Living in Fear

Its unfortunate that Muslims are focused on "living in Fear of God's Punishment otherwise He'll Get you" [1]. Islam teaches us to be awestruck by His Power, Majesty and Beneficence etc etc and to worship Him because of these characteristics (this is the reason the Quran constantly exhorts us to study our environment to understand and appreciate God's Stunningly Powerful Design and Implementation Abilities - and surprising as it may seem those verses are NOT there as a 'Bible-bashing' exercise eg "Oh look how wonderful 'our' Quran is, it contains all this stuff about conception, does your cr*ppy Bible have anything similar?"). Whilst I agree we should fear His Punishment, that's only as a warning to avoid unlawful acts eg backbiting, Zina, Hedonism and Prostitution filth etc etc We're not supposed to live in fear 'just in case God Blasts us out of existence for scratching our noses the wrong way' - though I suspect some of us actually go to that extreme.

By the way is this really the way Presidential Elections are fought in USA [2]? People make their choice NOT because a particular candidate has weak management or political abilities but because...they don't like his name?!! Now I am concerned about the events in the world's SOLE Superpower. Mind you I do remember the 2004 US Election Theme being "God, Guns and Gays" so perhaps I shouldn't really be surprised by this obsession about a person's name.

References:

1. http://www.gulf-times.com/site/topics/article.asp?cu_no=2&item_no=196320&version=1&template_id=47&parent_id=27
2. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/us_elections/article3216580.ece