(May 26, 2015 at 7:29 pm)Randy Carson Wrote: If there is no God, then there is no hell; and if there is no hell, then there are no ultimate, eternal repercussions, good or bad, for how we live out our mortal lives. Of course, atheists insist that people should be "good without God."
But why? If God does not exist, why be good?
This question gets boring, Randy. You believe in hell right? So let's say that there is no hell, would you still be good? I personally don't see why people would need an ultimate or eternal consequence to motivate them to be good. Why aren't the very real here and now consequences of our actions good enough to motivate you to be good? Doing good and ethical things feels good. Doing things that you personally feel are bad feels bad, and usually has it's own natural negative consequence. I took an ethics class in highschool and we discussed something I found very interesting. I don't remember who the idea came from, but it was basically that people's moral compasses tend to be shaped by their actions, rather than their actions depending on their morals. So, if you feel something is morally wrong and you continue to do it anyways, you will eventually come to rationalize that thing as being morally acceptable. I wonder how much truth there is to that. From an evolutionary stance, I would say doing what people tend to think is right, and not doing what people ten to think is wrong would be good for our species. Science isn't really my strong point though.
The real question is, why are you good? Is it really only because you fear going to hell? And if so, does that really make you a good person? Or more like a bad person being blackmailed into making good choices by threat?
