should you need a god to live "good"?

[malcolm]

i was thinking of this because of the big hissy over some banners that went up for a second or two out here and have bene put up in england and spain stating that god doesnt exist and just try to have a good life or something to that nature and it made me wonder,

should one live their life in a good fashion because they are working towards getting to some fancy afterlife retreat as an award for being obediant or just do it because that's just how they want to live?

i mean, i don't think of will this affect me karmically good or bad when i help a friend or a stranger out-although i dont help alot of strangers out.
i believe in a higher power of sorts but i dont do things in concerns of going to a good place or bad or being reincarnated as a slug or a tigress. and even the gods and godesses of my faith have both a good and a bad side. a good example would be hecate
but again, i dont do certain things in concerns of being in their favor on a day to day basis, i simply do them because that's my nature. i do alot of bad things too.

what do you think?

[Xavialune]

I think youre right. No one has to have a god to be a good person. However, good and bad are completely subjective terms. What is good for someone might be bad for someone else. In general terms, people tend to agree in Western society, but thats because they are societal terms. Thats why I dont believe there can be any true good or bad, regardless of any existence or non existence of gods or goddesses or any 'higher power'. Its my opinion that any sort of higher power would be way beyond us and wouldnt concern itself with our moralities.

Good or bad, youre not going to go to hell and there is no such thing as karma in the sense that the eastern people believe in, or in my opinion many westerners believe in. I do however believe that if you do things that are against your own morals, you will attract bad energy. If you do something bad according to society, but its not against your personal morals, I dont think you suffer for it..unless you are intentionally putting out 'detrimental' energy towards others, youre going to attract detrimental energies or beings.

People shouldnt do good on their terms out of fear of hell or god or reincarnation...they should do 'good' because they want to. People who rely on god or fear ofa firey pit are weak in my opinion, and without those dears they would probably do some bad things..not that that stopped any religious person from doing horrible and hypocritical things..

[Valerian Reign]

what do you think?

First of all, what is a good person? "Good" is subjective. Just like morality. And like morality, deities and karma are human inventions.

Anyway, I personally describe a good person as someone that does whatever he or she pleases without actively trying to hurt other people. And to be a good person in that regards, all someone needs is mind that can critically think and a personality that isn't based on hate.

People who need morals or deities to be "good" people are weak.

[Clockwork Jello]

Unfortunately there are people that think you have to had God in your life to be good. My family nearly kicked me out into the streets when I was kid when I told them I didn't believe in god. They seriously thought I had no conscience any longer and would kill them in their sleep. Luckily, they came to their senses on the matter. Eventually.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, does one think those priests were good when they were touching little boys?

The Idea of the need to have someone in the sky watching over you holding a carrot on a stick in front of you to keep you on the good and right path seems a little like dealing with a very young child doesn't it?

Anyways if someone needs to have a reward lorded over him to be a decent human being to others and just cant do it on his/her own, I don't think I would want to be around that person anyway. No matter how wholesome they are. Just seems really shallow.

[JonQ]

First of all, what is a good person? "Good" is subjective. Just like morality. And like morality, deities and karma are human inventions.

Anyway, I personally describe a good person as someone that does whatever he or she pleases without actively trying to hurt other people. And to be a good person in that regards, all someone needs is mind that can critically think and a personality that isn't based on hate.

People who need morals or deities to be "good" people are weak.

I would agree that, yes, moralities and deities are human inventions, but that doesn't mean they are wrong and that people who live moral lives are weak. As a species, we clearly felt over time that certain things had to be considered 'wrong' and 'right' so as to allow us to get on in communities for our mutual wellbeing. Otherwise we wouldn't have lasted very long.
Gods and whatnot simply came about because as a species we were a bit too 'simple' to grasp why the sun came up, why the crops flourished or died etc. and it was easier to anthropomorphise them, tweaking them over time as we evolved. Do we subscribe to 'their' ideas of right and wrong? Maybe not the ones as laid down in the Bible and other holy texts that are thousands of years old. We have moved on, but at the very heart of it all, there were still virtues and vices that we decided were good and bad respectively that have passed down the generations because they are pretty good ideas if nothing else.

