Why do people worship their favorite imaginary deity out of fear?

@SW-User People are suppose to love God but it seems counterproductive when people "love" someone or something because they are afraid of it.
Fear and love are polar opposite feelings.

In fact, some might argue that true fear is the purest form of hatred.

Plus, the threat of some eternal hell seems to negate all the good stuff. Like, "Is THAT what is coming when we die?" Even if we think we are on the road to heaven, what about our loved ones who died and we know they are likely going to end up in hell? Are we suppose to dismiss it as, "Tough luck for them".

Some people believe no one is in heaven or hell yet and just waiting on some judgement day but that still is of little comfort.

@SW-User Its based on fear of not being with god or in heaven.
Selfish motives.

@Punches @Entwistle Saying it's based on fear is like saying you visit your parents because you fear being disowned

@SW-User When I was in elementary school I remember seeing these church pamphlets that would talk about going to hell. Of course on the front was a drawing of people in hell.

Religion and righteousness and whatever it is called boils down to one thing - worship God or he will send you to hell. This very threat has caused more people to hate God than anything.

@Punches according to the biblical fairy tale, hell is temporary and lots of people end-up in hell. It's just one of three places the dead go to: hell; death; or the sea. Everyone makes bail on Judgment Day and hell and death are tossed into the lake of fire. Souls that have been in hell can end up in the golden cube or on the planet where it is.

It may be more appropriate to consider hell as being simply buried in the ground. The old thinking was that the underground was a place of torment.

In the Islamic version, when people die they simply stay dead until Judgment Day when they are resurrected. At that time the bad ones, mostly women, end up in hell where they are tortured forever. So, it pays to know your hells.

@Diotrephes
Well I will... I will get right on studying that. 🤔

@Punches Here are some references:

https://sunnah.com/search?q=hell

https://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/k/koran/koran-idx?type=simple&q1=hell&size=All

https://www.biblegateway.com/quicksearch/?quicksearch=hell&resultspp=250&version=TLB

@Punches But there are plenty of Bible based books with imagery of heaven, how come those didn't bring joy to you?

@SW-User Maybe it is because they are imaginary?

@Diotrephes but so would the ones of hell then?

@SW-User All of it is imaginary and no one follows it because if they did they would become insane criminals. Pick out just about any page at random and if you did what it says it would make you into a criminal, or at least a lunatic.

@Diotrephes So if both heaven and hell imagery is fake why is one a valid enough reason to inspire fear yet the other not enough to inspire joy and intrigue in one's maker?

@SW-User People tend to fear bad things more than they appreciate good things.