Why be good?

[c172]

If you listen to the person you are trying to help, instead of listening to God, you will more likely help in amore useful manner. And that should make you feel better than pleasing a being you don't know exists.

[Foxaèr]

But why? If God does not exist, why be good?

First and foremost, if you have to ask "why", can you even consider yourself a good person?

Think before you make stupid posts.

Thinking is part of being human, it is what separates us from every other living thing on this planet.  If you cannot properly think before stating something, then you must be a theist and/or a republican.  

[SteelCurtain]

The answer is because it does not please me to be a shitty person. I have feelings and emotions and empathy. I do not want to cause harm. It makes me feel good to do good. So I try to do good as much as I can.

The question this begs is a big one, Randy, and one I'd like you to answer. Is the only reason you try to be a good person because of the fear of recompense? If you didn't fear hell, would you magically desire to rape and steal and lie all the time?

[robvalue]

I think "why be good" is perhaps the wrong question.

Instead, "why are we good" is the right question. Because clearly, we are good, by enlarge. Atheists do not in general go around murdering and maiming. In my life I've known almost exclusively atheists and they have almost all been good people. Some Christians talk like atheists "would murder people all the time". Well, they don't. So clearly, that statement is wrong. It's more a projection of what they think they themselves would do without the fear of God, and that is the telling and scary part. Fortunately, their fears are usually not founded regarding themselves. I've heard many people say exactly this, then be astonished after they lose their faith that have no desire to do immoral, horrible things. They have been programmed to think that way, regardless of all the evidence to the opposite (atheists are not maniacs). I didn't say all atheists are not maniacs. Life is not binary. There are plenty of shitty atheists. But if you look at atheists and theists side by side, there is nothing to suggest theists are actually more moral by any meaningful, real standard. It's about the same. In other words, it's irrelevant. It may be the case occasionally that religion is enough of a psychological program to hold a genuine dangerous psychopath in check, that is some small consolation for all the untrue propaganda.

So why are we good? The simplest answer, I think, is evolution. Those who have been good at cooperating and at caring for society as well as themselves have fared better, so it has been promoted by natural selection.

Speaking personally, I appear to be hard wired to not only not want to hurt people, but to be actually physically unable to in normal circumstances. I can't even step on a fly when I think it is the right thing to do. And I have a very strong sense of inner morality which makes me my own harshest critic.

Theists often like to think morality comes from God. It's nonsense, or at least it's fully undemonstrated. Look at the evidence. This forum is filled with people who have de converted. Did they turn into maniacs? No. Is there evidence of large numbers of deconverters going mental? No. So again, human nature is to generally be good. To deny that is to deny reality.

It is obvious theists get their morality from the same source atheists do: themselves, ultimately. Of course we learn some of our morality from our parents, from others, through our experience, and by having empathy. This all shapes us, along with our evolutionary tendencies, to generally give a fig about other people. Not everyone does, things are not that simple, but most of the time. If you stop a random person on the street and ask directions, probably 90% of the time you'll get a helpful response. There is virtually nothing in it for them, besides the satisfaction of helping someone else. So there you go, another reason: it feels good to help others. And generally, it does not feel good to harm others.

Theists do not follow their own morality that they preach. They often claim to have "objective morality" and have "the word of God" yet if you examine these things, they are both flawed. I've read the bible, I know what it tells you to do and how to live your life. Most Christians ignore most of it. They have to, or else they'd be dead or in jail. Sadly most theists are quite used to the kind of mental gymnastics necessary to convince themselves that they are following it, even when they are doing the exact opposite.

So what is really happening? The theist is doing what they think is moral from their religion. If they think something is immoral, generally they'll find a way to convince themselves that the religion "doesn't really mean that" or "that doesn't apply anymore" or any other number of excuses which seem absolutely ridiculous to atheists. I'm thoroughly glad that theists do override their religion this way, or else you would all be absolute psychopaths. Seriously. Look at ISIS, that's an example of people really practicing what they preach. And the results are exactly what I would expect: Bronze Age style barbarianism.

