Does Fear keep you from doing Right?

Does Fear keep you from doing Right?

Is fear the true essence of morality?

 

Understanding the Ten Commandments is a risky business. If you understand this doctrine then you know there are consequences for your sins. However, you only understand the doctrine to be true if you believe them to be fact, hence you are relying on the truth.

Are these Commandments an absolute and is the true sense of morality hinge on them to intrinsically right or absolute and do you believe this with a degree of certainty? Get the picture as you doubt what the truth is and what certainty is. Perhaps there is no absolute in believing in the Commandments.

I believe the reason we try so hard to understand these Commandments is because of fear. Fear that if they are absolute, you may suffer dire consequences on Judgment Day. Is that a logical position to take or am I off base with my logical deduction that I believe because I fear to be wrong?

Am I motivated by self-gratification or selfish greed to go to heaven if I promise to follow the Commandments? Am I motivated to submit to the fact that the Commandments are absolute so I may receive what is a promised reward by going to heaven?

How does that impact my own morality and integrity with God or with myself? Am I cheating myself by lying to myself? Is morality for those who believe and not for those who don’t believe in the Commandments? Do I have to have religion to have access to morality and if that is so, is morality limited to only the believers?

Going deeper into the morality issue, do I have to be a Christian or can I be a Jew, a Muslim or Hindu to believe I am following these Commandments because I believe them to be the truth? Deeper yet, do I have to be a Christian to be on high moral ground or does it maintain balance and truth for other religions as well?

Am I moral because I feel I have to be and if I have to be, am I moral? Does believing make me more moral than others and how does that impact my own life believing what others don’t.

Logic tells me if I don’t have to believe then I am not moral and in essence my morality is based on my fear that something may happen if I don’t believe in the Commandments which are said to be the truth.

How can I be moral is my actions are self-serving? What do I gain for believing just to believe? I cannot be moral if there is nothing to gain and nothing to fear for being that way. Do I need to gain to be moral and isn’t that a violation of the Commandments.

So I wonder and ponder an ethical dilemma in my heart. To believe or not believe in the Commandments and all the other scriptures written and said to be the truth. Should I agree that the essence of morality is doing something that is right regardless of the collateral damage to myself?

 Is the essence of morality doing right regardless that I am seeking a self-reward? Thus the essence of morality is based on your decision to decide which way to choose your life and ultimately, either be dependent on the words you believe to be the truth or independently gather the courage to decide and choose what you believe is right or moral without fear. Either way, whichever you choose without fear must be the right thing to do and creates your morality.

How true is this?