  "Fear of God" should have been better translated as 'in awe of God" because the poets were trying to evoke a sense of wonder, not worry.

In the New Testament, the angels message to Mary, the shepherds,  is "Fear not!". There the message is one of assurance, and not worry.

An interesting take, nf. Not something I'd thought of but I think you have a point. Is there a way in which we move to keeping people from being "led astray" by the supersized helpings without becoming yoked to the "salvation" of the health fad guru?

As long as we also agree that it's the heart of a heartless world and the soul of soulless conditions, as Marx said in the same work, I'm good.

(remember, I'm acting as devil's advocate here. ) - I think that one of the challenges is for people who don't need an angry God to realize that they're not in the majority. We tend to surround ourselves with like-minded people and make the mistake of thinking that because the majority of people we can see are reasonable, that therefore the majority of people in general are reasonable. For example, how many active posters come to the cafe, compared to, for example, a site catering to extremists and ultra conservatives?

The angry, mean, judgmental make war God versus the lovey-dovey make peace God is well... for me.... B.S

For me, God is shown possessing both qualities and being more than one dimensional in both the Hebrews and Christian Scriptures.

As for Jesus, yep, you can see turning the other cheek, but you can also see weilding a whip in the New Testament.

Making things, people, God, gods, one dimensional makes it easier.

Do we need hellfire and brimstone? Some people do. Some people need fear or threat of punishment to do what is right, whether it be speeding, smoking with a child in the car, murdering their neighbour.... Others don't. Some need heaven and hell and some don't, currently and historically.

Agreed. However, as Tom Harpur pointed out in Pagan Christ, the early church tried and failed to teach the esoteric message of radical love that came out of the teaching of the Christ. In the end, they gave up and went for the "lowest common denominator" and created a cult of person out of Jesus.

Has human nature changed so much in two millennia that we can do it differently? I'm not sure I see compelling evidence for that. A fervent wish on our part that it be so, certainly.

Fair enough. But I'm thinking more here of, for want of a better term, "applied religion." - God's response if we're "bad". Traditional Christianity says "Be good or risk going to hell".

There is seldom evidence that there's a cop sitting around the blind corner on one of the roads I regularly travel. But the possibility that he'll be there today is enough to slow traffic by ten kilometers, no doubt saving a life or two.

Just to clarify, I consider them "fundies", not "fundamentalists." I know and respect a number of fundamentalists.

Perhaps. but the question is a matter of degree. Did/has that threat had any civilizing/governing effect on human development?  And without it, is/will society feel any more or less obligated to act "morally"?  The supposedly atheistic Soviet Union wasn't exactly a paragon of human rights. Nor does the current record of officially non-religious China inspire me to burn my collection of sacred writings.

I think it would be difficult to prove that "conscience"  is any less fickle than "god."

I understand what you're saying, though I'm not, in this particular instance, so much interested in the "version" of right and wrong as in what makes it binding. An aquaintence of mine, a dyed in the wool capitalist, governs himself by the code of "You look after your ass, and I'll look after mine." He doesn't consider taking the last nickel in a business deal to be unethical in the least . His only comment would be that the person who now lives on the street has learned a valuable lesson. He is totally nonplussed by the anger towards the subprime lenders. Why, goes his reasoning, would anyone take out a mortgage that they might, under whatever circumstance, not be able to carry? The lenders were simply providing a service. That it almost, and may yet, trigger the collapse of the global economy is completely irrlevent to him.

 For many people, that "internal sense of right and wrong" isn't even a "still small voice"

I think that's true for most people here. But, as I said to lbm, that does not necessarily make it true for most people in general.

So how do we strike the balance? How do the liberals, or the atheists, who don't believe in a retributive God, accommodate those who, without such a sword of Damocles hanging over their head, don't hesitate to put their own interests and desires ahead of everyone else?

And a fine one you are!  I did not mean to imply that you were throwing stones.  The "we" was a royal one.

