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38. To Fear or Not to Fear, That is The Question
38 TO FEAR OR NOT TO FEAR, THAT IS THE QUESTION
Collier says, ‘The Bible contains one continuous entreaty to cast out fear. From beginning to end, the admonition “Fear not” is insistent.’ Yet a few short pages later he talks of the Old Testament and how war, pestilence, fire and flood are the common lot of mankind.
Fear, it would seem, takes sides and is religiously selective. ‘Fear not’ may indeed be the insistence of the Bible, but there is a very significant caveat. You can only ‘fear not’ if you believe in God, otherwise you are heading for hell in a hand basket!
DEFINING IDEA…
In morals what begins in fear usually ends in wickedness; in religion what begins in fear usually ends in fanaticism. Fear, either as a principle or a motive, is the beginning of all evil.
