The Abrahamic faiths (i.e., Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and Baha'i) have God as an overlord, and we are His servants. Arguably, such concepts and terminology emerged within the context of an ongoing battle between church and state in the Levant, and later in Europe and the Americas, to see who would get to control the people. So the priests pushed an image of the Almighty that deliberately attempted to usurp all of the adulation that secular rulers wanted.

 

Yet not all of the world's great religions are like this, and therefore, this isn't a universal human need. For example, neither Siddhartha nor Confucius demanded capitulation to their overbearing authority. Rather, they were just sages who offered helpful advice — take it or leave it (choose the latter if you plan on failing, but that's up to you). So outside of the context of a power struggle between church and state, theology doesn't act or sound like a political authority. And if the role of a belief system is to provide spiritual guidance, one would think that it would be more readily accepted as a kind suggestion.

 

We actually are suspicious of "truths" that have to be forced on people. Typically in this world, people find real truths to be convincing just on the basis of intrinsic merit, and people only need to be coerced when it's a lie. So we consider fire and brimstone to be a possible indication that something is wrong with what is being said. Of course, it doesn't prove that something is wrong. But since truths can be communicated effectively without force, and since lies can only be perpetrated with force, we believe that force has no place in theology.