very good point. I've often heard atheists belittle Christians as "immature" because, allegedly, Christians only do good and avoid evil because they are afraid of Hell. And it is true that many of us are primarily motivated by fear of Hell. I know I am, in some areas of my life. Ideally we would all do good and avoid evil out of pure love for Christ. But that's not the case, and we need to start somewhere. Fearing Hell is a good starting point - it spurs us on to repentence and reconcilliation with God. A very wise person once told me, if we waited until we had perfect motivations, we'd never get anything done. It was the best piece of advice I'd ever received.
"Christians only do good and avoid evil because they are afraid of Hell."
For some, I'm sure this is the case...however, the proper way to look at doing good is to do unto others as you would have them to do unto you. To me, this is the most common sense statement in the Bible.
In the Vedas somewhere (unless it's in the Bible - someone here will know!) it is said that fear of God is the beginning of wisdom.
My brain barely works any more, unfortunately.