Is there another motivation for christian belief?

[Napoléon]

Yet I would not term it stupidity.  It is more of a willful ignorance.

That may be a result of stupidity.

Potayto potahto.

[Kitan Etos]

That may be a result of stupidity.

And there's that word again.

[Athene]

Hope is probably just as strong a motivating factor as fear.

[Huggy Bear]

[RoadRunner79]

When I analyze all the motivations I can think of they all come down to fear.

I won't go to heaven.
I will go to hell.
I won't be accepted.
I will be alone.
I won't be loved.
I won't be comforted.
And on and on.

When I boil any motivation down I come up with fear. Frankly, that's pretty fucked up.

Then once you're in, other motivations take over. Power, money, manipulation, superiority, .............

I do t find that any of those apply to me.

[Angrboda]

I think it's more that we as a social species have a toolbox of cognitive primitives, like the concept of an invisible mind, or the belief in the permanence of our consciousness. Concepts incorporating the tools in this toolbox can be acquired like second nature. I think that it may be the ease with which we are able to appropriate these concepts makes it easy to believe there is a truthful reality behind them. They are built on the concepts and behaviors which cause socializing to provoke desirable feelings. It seems an easy slope to slide down, graduating from the comfort one acquires when indulging these tools to a belief that there must be a reality behind them. In short, they are motivated by a search for truth, but the positive reinforcement which accompanies engaging in religious thoughts and behaviors greases the slide toward those particular truths.

I think fear is a non-issue initially. I think initially, the cognitive rewards of religious practice overshadow any abstract contemplation of consequences. Even after adopting faith, believers tend to think along the lines of, "I'm okay, but the other guy might not be." I think that fear probably enters into it only once you contemplate abandoning belief. When you still believe enough to feel that the consequences are real.

[SenpaiNoticeMeYouBlindShmuck]

Edit: Too slow! It was intended towards Huggy74.

For a similar reason the American's rose up against their British leigelords perhaps? It got to a stage where the former had just had enough of the latter's bullshit and thought the possibility of death was more dignified and preferable to putting up with the status quo. Desperation, which is closely and intimately linked to fear. What would happen if they didn't...

Considering both of these factions held fairly similar beliefs the overall shift at the time between theologies wasn't all that dramatic outside of the weird pseudo-socialist orgiastic Anabaptist city states that didn't really last.

Considering too what had happened do you suppose had one side triumphed decisively across Europe the other would have allowed the defeated foe to survive? We'd likely have seen some fairly savage acts of brutality considering both what the forefathers of Protestant "True Bible Believers" and the Inquisition both proved they could come up with once given power had a balance between borders of the emerging nation states slowly not come into play.

Perhaps in that case the fear was less of what supernatural beings from another world would do to you for causing them reasons to be displeased (although that still had a role, one had an obligation to fight for or against the reformation otherwise one might be damned for denying the truth) but more what the other side would do to you, your friends and family if they beat you.

See the fate of Hypatia and the other North African Pagans once Christians came to pre-eminence and what happened to the Meccan Pagans once Muhammad gained control of Medina for similar examples. Both introduced a reign of theocratic terror in their respective domains, and used fear to make average joe toe the party line or else.

[RoadRunner79]

When I analyze all the motivations I can think of they all come down to fear.

I won't go to heaven.
I will go to hell.
I won't be accepted.
I will be alone.
I won't be loved.
I won't be comforted.
And on and on.

When I boil any motivation down I come up with fear. Frankly, that's pretty fucked up.

Then once you're in, other motivations take over. Power, money, manipulation, superiority, .............

I do t find that any of those apply to me.

[Minimalist]

There was a period during the reformation where Protestants were being tortured and killed by the Catholic church. If fear is such a powerful motivator, why did the Catholic church fail?

Both sides murdered each other with glorious abandon until everyone got sick of the bloodshed which led to the Enlightenment and the eventual collapse of religious bullshit.  That is the only thing I see which may save the Islamic world.  They don't seem anywhere near the point of being sick of the bloodshed yet, though.

[brewer]