Love Thy Neighbor? Why?

Is the parable of the good Samaritan in any way about the chance of getting thrown into the eternal lake of fire?

 

It's about a whole lot of things, including that.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_Good_Samaritan

 

In and of itself there is no point.

But you can make one up.

 

I pretty much agree with your last sentence. In fact, exercising selective judgment in deciding what parts of scripture to follow largely describes my own approach. People are hardwired for empathy and reciprocal altruism. But this alone isn't enough. Unfortunately, empathy extends only to people who seem to be like us, and reciprocal altruism depends ultimately upon a reasonable expectation that helping others will ultimately lead them or someone else to help us. Many primitive societies treat strangers as sub-human. Even as late as the time of Jesus, Jews regarded non-Jews pretty much that way.When Leviticus commanded them to love their neighbors, it was taken to refer only to other Jews. So the parable of the Good Samaritan was revolutionary in the sense that it identified hated Samaritans as neighbors to be loved according to the commands of Leviticus. In other words, the specific mandates that we think of as morality may not be "hardwired" at all, but are products of cultural evolution in which memes compete and are selected on the basis of their survival value. Our ideals of universal love and brotherhood are the fortuitious outgrowth of historical selection, and we know that there are unfortunately major parts of the global population, including communities in the United States, Western Europe, and the Middle East, that don't share the ideal. We can't assume that these benevolent sentiments come easily or automatically.

I do think that people are selective in what parts of the bible/torah/qur'an to follow or ignore. Some are motivated by a preoccupation with personal salvation, others have little time in their busy lives to do independent thinking about religion and morals so they let the clergy do it for them, and there are always those who twist religious tenets into instruments of personal power--e.g., ISIS, politicians, clergy, etc. But there are some who exercise moral judgment and intuition in deciding what parts of their religious tradition contribute to human harmony. It's a complicated picture that defies simple generalizations.The notion of supernatural agents who could detect and punish infractions of communal codes was convenient as societies grew beyond local villages where people could keep track of one another. TThe development of the major world religions and ethical systems is a major achievement in human development. But in our era of globalization and mass communication, there are also pressures to get along for the sake of mutual survival. Mass communications make us aware that we have things in common with people all over the globe. Some norms promote harmony, others discord. Our hope is that the forces of reason will prevail in distinguishing the former from the latter. That there are questionable features in every religious and moral tradition is best explained by understanding that they are products of flawed humanity and historical accident. In that regard, they can always benefit from critical attention and improvement, but we should count ourselves lucky that they've turned out as well as they have.