The idea that someone can do as they please so long as they don't actively go out to hurt people? I wouldn't call that 'good' behaviour. You could be a selfish person or an inconsiderate person and still meet those criteria for 'good'. Don't get me wrong, nothing wrong with self-reliance, but to me, good and bad have to have certain 'active' components, if you know what I mean? An intent, if nothing else, to one or the other.
And you can't have an intent towards one or the other if there isn't some kind of framework for what is good and bad. That is where morals come in. They provide that basis.
How can you decide what hurts or hinders someone else if you don't have any moral compass? If you lived by the ethos you described above, would you steal something from someone? I doubt it. It doesn't hurt anyone physically, but it would hurt them in other ways and we can only judge that based on what is morally right and wrong.

[JonQ]

(I ran out of edit time so just popping this in here)

Of course, as to the main question...do we need a God or Gods to be good? I wouldn't say so. So long as there is a moral component to what you do, you can still be a decent human being. You don't need to go out and do charity work and whatnot, and someone living alone in a log cabin in the wildreness somewhere with barely any human contact isn't going to be contributing much to a greater community, but they can still make moral judgements for themselves, even if they don't have to so often.
We predated deities and I expect we will outlive them, but there will always need to be certain rules, morals, codes or whatever to keep us from descending into a much darker place. We'll probably never all agree on exactly what these are, just as we don't these days, but at least we can more or less broadly agree. Better than nothing.

[JonQ]

Yes, I know, I am going on a bit, but the thread interests me :P
When you said those folks were weak, Valerian, were you thinking more about the people who cling to blind dogma rather than making any moral decisions for themselves?

[Velvet-Tongue]

I think its bullshit for us to argue what being Good or Bad is. Its common sense what "good" and "bad" is. Grabbing the words and twisting them around every eclectic social idea or movement in an attempt to dissect it is meaningless.

I'm religious but I can see and understand why someone would be an Atheist. I don't throw hate and fire at anyone for their spiritual beliefs (or lack thereof) I would however be sad and argue if they're practicing essentially morally debased and harmful practices.

With all that said; obviously you don't need to believe in or follow a deity to be a "good" person. However in does help.

The most important thing you can do to be a "good" person is to have a backbone, stick to your values, and sorroudn yourself with other "good" people. Lay down with dogs wake up with fleas.

[malcolm]

woah woah woah. i do believe we got a bit off track here, my dearies. lol

the question i asked was not so much wether something is good or bad but wether you needed a cosmic being over you handing you spiritual biscuits for doing them. quite simple good and bad can be debated forever and ever philosophically if ya want. but yes, thewre are some that are just like well, duh moments.....

example: putting neighbors cat in blender because they gave you an ugly look=BAD,

helping an old lady across the street who is having a hard itme walking=GOOD.

blessed be! lol

i know that debate comes up alot around here but in all fairness the main thing ou need to feel about whats good and bad is what you believe to be good and bad. everyone's tolerance is different on that subject.

and in our intentions wether what oone considers good or bad, we cannot be blamed for the thousand what if scenerios that may or may not occur by say giving a bum a sandwich instead of telling him to fuck off . every action caused has a reaction it's simple math, butterfly effect if you will. i like to think of it as ripples in a lake. one aciton is like a stone and the reaction is caused by it hitting the lake but how those reacitons happen is out of our control,no?

so it's not about whats good or bad but again, wether you feel you need to have a religous carrot dangled in front of you to do said acitons or not..

basically do you believe in free will or not?

[Velvet-Tongue]

People do good things without believing in god. So no you dont need a religious carrot to do it.

And yeah I believe 100% in free will. No ones forcing you to do anything unless you let them. With all the doom and fire religions stating "if you're not good you'll go to hell" well if you have no free will and go to hell, isint that really fucking unfair?

