Why do members of certain religions want to save my soul? What’s in it for them?
I see this destined for IMHO, so…
The more souls they ‘save’, the bigger prize they get from God. ‘Ooh! One more, and I’ll win the toaster oven!’
Actually, I think it’s that their god is the One True God, and their OTG’s rules must absolutely be adhered to (except when they break them themselves). By gathering souls for their OTG, they are making the already infinitely-powerful OTG more infinitely-powerful. So they get to say that they’re part of The Team.
Or something.
You may laugh, but it’s love. If I believed in hell, I’d want to do anything I could to save people from it. Even people I hate, because hell is worse than anything they could conceivably deserve.
Also some pragmatism, if one believes that people of faith are better-behaved than sinners. Lower crime rates, less social stress, etc.
(I don’t believe either of these, but if I did, I’d want to go out and convert people, for their sake and for society’s sake.)
As they understand it, they have been commanded to do so by their deity or deities, to prevent you from suffering something infinitely harmful. And you don’t get to tell the God(s) to go manifest him/themselves 'cause you’d rather not bother the other guy.
I don’t think most believers feel that God grows more powerful with additional believers. It’s more a case that God deserves love for the things he’s done, so additional converts provide additional love.
It’s because of memetics. Memes that spread more easily from person to person tend to spread more easily from person to person.
So a religion that teaches people they should spread the religion spreads more than a religion that doesn’t.
Rinse and repeat for 2000 years, and it turns out there are lots of religions that tell their followers to convert people and harshly punish people who leave. Sure, there are still lots of smaller traditional religions out there, but proselytizing religions tend to spread, non-proselytizing religions tend not to spread. Simple logic.
Following orders (Matthew 28:19 – “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit”)
Truly wanting to do something good for a fellow human.
Seeking (often subconsciously) verification that they’re right about their religion – if you convert, it affirms their belief.
Any, some, or all of those may apply with a given individual.
What Lemur866 said.
But also we can’t ignore human psychology for why religions exist in the first place and why they take the typical kinds of forms that they do.
Our tribal nature, our desire to be doing something “useful”, our sense of what’s “fair” etc.
So we feel pretty good doing busywork, and following arbitrary rules, for god. A religion that didn’t ask anything of us would not be successful.
Then, inevitably, even if the religion doesn’t explicitly tell us to, we want to change / convince the people who don’t care about our arbitrary rules and/or have their own set.
Or, indeed, historically and in some cases still: eliminate them.
A good person doesn’t want to see others suffer. He or she especially wouldn’t want to see anyone experience the ultimate possible suffering. So if a person believes that Hell is the ultimate possible suffering, and believes that a particular person is heading in that direction, of course they’ll try to change that person’s course.
Follow the money. The more you feel you’re ‘saved’, the more money you’ll kick in. I know that’s cynical, but it seems borne out more often than not.
Some times you are right. And that is really sad.
Why am I concerned if you go to hell?
I serve a loving God. He loved me before I turned to him. I have found wonderful benefits is serving God. I have learned to lover others even those who think me a fool as there are many on this board.
For one thing God commanded that I reach out to you. God love you even if you reject him, so if I love God should I not also love you? Shouldn’t I want what God wants for you?
And yes there is some joy for me in seeing some one turn their life around.
Or as my Mom use to say Love wasn’t put in your heart to stay. Love is not love until it is given away.
Yes some times I fail there are people that I smile when they get hurt. But God and I are working on that.
The same reason I’m concerned that you wear your seat-belt, but infinitely more important.
What if there were 5,00 different brands of seatbelt, and no evidence that any of them have ever saved a life?
Why do secular folk care if kids smoke?
Same principle. You see people doing something you believe will result in terrible consequences (be it Hell or lung cancer), you should want to save them, to protect them from themselves.
There’s no need to look for sinister ulterior motives.
You have religion mixed up with Scientology.
Then you have to ask yourself a few questions. What do I lose by fastening my seat belt? What might I lose if I don’t fasten my seat belt?
Wouldn’t it be easier for god to just do away with Hell than try to convince all of his followers to convince the rest of us?
Because true religion doesn’t scare the masses into giving money that they can’t really afford to lose to provide opulent lifestyles for it’s top members.
You won’t like it there, unless all of your buddies are with you. Takes a while to get there you have to filter trough life for a while and if you haven’t done anything all that bad God will let you slide, but if you start a mass shooting or something and are a threat to society then you will find your passageway there increased.
Take the narrow path and strive to enter in through the narrow gate for broad is the gate to perdition (hell).
Besides the penalty for hell is that they won’t tell you what is going on for the first fifty years and then you get to be on the joke for the next arrivals.