Why be good?

[Jenny A]

I find it interesting how many Christians believe that moral behavior is dependent on belief in god.   Not all religions, particularly the pagan religions around Judea, tied morality to religion.  Piety and sacrifice in return for supernatural favors, yes, morality not so much.  Early Judaism doesn't appear to be much different in this regard.  Most of the law of Moses is concerned with when and how to make sacrifices to god, how to eat in a way that doesn't offend god and so on.  Morality in the modern sense is addressed much if at all.  Nor were the pagan gods particularly moral themselves (not that Yahweh is a very moral god either). Yet the Greeks were great moral philosophers and the Romans had strong moral codes.  Buddhists also have a strong sense of morality, yet they do not believe in god.

It should be perfectly obvious that morality is a social construct, not necessarily a religious one.   It is a necessity for a working society.  Societies without morality fair badly.  So to do people who behave immorally, society sees to that.  And that just isn't just laws, it's how others will treat you socially if you misbehave.  Not surprisingly since we are social animals most people actually want to behave well most of the time.

[Pyrrho]

[dyresand]

I find it how disgusting the christian mentality is. Having the thought to well you could kill someone and do atrocities and do
horrible acts and then having the mindful thought some "all loving being" would forgive his or her own actions. That is truly the disgusting
part of a fucking bronze age mentality and book that really needs by all means to go away.

[Pyrrho]

I find it how disgusting the christian mentality is. Having the thought to well you could kill someone and do atrocities and do
horrible acts and then having the mindful thought some "all loving being" would forgive his or her own actions. That is truly the disgusting
part of a fucking bronze age mentality and book that really needs by all means to go away.

Christian mentality is truly disgusting.  It perverts both one's reason and one's morals.

[Esquilax]

Mod hat:


Randy, if you do not plan on participating further in the threads you started and/ or the discussions you have involved yourself in, please do not start new threads, or we will consider it spam.


Thank you.

I'm no fan of this nonsense either Becca, but to be fair, it has only been two hours since Randy posted this one. We could probably stand to give him a day or so before we take this as a shit and run.

[ignoramus]

Mod hat:


Randy, if you do not plan on participating further in the threads you started and/ or the discussions you have involved yourself in, please do not start new threads, or we will consider it spam.


Thank you.

What does he have besides silly assertions?

Now we're just shooting fish in a barrel. 

[Kitty Galore]

I believe I have morals, to be kind to other and that golden rule, I didn't get that from the bible. I was raised to treat people the way I would like to be treated. I help people when I can, sometimes I help too much, that could be considered bad by some. It is a pretty loaded question with too many directions to sum up, and it changes. I try to do no harm. That is as simple as it gets. Now, why? I don't want to do things that give me negative feelings, guilt, remorse, and anxiety. That is broken down to the most simple explanation. I don't need a book, but you can get all of the same moral stories from Grimm's fairy tales and My Little Pony. No god required.

[Spooky]

You get your morals from an obsolete book, we get ours from the book of common sense.
Common sense isn't as common as you may think.

Yep.

Op, that's a really dumb question. 

[Ravenshire]

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?

If you require a god to keep you in line then please, never stop believing.

Morality doesn't require your gawd.

[Won2blv]

I ask you this "why be bad"?

As an Atheist I don't have Satan influencing me to be bad.

I think this is one of the best questions I have heard and I can't believe I have never thought about it that way

And as someone who was a fervent theist, I have never believed in hell. How can you really believe that would want to torment people forever as a punishment and say that he is a god of love. The bible says that the wages sin pays is death and the dead have been forgiven of all sins. God in my opinion, would rather humans do the wrong thing for the right reason than the right thing for the wrong reason. I am losing my faith but I still don't find god as the megalomaniac that gets described here. I do think god, if he exists, made man in his image. And if he doesn't exist means that god reflects mans nature. I think that you should ask yourself why you worship god, because you don't want to go to hell, or because you love him and you don't let his commandments be a burden to you?