My dear devilish friend, I long ago gave up thinking I was a member of the majority even when surrounded by people who think like me.  And never fear for I am daily jolted out of a possible complacency that humans are capable of getting along without some form of vigilance....but still I live in hope and cling to my ideals.

Fortunately enough to allow me to live in hope and not start digging that moat around my swamp although I keep the shovels handy.

I really like RevJames' comment that fear should be replaced with awe.  Imagine how the majority would behave if that had happened.

LB - ooh, they might be just like me

A religion old or new, that stressed the magnificence of the universe as revealed by modern science, might be able to draw forth reserves of reverence and awe hardly tapped by the conventional faiths.     Carl Sagan

"May you seek first the Kingdom of God & it's benefit, & all these things shall be added unto you."

What is it about this message that dictates anything about retributive?

Why does it have to be God, who is the retributive one?

That is the most biggest lie that the wee one spews forth!

It is the wee one who seeks retribution, the one who crawls on his belly in shame wants to share his misery & anguish, his weeping & his gnahsing of teeth.

Why is this so hard to accept?

One can accept a God Who is vengeful yet through Christ is revealed as otherwise, but one cannot accept an adversary even when in scripture Jesus referrs to him by name & in biblical principle would also express otherwise.

The big bad red dude with horns & a tail & pitchfork is far from what I'm talking about.

Bolt

I think you may be touching on something that's been tickling a corner of my mind for a while.

As hansen noted - most people are good, and want to be good. He, as an atheist, gives total credit for that to conscience and the natural selection of evolution to favor cooperation (I know you didn't include that last hansen, I'm extrapolating from other threads and other atheists I've talked with. If I'm misrepresenting , please correct me).

Our inclusive/liberal family, and even conservative believer bolt, speak of being "good" out of love of God, and not fear.

But .... (the little word that negates all before it) are we really evolved enough that we "don't need God (and by that, I take you to mean the hellfire and brimstone version) to be decent people"?

If evolution is truly all that there is, then we should, each and every one of us, immediately adopt the attitude of my rabid capitalist aquaintence - survival of the fittest and devil take the hindmost. On the other hand, if God is truly all-forgiving, we should still do the same. After all, if God can forgive me for being greedy, why should I deprive myself or my family of anything in this life?

But ... if God does indeed exist, and is indeed the "unitive force" that Arm has always described (where is Arminius btw?) and if that force leads us to be compassionate - but only if we're "listening", whether we call it "conscience" or "the still, small voice", - how do we express that? Where is it's power?

What compels us to follow an expression of God that seems, as Serena might put it, to be powerless?

GoldenRule,

You asked, "So how do we strike the balance? How do the liberals, or the atheists, who don't believe in a retributive God, accommodate those who, without such a sword of Damocles hanging over their head, don't hesitate to put their own interests and desires ahead of everyone else?"

My answer is that we quit trying to do what we are currently doing. We do what has worked and give up on what has not.

For centuries of recorded history we know that trying to force beliefs upon others does not work or works miserably or with repercussion.

I believe in allowing each person, each faith, each denomination... the freedom to believe in what they need to or want to believe in. That said, I also believe that one person's rights end where another's begin. A Jew or Muslim cannot force me to abstain from pork and I cannot force Jews to abandon circumcision.

For me, as much as he is maligned, this was the valuable lesson of Paul. For me, this is the "disputable matters". This is Romans 14.

We talk it, that faith... but walking it, living it, allowing another to walk theirs, live theirs.... well that is much harder.

For me, I find balance by fully claiming the right to my own beliefs and upholding the rights of all others to believe what they do, even when I believe differently or am vehemently opposed to what it is they believe.

I can believe what I believe without believing it is the only alternative.

I am willing to say what I believe and confident enough to have it questioned, challenged or even belittled. I also believe in protecting all from coercion and forced conformity, including those who challenge me, mock me or condemn me.

