Religion is primarily based on fear, letting go of fear is not an easy thing to do for most people........

@Dhiltong Authoritarian religion is primarily fear-based -- fear of the Hated Other, fear of being wrong, fear of being rejected, fear of being punished, fear of succumbing to temptation (especially to doubt).

The more liberal the tradition, the more those fears are less in play / less emphasized and are gradually replaced by more positive aspects of the evangel. I would say, though, that even at the most liberal end of things (e.g., Episcopalian) its more about love, but still with an underlying anxiety about fear of punishment ... because no matter how elevated the hermaneutic, there is no escaping that the evangel is "good news" precisely because there's "bad news" that it serves as the counter to. Even someone who believes either that god is too good to condemn him, or that he's too good for god to condemn, is fighting (or at least studiously ignoring) the hellfire-and-brimstone aspects of their holy book.