Heaven and Hell (Carrots and Sticks) in the Major Religions of the World
Beliefs in heaven and hell of the major world religions—Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity and Islam--provide different incentives for performing economic activities. Hinduism and Buddhism tend to emphasize positive incentives (carrots) for economic activities. In these religions, believers who perform their obligations are reincarnated into heavenly intermediate stages (carrots). Those who fail to perform their obligations are reincarnated into intermediate, transitory stages of purgatory (sticks). Supererogatory acts of merit help a person move into a higher stage of heaven by earning salvific merit and can shorten a person’s stay in purgatory. Reincarnations are where the person gets rid of bad karma in the temporary and intermediate stages of hell, and moves toward perfection or mokşa. In short, Hinduism is a belief system on how to attain perfection.
Islam and Roman Catholicism tend to have a mixture of positive (carrots) and negative incentives (sticks) for economic behavior. Both of these religions interpret hell as having transitory levels with an ultimate permanent hell. Heaven, like hell, is a permanent state. Those who end up in hell do so as a consequence of their own free will and not as the result of a vengeful God. Levels of hell, where individuals who have the possibility of being saved yet have committed serious moral wrongs, will temporarily suffer until an intermediary (angel, prophet, a believer) intercedes on that person’s behalf.
In religions such as certain forms of Protestantism, transitory, intermediate stages of hell and heaven do not exist. Therefore, a believer is as likely to go to hell as to end up in heaven. Avoiding damnation (stick) becomes the primary motivating factor for a believer’s economic behavior and redistributive activities. The logic is that since a believer cannot know whether or not she will go to hell, she cannot work off her sinful behavior through penance, she must therefore work diligently in order to (a) contribute to her salvation or (b) receive a sign from God that she has been saved.
Analyzing data from the three waves of the World Value Survey (1981; 1990-1991; 1995-96), Muslims are more likely than Catholics, Hindus, Buddhists, and Protestants to profess a belief in heaven and hell. Given that Protestants tend to believe in the eternal nature of heaven and hell with no intermediate degrees, and that a believer has only this lifetime to earn salvation, it would seem that Protestants would express a higher belief than Muslims in the ends of the afterlife.
A possible explanation for the finding might be that whereas Christianity, particularly in the form of Protestantism, places emphasis on individual responsibility for one’s religious obligations, Islam is legalistic, stressing the fulfillment of laws that are communally enforced. The laxness of communal enforcement of religious beliefs in Protestantism creates an individualist approach to religious living, a focus on the inward, personal relationship with God. Communal enforcement in Islam stresses outward expressions of one’s religiosity and accountability for one’s actions to others. Therefore, in Islam belief in heaven and hell is reinforced through a communally shared understanding of life-after-death.
Another explanation might be that whereas Protestantism posits the survival of the soul after death, Islam believes in a physical as well as spiritual survival after death. The Qur’ān gives graphic and explicit details of physical sufferings in hell as well as sensual pleasures in paradise. The New Testament, by contrast, provides little detail of immortal survival in heaven and hell. Thus, the physical survival after death in Islam coupled with the knowledge provided by the Qur’ān of what after-death survival will be like, makes heaven and hell quite real for the believer.
Yet a third explanation as to why Muslims have a higher belief in hell than Protestants is the epistemological uncertainty that gives rise to what Max Weber called “religious anxiety” leading to increased productivity or industriousness. Hence the Protestant lack of salvific assurance leads to greater productivity, not a stronger belief in hell.