[malcolm]

that's a very good point.

[nathanmbailey]

example: putting neighbors cat in blender because they gave you an ugly look=BAD,

Since when? Does that mean I need to apologize?

Seriously though, it's pretty obvious you don't need a religion to be a good person. Hell, some religions don't even have a god, for example the original form of Buddhism. Buddha said not to praise him as a god, but just to follow his teachings. To get back on point, there is a lot of good that is done all the time by people who don't believe in anything other than that what they are doing is the right thing to do or that they do it because that's what they would want.

Personally, I don't believe in a God, and not necessarily Karma either, but I have noticed the universe has a way of evening itself out and that good things happen to people who do good things for other people and vice-versa.

[malcolm]

Since when? Does that mean I need to apologize?

Seriously though, it's pretty obvious you don't need a religion to be a good person. Hell, some religions don't even have a god, for example the original form of Buddhism. Buddha said not to praise him as a god, but just to follow his teachings. To get back on point, there is a lot of good that is done all the time by people who don't believe in anything other than that what they are doing is the right thing to do or that they do it because that's what they would want.

Personally, I don't believe in a God, and not necessarily Karma either, but I have noticed the universe has a way of evening itself out and that good things happen to people who do good things for other people and vice-versa.

ohnoes! you didnt!? poor poor kitty....sorry. i have a soft spot for kittys lol.

yeah things do eventually have a way of correcting themselves, i call it the three fold return law as in whatever aciton one does wether good or bad comes back to them three fold,

[nathanmbailey]

Other than the fact that cats taste good, I could really care less about them. And yes, I've eaten cat... and dog. I lived in an area where they opened up a new Korean restaurant, owned and ran by real Koreans. Suddenly there were no more stray cats and dogs. Then they were investigated and turned out they were serving cats and dogs. Now they're closed. I miss that place.

[malcolm]

[malcolm]

now that i think of it. that's not too big a deal i dont think. i mean, in korea, that's perfectly normal it's just not normal to me i suppose but then again i've eaten alligator so meh. would make for an interesting discussion though.

[Xavialune]

Yes, I know, I am going on a bit, but the thread interests me :P
When you said those folks were weak, Valerian, were you thinking more about the people who cling to blind dogma rather than making any moral decisions for themselves?

Valerian is currently playing Wow...but I think that yes, this is what he originally meant.

[Valerian Reign]

Yes, I know, I am going on a bit, but the thread interests me :P
When you said those folks were weak, Valerian, were you thinking more about the people who cling to blind dogma rather than making any moral decisions for themselves?

Yes. That is what I mean.

I should have not restricted my answer to including only violations of the physical self. I did not mean that, and I thank you for your clear response. I believe that laws should enforce things that are inherently detrimental. What I mean by that is thing that can be measured beyond the limited scope of what people think is good and feel is right. Like, ****, for example, is inherently "bad" or "wrong" as no "good" comes from the act from the victim's standpoint. That is why it is considered not only "good" and "a right" for soldiers to **** the populace of foreign countires when they are at war with them. It is also why in normal soceity, it is considered "good" to not murder innocent people because it is objectively detrimental to their existence. It is also considered "good" by proponents of vengence and the death penalty to kill people that have done "bad" things. It is also okay for soldiers to kill people in war. Not civillians of course, even though it happens more often than people would like to admit.

I suppose the morals that religions invented are a good guide, by they are nothing more and many of them are obsolete, such as the various sexual moral codes. For example, I find strict monogomy to be incredibly old-fashioned and actually against normal human functioning. Don't get me wrong, I love Xavia. But we are more than open to threesomes, foursomes, and just sex with other people in general as long as the other is there and participating, judging other people's attractiveness, non-traditional marriage, and *gasp* cohabitation (which we do). Many of those things are considered wrong and immoral by some people. However, when done respectfully between two consenting adults, there is nothing detrimental to sexual acts (unless a sadist/dominant gets a bit too rough with a submissive/masochist... hey, accidents happen). When laws are based on such silly moral codes, some states will end up having laws making illegal things like oral and anal sex.

