Medieval Civilization: Millennia in Microcosm Week 172

Kenneth Smith argues that the Church spread Christianity by appealing to humanity’s lowest motives — fear, conformity, and desire for reward — thereby corrupting genuine spiritual values into a system of psychological control rooted in punishment and promise rather than intrinsic goodness. He contends that the doctrines of Heaven and Hell debased spirituality itself, replacing love, awe, and moral intelligence with crude conditioning that reshaped religion into an amoral mechanism of behavioral manipulation.
D. Divine Teleology, Heaven and Hell

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