So basically theists use their own morality. They feel righteous when it lines up with their holy book, and they make excuses when it doesn't. So they are using their own morality to filter their holy book. In other words, they are just using their own morality. Now sadly, sometimes a broken and horrible bit of immorality from the religion will make a good person do something bad that they otherwise wouldn't if it weren't for the religion. This is the big problem. Religion can make morality worse by poisoning ideas with outdated, ignorant hateful messages. Like I said most people ignore them, thankfully.

So, Randy, do you really think the only thing keeping you in line is an entirely undemonstrable celestial being's threats? Does it give you a clue that religion needs to make such horrific threats in order to make people subscribe? Can you think of anything else that is obviously true that requires threats to get people to believe it? Even for those who don't believe in "hell" still generally believe in "heaven". So God is holding your soul hostage. Do what I say, or the soul gets it. This is more of a threat than a reward.

Atheists are capable of being perfectly moral, and most of them are. So studying why that is will hopefully answer your questions

The cop out is always "well God makes atheists moral". Well, whatever. Guess what, it's yet another unfalsifiable and unhelpful totally pointless claim. If you are predisposed to just believe God is responsible for everything, then this is how you will rationalise it. I actually think God (in the bible or the Quran) is the most vicious evil cunt I could imagine. If he was real, I would hate him. I am certainly not "in his image", I'm about exactly opposite to him. Yes, I'm more moral than him, way more. So is almost everyone.

[Wyrd of Gawd]

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?

Being good allows us to make it through the day without going ape-crap crazy and killing everyone.  When people go bad very bad things happen.  Sometimes the normal legal system isn't enough to control people, which is why there are riots and wars.  

[ignoramus]

[Alex K]

What the others said.

In the OP's defense, that line from "Santa is coming to town" never made any sense (in fact, it perfectly highlights the moral bankruptcy of theism), so I understand how Christmas morality would render one confused.

[Homeless Nutter]

[...]

But why? If God does not exist, why be good?

Because being "good" and doing "good" things makes us feel good, whereas hurting people and generally behaving "badly" makes us feel bad. Both internally - because of empathy, and externally - because other people respond in kind. 

If you don't know that - you're a psychopath/sociopath (since you don't know empathy) and a stupid one at that, if you haven't figured out the reciprocation thing. If that's the case - religion is for you. But you'd be in minority. The rest of us do just fine behaving humanely without imaginary cops, watching our every move and policing our thoughts.

[robvalue]

Even if you have no empathy, it shouldn't take long to realise that acting like a dickwad will cause you trouble. If you keep throwing bricks through your neigbour's window, they're going to retaliate or call the police. And if you ever need help from them, they'll tell you to fuck off.

So it makes life better and easier to be nice rather than cause trouble. You could do neither, don't help people but don't hurt them, of course. But again you'll find if you never help anyone, they'll be less inclined to help you when you need it.

This isn't why I help people and don't hurt them, in order to make my life better, that is a side effect that even sociopaths can benefit from. The reason is I want everyone to be happy as much as possible. Everyone else only has one life (that we're sure of) just like me, so I want those lives to be as pleasant as possible.

[Randy Carson]

38 responses overnight. Thank you.

I won't be able to respond to all of them before heading off to work, but let me says this:

I'm not asking whether atheists can be good people or whether they are good people. Despite much of the rudeness and foul language directed at me (and others) in this forum, it should be obvious that atheists may strive to be kind, tolerant, generous and respectful toward others. And they do this because they recognize that "right" and "wrong" behavior is real and not theoretical.

What I am asking is: what is the BASIS for objective moral behavior? Where does it come from?

If some feel that they have already answered, my apologies; however, I re-phrased my OP based on a quick scan of a few responses.

I will try to get through all of the posts as quickly as time permits. Sorry for the delay.