Why be good?

[robvalue]

I really have no idea what the point of this is.

All "religious morality" shows is that you can convince people to behave in certain ways if you give them a reason to. Very often that reason is fear. If you make them believe something truly horrible will happen (hell) if they don't comply, or they'll miss out on something incredible (heaven) then you're motivating them into compliance.

So motivation works, sure. So what? That has nothing to do with morality. You're just arbitrarily telling them what "good" means, and making the flawed assumption that any religious "moral" rules are actually moral in any meaningful sense.

Now here's some questions:

What exactly does "morality" mean to you? Be specific. Is it (a) striving to maximize wellbeing and minimising harm of life as we know it, or (b) something else?

If (a) in what way does religious morality do a better job of this than we do ourselves? How can we tell if it is doing a good job?

If (b) why should I care about this definition of morality?