I was thinking about the notion that if God is dead–if God does not exist, and is not going to punish us–then all is permitted.
Only on a very primitive level of development does one only behave because of fear. Morality, decency, goodness: all are their own rewards, rewards which multiply when expanded across a social order, and which deepen as they are understood.
God is not a parent. God is the soil within which we are rooted, and in which we are free to flourish or fail.
The metaphor of God as parent, however, has proven very congenial to authoritarians.