I say this because I think there is an underlying intuitive appeal that people respond to, fantasy elements aside. And it is in a way common sense. You should recognize the mistakes you make and seek to avoid repeating them, and seek to resolve any pain that may result.
It's similar to family life, if you live in an authoritarian and punitive family. Be good or Dad's going to be angry. You don't want to live outside our circle of familial love, you'll perish without the parental figure's care. And you'll lose that if you're not good. Which requires being penitent and obedient.
It's very intuitive. A child will feel like they're "bad" in their very self if they displease the parents. It's not "oops, I did a bad thing but otherwise am good". It's "I did a bad thing, mom and dad are very angry, I'm inherently bad. I better remember this badness forever because I feel [way deep down inside the more primitive structures of the brain] if they stop loving me so much that they won't care for me it would mean my death".
Christianity "metaphysicized" that basic feature of human psychology into a picture of the cosmos.
Yeah, you can squeeze some basic common sense out of the mythology, but it takes ignoring how harshly paternalistic that the imagery is.
