Yes, you make some good points there, Don. The churches have, of course, often abused their power....and have often been taken over by greedy men who were out to increase their own wealth and power, in truth, rather than pursuing any honest spiritual ends. Such is the folly of humanity. You could say exactly the same thing about our political systems, banking systems, and large businesses....all were originally based upon worthy intentions, but have often become corrupted through the self-serving actions of venal men. Any system is only as good as the people at the top of that system.

You say that "Arrest jail time and execution are real, as are honours and knighthoods and the equivalents round the world."

Yes. We know they're real because they occur in this physical reality.

Spiritual rewards and consequences may well also be real. If so, they don't occur in this reality, but in another. We have no way of proving or disproving that at present, since direct proof of any other hypothetical reality is not attainable in this one, so we can neither categorically confirm nor categorically deny the possibility of spiritual consequences for one's actions.

There are countless ideas about Heaven and Hell, and about reincarnation, and karma, and various other theories. I don't know which is right...or if any of them are right...but I'm certainly willing to consider them as possibilities. I don't deny what I have no proof against...nor do I insist upon what I have no experiential proof in support of. I simply give it fair consideration, admitting that I don't know for sure. Some things seem more probable to me than others...but stating probability is not the same thing as stating certainty.