Balance, for me, is in being what we claim we are... open-minded, not imposing our views, freedom loving, embracing diversity, supporting autonomy.... That is what I can try to do.

What can the other person do? That is for them to decide.

It was a sad day when the early church lost that important battle...............

(Despite "battling" for radical love sounding like an oxymoron.)

It was a sad day when the early church lost that battle.......

(Perhaps one can't "battle" for radical love?)

Oops! I've no idea how I've managed this. Maybe divine intervention??

I really should be doing my laundry but I am being compelled by a powerful force....

Perhaps it all comes down to how each defines power.  Does power have to be booming or is there strength in that small voice? 

Does God need to be some kind of huckster, always providing new and improved versions to satisfy an insatiable people? Or are the simple mysteries of life enough?

What has more power in this image

Does this image have the power to compel compassion 

and does this satellite image of Australia induce awe

Perhaps it is not just hearing or seeing.  Perhaps it is a matter of defining power.  For me, power does not just ensure survival but must have the strength to make a life worth living;  the potency to instill awe and wonder.

LB - now being compelled to kneel before a dryer

The most beautiful emotion we can experience is the mystical. It is the power of all true art and science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer wonder and stand rapt in awe is as good as dead.          Albert Einstein

I agree with you bolt. The question, though, is not what God is but what we need.

I can make a pretty good argument that the world-without-a-big-stick experiment isn't working all that well. (being a good devil's advocate. ) 

Can you actually dig in the Muskokas? Beautiful country, but seemed like you either needed a stick a dynamite for the rock, or a pump for the water. hehe

I agree with the awe, and I love the quote. in fact,  it kind of goes toward what I was saying in response to RevJohn. Religion, before we understood the nature of the universe (at least a little) quite reasonably put Earth at its centre and human beings at the top of the food chain. Now that we understand better the vastness of Creation, I am more in awe of its complexity than I would have been of any plate riding on a turtle's back

But, with all due respect to Sagan, while I may be in awe of Sigma Draconis III, I don't find it a compelling reason not to cheat on my taxes. In fact, if I want to have any possible involvement with that magnificence, say by taking a trip to the ISS for instance, logic tells me that I need to emulate folks like Laliberté, who isn't exactly the poster child for restraint and decorum.

Indeed. But how does one pursue the course without opposing the ... uh ... opposition? It seems to me that the optimistic "we'll all do the right thing and tonight we'll sing koo by ya around the campfire" hasn't panned out too well. The "Age of Aquarius" our hippie parents anticipated seems to have been highjacked somewhere around Ares.

I don't disagree with you StevieG. I guess I was going more for the pragmatic aspects of a fire and brimstone God as a moral governor in this instance. If another's rights end where mine begin, that should include such things as not devastating the economy I depend on for my living so that he or she can have a huge bank account. Or not sleeping with my wife (hypothetical situation,  ) . Or not starting a war for personal gain. Or not using propaganda and innuendo to torpedo health care reform.

Perhaps giving everyone all that freedom isn't the best option?

lol - Powerful force? The genetic predisposition to avoid washers and dryers? Perfecty understandable. I think I read a papere once that said its a holdover from when we used to wash our clothes by banging them on rocks at the rivers edge, thereby exposing ourselves to being eaten by crocodiles

There is indeed strength in it. However (a longer word than "but", just for variety) ...

Indeed. And yet, twenty years later, a large percentage of young, average Chinese who were either not born or very young when Tianammen happened, are in full denial. They are quite content to allow the same regime that the fellow in the picture risked his life to oppose to continue to rule, so long as they are allowed to have iPods, fast cars, and the (censored - they'll never see that picture) Internet?

It sounds to me as if you are musing about two topics, goldenrule:

1)  evil / sin / "bad stuff that people are responsible for"   and

2)  God's ultimate power,

which have historically been wrapped up together into  "the problem of evil" [ the logical inconsistency of these three statements coexisting as fact: a) God is ominpotent, b) God is omnibenevolent, c) evil exists.].

