There is a saying that has been perpetrated among the Chinese for centuries which is "Good begets good and wickedness invites retribution". The fact that many people seemed to still believe this shows that how supersitions and utterly untrue stuff can stubbornly refused to be stamped out. Anyone with a bit of common sense and some knowledge of history can easily see how such a statement flies in the face of historical evidence. History is full of good men who died tragic deaths and of wicked men in power who lived a life of prosperity while dealing misery and suffering to those unfortunate to be under them. Of course, there are instances where when wicked men did suffer the consequences of their actions, but this wasn't really the rule and those who did were those who werent smart enough or fortunate enough to keep their power. For the likes of people like Mao Zedong, Stalin and Pol Pot who either maintained their powers or managed to evade the arms of justice till their death (and who might even be revered by some people after their deaths) wickedness does pay afterall.
A fervent believer of "divine retribution" may now say "retribution might not come when the wicked person is alive but when his soul is due for judgment or in his next life" blah blah blah. Very well, but that is a matter of statement of faith, and no one has ever seen a soul been judged after death nor see a person reborn to be punished. To insist that this is true is akin to saying that an African bushman is in fact wearing an invisible tuxedo (to borrow an analogy a friend of mine once said).
Now, since there is no evidence for this "good beget good and evil invites retribution" rubbish and in fact there is plenty of evidence to contradict it, why do people persist in believing in it? I can think of 2 reasons. 1)It gives people a cosy and comfortable view of the world and helps them come to terms with the injustices prevalent in this world by invoking some invisible and imaginary force that would set all things right. 2)It supposedly encourages people to do good and shun evil deeds.
Though these seem like good reasons why we should continue to perpetrate such a falsehood, a deeper thinking would reveal that it is not so. Marx once said that "religion is the opium of the people". How true that statement is! (even though he was wrong on many other counts). Indeed, by believing in Divine Retribution, people are drugging and insensitizing themselves to the injustices of the world. I do believe that "evil prosper when good men do nothing to stop it" and so when one believes in such a fallacy as Retribution, they willingly surrender their responsibility to stop any evil they see to some non-existent higher force by thinking "Heaven/God would punish him" for it and just sit back with their arms folded. If everybody thinks this way, we can be sure that no wrongdoing would ever be punished. The sword also cuts the other way. By encouraging the belief that "Goodness begets goodness" is to cultivate in people an opportunistic attitude to doing good. People then only do good because they expect that something good would come around to them. How hypocritical that is! Confucius was wise when he supposedly said that "if one does good in the expectation of some benefit, then there is no merit in it." Perhaps the most hypocritical people are those who like to chant the mantra of "goodness begets goodness" when they are trying to get people to help them.
I do not believe in any higher power, and in fact I think that such a belief is counterproductive to helping mankind advance as a species. There is no doubt that the world is full of injustices. The best way to make our world a better place to live in is not by believing in such crap as retribution and hence evading our own responsbilities to stand up for what is right but to realise that retribution is exacted by living people not some higher power and that if we do not ourselves do that, we truly deserve the evils that might befall on us.