Image Gallery Comment Section Logic - Comment #3,650,730

It looks to me like that quote is saying the opposite of what you're claiming.

Fear of God is basically another way to say "fear of consequences", just with said consequences being perceived differently, which is why Aiden correlates both, but do notice he still said that fear of God (consequences) is the reason "men don't transgress His law" by default.

So, whether he intended it or not, he did say that people do things normally perceived as "outlaw" because of fear of consequences.

At the risk of sounding like the average smug r/atheism poster, I feel that there is a distinct difference between fear of God and fear of consequences. There are people who do not believe in God but nevertheless don't rape or murder. On the other side of the spectrum, there are fanatics who definitely believe in God and will kill themselves and others without any fear of consequences in this life.

That could be a valid interpretation, too.

I was also thinking about soldiers and warriors in wars. They might or might not be believers, but all of them still go to war knowing that they will most likely die. Fear of consequences, then, becomes a blurry concept hard to define and apply to them unless you are on their position.

Even though its a soldier's job to put themselves in harm's way, if you look at the statistics, being a soldier is overall barely more dangerous than other jobs. I had a guest speaker at school who was an actuary and he talked about how insurance companies just assume everyone has something like a half percent chance of dying each year until you get older when it increases. No matter what job you have or where you live, there's some chance you'll die any day. Soldiers have more people shooting at them but they're better prepared for it than convenience store clerks are so it largely balances out. Everyone is playing the odds every day of their lives weather they are aware of it or not.
Everything gets weirder when you bring math into it, even death. Especially death.

Well, shit…

I guess reality itself contains a lot of things more substantial and unchangeable than consequences of actions. Which truly makes you wonder why the latter is regarded so highly. Maybe because our control reaches only that far, whereas the way life and society works… just, happens.