(March 30, 2013 at 10:35 am)Kurious Wrote: I have heard atheists say they can be good without God. My question is how can you define "good" without God? I am referring to the Christian God. Thank you for taking the time to view my question.
I subscribe to Kantian theory where he states that an action is only morally good when the other person is the end in themselves and not the means to the end. This seems to explain just about anything we observe in life when we interact with others e.g. when a joke is made about someone and everyone gets a good laugh, but yet sometimes we feel a little bad for that person. They were used as the means (the joke) to the end (making everyone else laugh).
Alternatively, Kant also proposed that an action is only good if it can be made a universal principle for everyone to live by. If this principle leads to absurd situations, then it most likely isn't a morally good thing to do e.g. let every one be able to rob banks. Obviously that would be chaotic. But we could say let everyone be able to give up their seat on the train for the elderly, and such a universal principle couldn't possibly be abused to the point that society falls apart.
"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it" ~ Aristotle
