The reason behind the promotion of this notion was that...

The reason behind the promotion of this notion was that after the Industrial Revolution in Europe, the increasing scientific discoveries, and the advancement of new hypotheses on the planet and the state of motion of the sun, earth and other planets by Kepler, Copernicus and Galileo, Western scientists found that scientific narratives were inconsistent with the narratives recorded in Judeo-Christian scripture, i.e. the Old and New Testaments.

They realized that the acceptance of scientific or astronomical views and theories would render some religious narratives false and far from reality, thus striking a blow to the edifice of Judeo-Christian faith. Once the subjects of the Old and New Testaments were found to be incorrect, baseless and groundless, the foundations of the two faiths would be weakened, especially Christianity which was one of the religions in the world with the largest following.

After the Renaissance, they tried hard to maintain the credibility of the Bible and keep the foundation of the Judeo-Christian faith. The product of their efforts was as follows: Religious narratives and subjects mentioned in the Bible would become incompatible with scientific achievements and new scientific theories if the language of religion was regarded as realistic language expressing actual or objective realities and truths.

But if the language of religion was placed among unrealistic languages—like that of poetry, mysticism and fiction—which never intended to speak about objective realities out there, and the narratives in the Bible—like fiction and legend—were compiled for specific purposes and not supposed to identify objective scientific realities, no incompatibility and conflict of any sort between religious narratives and scientific narratives or objective realities would ever emerge.

The implication of this view was that subjects about God, revelation, Resurrection, paradise, hell, and other narratives of the Bible were merely for the guidance of people, to discern the good and identify bad traits and beliefs. Consequently, through discernment and awareness the believers had to perform good deeds and shun evil deeds. They were not supposed to tell lies, backbite, and oppress others.

If it was said that anyone who oppressed others would be chastised and tortured in the hereafter, it actually embodied only the evil and wickedness of oppression and did not indicate that heaven and hell really existed in the hereafter.