If you take religion from it's infancy - pre-bible [gasp, yep, before God, the prophesies and Jesus] than yes, there was no punishment for sin per se.  In fact if you look at most pre-Christian or even religions that existed with Hebrews/Jews they had no problems with sex outside marriage, worshipping many gods, etc.  The laws about stealing and such were not religious but community based and some cultures/religions did not see it as sin - look at Indians - the feathered kind not the dotted - they had no problems reconciling with their Gods stealing stuff - including chicks. 

 

There are a handful of major religions that do believe in Sin, the Devil and Hell but most believed if you fell in battle, lived a good life and such you were good.  Even Egyptians did not have a hang up about the afterlife in the belief that there was a hell - if your heart was not good you just simply stopped existing - and good was not tied into believing any one particular god - you had several to choose from. 

 

The concept of sin is really just taking doing bad things and upping the consequences to a whole new dimension because a lot of cultures and religions did not have such stuff and Christians, Jews, Muslims and such wanted to give people yet another reason to do what they were told - on top of political reasons, laws and community beliefs.  It is something that evolved in some religions but a lot of religions don't have sin per se, they certainly don't have hell nor tortures beyond belief in the afterlife.  Take for instance Pagans - many different groups and yet none of them say yep you slept with so and so therefore your going hell.  They don't care who you slept with and neither do the Gods.  Go figure.  Buddhist believe in reincarnation - not hell - until you become a balanced and good person you keep plugging at life - one life time after another but no hell fire, damnation nor demons.