The illusion of the appearance of fear has infiltrated religions. Religions by design are guides for peace. Peace is at the center of all religions. Peace comes by grace from God in the Abrahamic western religions, and peace can be found within in the eastern religions. Christianity has Jesus Christ who was God incarnate, a bringer of peace. Buddha was enlightened with inner peace. There have been others who have discovered the peace from within. Both western and eastern religions are correct in their own way, peace can appear to come from without through the grace of God or it can be discovered within ourselves. We are all beings from the same source and that source is eternal peace, we are all born with peace, if you've ever been around a newborn, you know this to be true, we seem to "lose" our peace as we grow and evolve within this world, in truth we can only attempt to ignore the peace that is always within leading to the illusion of pain and suffering.
What is the seemingly opposite of peace? Conflict. What appears to cause conflict? The illusion of fear. Where does the illusion of fear originate? From the false belief that we can "sin" or do wrong and therefor our punishment is death, thereby attempting to disassociate ourselves from the whole of reality which seems to cause conflict and confusion. For how can we be anything other than what we are? Since we come from peace and are born with peace, that peace is always with us, never fading, never disappearing, never leaving. We simply place other idols before our very own being which is eternal peace.
Fear being woven into religion causes religious suppression and abusive behavior. Religions have taught us to be afraid of everything in this world instead of showing us an example of what God's never-ending grace and Love are really like. We are preached at, talked down to from a pulpit as if we are less than, lower than. There are often times a hierarchy within religion where "normal" people are under an entire line of people between us and God. An example of this we can clearly see within the Christian religion. At the bottom is "normal" people in need of God and above them are the deacons and elders and above them the associate pastor and above them the head pastor and above them the church board within whatever specific denomination of that particular church and above them is Jesus and finally we are able to maybe find Jesus's father God someday. That is if we are able to work ourselves along the ranking system with enough moral perfection and superiority to someday come face to face with God.
Religions teach suffering, condemnation, and eternal punishment unless we are perfect and never "sin" and if we do "sin" we need to make sure we apologize to God immediately just in case we are to perish before we are able to confess our "sins", but the apology has to be sincere otherwise it doesn't count. That fear of God that religion instills in us runs deep to our core and is the cause of all of the other fears that appear. Once religion instills the fear of God's awful wrath into us, we are already in hell. Hell is the imagined fear of God, hell is thinking God could be anything other than what God is. God is Love, God is grace, God is forgiving, God is merciful, and God is patient.
In God there is absolutely no hierarchy. Jesus and his father God are one, Jesus tells us this himself. Jesus shares his sonship with all of creation, therefore we are all God's children equally alongside Jesus, no hierarchy. We are ALL siblings in Christ. Jesus died so we don't have to, he shared eternal life with us. Jesus took our "sins" away and blessed us with the ceaseless atonement of God. The Holy Spirit is the third part of the trinity that is taught within Christianity. The Holy Spirit is who shares communication with God and us since we believe that we are separate from God and are in need of God's salvation from ourselves. The holy spirit is also equal to God and Jesus.
We find it confusing how God and Jesus can be one, yet we don't think twice about a child being a spitting image of their parent in every way possible. We are unable to tell the child apart from the parent aside from the size of their body, one being a lot smaller as it is a child. God the father and Jesus the Son are one in a similar way. Too many of us put way too much emphasis of the requirement to understand the trinity. The trinity exists whether we understand it or not. I spent way too many years trying to figure out the trinity until I saw the wisdom that I didn't need to understand it, I would understand the concept when I was ready to. To put this in a way we can all understand, we all are part of God's family, we are all equal with God, the reason this terrifies so many of us is because the "families" we know here on earth are dysfunctional as hell. God's family is not a dysfunctional family but a functional one. I will discuss family dynamics is a three-part discussion following this post. Love and Peace!