digdug, in many ways I do not believe we fully grasp that every decision we make does affect others. Obviously, major ones will. but small ones can have a tremendous affect also.
During one of my battles to find hope, the thing that broke that strangle hold on my spirit was a piece of gum. An old man was sitting on the other end of the park bench. I knew he was looking at me, and I wanted to bark at him to mind his own business. He chose to take out a piece of peppermint gum and offer it to me.
He may as well have offered me a huge present--why? I was not invisible to him. For a few minutes, I was a human being. I was not being ignored, told to get over it, etc., but I was a worthwhile woman because he felt I deserved that piece of gum.
I still have the wrapper...
So yeah, I believe our actions have positive or negative consequences. I try very hard to show others the respect that I expect from them.

Many years ago, for my sanity, I gave up the traditional idea of God...I let go of the fear that God was a granddaddy in flowing white robes...spending the day deciding who was going to get a dreaded disease, what kid would die and early death, and took perverse pleasure in our frenzied prayers.
I was raised in an environment that taught you got to heaven if you said just the right amount of prayers at the exact right moment, didn't fart sideways on Tuesdays, gave lots of money to The Church even if it meant your own loved ones went hungry...

Repeating myself, but I believe in personal responsibility.
I believe in a Loving Presence, a Sacred but not a punishing and threatening entity.
If I subscribe to the idea of paradise for living a good life as judged by anothers description and demands, then I absolve myself from making decent decisions and taking loving actions.

Truly, I hope discussions such as these will remain respectful and a source of shared ideas without the expectations of conversion to any belief system.