The question seems a bit oddly phrased. When I was religious I never saw it as getting something out of it, even though there was a very clear reward to be had (no punishment, JWs believe that you cease to exist upon death). We were taught that you served god because he is god and deserves your worship, and to do so for the reward was selfish. Serving god ostensibly came with its own set of rewards, since we believed that follow god's laws would lead to a better and happier life (and if it didn't, there were explanations for that, too). But that was all just gravy, you did it because you were supposed to.
It's strange to look at it from the other side. Without the main presupposition (god exists) it all seems so crazy now.
It's strange to look at it from the other side. Without the main presupposition (god exists) it all seems so crazy now.
"Well, evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world's data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts don't go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's in this century, but apples didn't suspend themselves in midair, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from ape- like ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other yet to be discovered."
-Stephen Jay Gould
-Stephen Jay Gould
