To fear or love God ?

As God in all religions is omnipotent, it is natural to fear or love him. In religions practiced by unsophisticated people, he (or she) is feared as in the case of the Gramadevathas of our villages. Even in the Vedas, gods like Agni, Varuna etc., are propitiated by appropriate offerings to grant the worldly desires of the worshiper.

In the universal scale, the founding religion of the Semitic sects, Judaism also follows the same idea, of a revengeful God. "Eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth" etc. Only with the advent of Christ, did the idea of loving a merciful God was preached. Unfortunately, in the next Semitic religion, Islam, only fearing Allah & his wrath, became all consuming again. Nowhere in the Quran are the believers exhorted to love Allah. (Only the minority Sufis believe in loving Allah.)

In Hinduism, the end of the Vedas, Vedanta or the Upanishads, went further in helping to realise God. In the Avataras, God assumed first animal form & then human, (corresponding roughly with the theory of evolution) becoming lovable rather than fearsome, (the lone exception being Narasimhavatara !) the supreme example being Sri Krishna. The later God-men like Sri Ramakrishna & Sri Satya Sai Baba totally preached unconditional love of God, by showering their devotees with "love of a thousand mothers."

In conclusion, it may be safely assumed that fearing God goes hand in hand with desiring only worldly benefits whereas loving God is to transcend worldly life & merge with the Divine.