What I hear you asking is: considering that people continue to make poor choices and/or decisions that negatively impact other people/the environment, etc, is it not useful to maintain an image of God as willing and able to hand out eternal punishment?  Assuming that fear of that punishment may, in fact, deter or at least limit some of the damage that people do?

My answer is well.... no, I just can't see that it is helpful.  Even if the above assumption is correct, and some folks are behaving better because they fear punishment (which doesn't generally work with the criminal justice system -- longer sentences and/or fear of capital punishment has never been proven as a deterrent to repeat offenders), I would argue that the image of the "hellfire and brimstone god" has done more damage than good to people's lives.  In "Good Goats: healing our image of God" (awesome book), the Linns argue that we become like the God we worship.  If our God is vengeful and unforgiving, this is what we model our lives after, and the consequences are not pretty.

Is it helpful to think of parenting as a model?  In the "good old days," many children learned to behave the way their parents wanted them to (at least while they were watching) in order to avoid corporal punishment.  Postmodern parents like myself are more likely to follow the Barbara Coloroso school of parenting which encourages parents to truly discipline (teach) their children -- with natural consequences wherever possible, so that children are not bribed or punished, but are given ownership of their behaviour, and taught how to make restitution and seek reconciliation.

A much more positive, and helpful model, I think.

shalom!

To add on this:  It's a positive-feedback loop.  While it's true that people end up acting like the gods they worship (they're role-models, after all), we also - later - end up making gods in our own image.

For example, does the Phelps-clan member hate homosexuals because they believe "God" does, or does his or her idea of "God" hate homosexuals because (s)he does?  I would argue that both are true:  One feeds off of the other.  What do you think?

You have good hearing

True. However, the criminal justice system is demonstrably not all-seeing. Nor is it "eternal".

So how do we translate that into a model of God (given that all of our models are limited to human understanding) that is compelling in the same way?

To stick with the parenting analogy, we have a situation where a bunch of parents have raised their kids just as you suggest. The remainder no longer fear the strap (done away with for good reason - barbaric form of punishment) and so our kids are coming home with bloody noses and are losing their lunch money in greater and greater numbers.

I think its a good point. How does one break that cycle?

I was wondering if having an angry, bellowing retributive God somehow creates less cognitive dissonance than a passive/aggressive, guilt-inducing, bleeding, martyred Jesus.  I mean at least with God of the hellfire and brimstone, you know pretty much where you stand.  Like a working-class Dad. 

Gentle Jesus making you feel like shit because he died for you is somehow an even more diabolical means of social control. 

Why, atheism, of course!

That's my answer, anyway, and it works for me.  Those who embrace theism need to come up with their own solution. 

Yeah I see what you mean, guilt as another means of control as fear is the other means.

It is funny how us a humans take things that are beyond us & make asumptions of the nature of God.

Some may say I don't see things according to how God would like me to, & that my take on things is in error & everything of the like, but will it convince me?

So I would rather promote a lifestyle of close relations with God through Christ to develop this revelation if indeed it is neccisary to develop this relationship further, & God will indeed communicate in no small way to those who listen carefully for His direction.

It is within that realm of personal relationship that one is convinced of truth above deception in any form.

It's a matter of trust in God to a point to where one holds fast to His plan that is revealed.

A purpose to do something that our Father wants, & just do it because we trust that if we do it no matter how it may appear, it will work out for the better in the long run.

Bolt

I hear ya Bolt. 

I was referring to those all--too--common stereotypes about God and Jesus.  In my Dad's world -- old school RC -- Jesus guilt and blood was used to make kids behave.  My Dad remembered being yanked by the arm and made to look at the crucifix while being told it was because he was bad that Jesus was dying on the cross.

I once heard something that has been my personal guide ever since.  It was something like this. 

The Holy Spirit always draws and encourages with love --  never pushes or condemns.