The Invisible Hand of Religion

Many have criticized Jonathan Edwards' belief and lectures about how there is slim to no chance for salvation in the afterlife and that God is actually a punishing being. However, I believe that Edwards' had an ulterior motive in promoting a sense of fear in his lectures. This motive was to arouse more attention for Puritanism. Around his period of time, people had started to lose interest in religion, as a result people such as Edwards started the Great Awakening, in which they brought attention back to religion. The way Edwards went about accomplishing this was through fear. Now the question is: was it justifiable to use fear just to promote religion? Personally my answer is yes. This is because religion usually has a way of guiding society with correct morals, because after all, that is what religion is supposed to teach. Now while some morals taught by religion may be flawed such as the Puritan belief of intolerance of other religions, the pure morals, such as the Puritan belief in the importance of education live on. As time passes, the flawed morals become forgotten, yet those that remain true, live on to guide future generations with the "Invisible Hand of Religion". Another example of the invisible hand is Karma. Prevalent in Hinduism and Buddhism, is causes a practitioner of the religion to always think before acting, or doing wrongs. To conclude, although the use of fear to promote attention for religion may have been a flawed means, the cause it fulfilled completely justified the use of it. This brings to attention another question, however. What morals, if any, would the world have without any religion at all.