It is an open question whether any behavior based on fear of eternal punishment can be regarded as ethical or should be regarded as merely cowardly.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
Punishment is now unfashionable... because it creates moral distinctions among men, which, to the democratic mind, are odious. We prefer a meaningless collective guilt to a meaningful individual responsibility.
I'd rather be dead and in heaven than afraid to do what I think is right.
If I do not respond to some situation, my conscience kills me. I believe in permissible violence, not necessarily non-violence.
Conscience is a coward, and those faults it has not strength enough to prevent it seldom has justice enough to accuse.
Behaving morally because of a hope of reward or a fear of punishment is not morality. Morality is not bribery or threats. Religion is bribery and threats. Humans have morality. We don't need religion.
Neither a man nor a crowd nor a nation can be trusted to act humanely or to think sanely under the influence of a great fear.
Even death is not to be feared by one who has lived wisely.
Any person of honor chooses rather to lose his honor than to lose his conscience.
A clear and innocent conscience fears nothing.
Fear is the tax that conscience pays to guilt.