Anyway, in sum, yes deities and morals were useful during ancient times. But, morality should be no more than a guide, and many certainly need an overhaul. And again, I cannot stress enough that laws should be concerned with what is objectively harmful to another human being. This will solve most problems, except, of course, the classic abortion debate which I do not want to start again. I just will say that I do not like abortion, but would gladly help Xavia pay for one should an accident occur. Hopefully it won't because we are safe. The best thing in this case is to encourage comprhensive sexual education which is statistically proven to lower pregnancy and STD rates. Yet, many people hate this form of sex ed because it is against their *outdated* morals.

[malcolm]

i dunno i still think deities serve a purpose today but then again that is my look on things albeit i certainly also can see the point of what you are making.

[Mr Karl]

why would a god care about good................except as a means to an end?

[malcolm]

good question

[Anna Evans]

I try to live to be the person I want to be. That person is good in some people's eyes, and bad in others. That person is kind, but honest even if the truth is ugly. That person is naked for money. That person puts sex in art. That person doesn't have sex with the unconsenting, or those unable to consent.

Blah de fucking blah. I think I'm a good person, who doesn't? I don't think I'm a perfect person, who does? (More importantly, who does that isn't a complete dick?)

I constantly strive to be a better person because I want to continue to respect myself. I do believe in a higher power, but I am good because I want to be able to sleep at night.

[ROGIZOID]

Good topic.
I really despise the word "god", because if how do you even know that god is gods name. Or that calling it god isnt a sin within itself.

I think as long as you hold strong to the moral fibers you've set for yourself.
Then what do you have to worry about?

[VoltaireBlue]

I think good and bad are defined very differently depending on who you ask....
that said, I feel a deep need inside myself to not only be a good person, but to noy give in to other peoples power plays or other things...... its an interesting question; a good one.
I'd like to think about it a bit.

[Morning Glory]

It's kind of interesting that no one seems to have stated the obvious, which is that God doesn't exist, or if it does, then it certainly did not beam down 15 commandments to Moses on the hill... SOOOO even if you are religious, your morality still comes from a group of people that merely put into writing a set of values that they thought were the best based on their effective social functions throughout history- and not from God.

Valerian root pretty much summed up the process for which you can apply some situational thinking to determine what values are effective towards the ends that you want to accomplish. I don't really have a whole lot more to say about it.

[Morning Glory]

also another thing about that story that doesn't make sense is that before that God set down his rules for how people should behave, he already had a cult that worshiped him, so how did they know what to do if he hadn't told them yet? or are we supposed to believe that they (and everyone else) were always breaking the ten commandments from the start of humanity, and he just waited a few thousand years before bothering to correct them, by his own logic, condemning his followers to Hell in the meantime?

furthermore, on that note, why would he wait another few thousand years more to send down his incarnation of the messiah and deliver the new testament, instead of just doing it right from the start? Sound like this omnipotent being sure has to experiment a lot with trial and error.

[Dusk]

Plus the fact that he had to copy so much from other religions. Think he would have just said it was him from the start.

[Cafe_Post_Mortem]

Should you need a ruler to be tall?

Even without a system of weights and measures, some of my friends can reach the selves I cannot.

Also, there is an old saying or quote that says something to the effect of, Character is what a man does in the dark.

Basically, if you do what you do because some cosmic force is holding a metaphorical gun to your head, are you really being a good person? If you help the poor because fabulous prizes await you in the afterlife, are you really a good person? Don't get me wrong, motive isn't the only determiner of good and evil, but it should count for something.

So if there is an all knowing all powerful god who points a gun at your face and sayeth unto you, "do good or suffer" a person has to ask, are you really living good, or just living afraid?

[OliX]

MG, to answer your question from a religious standpoint god first gave 10 commandments to people to live by. Then after while he saw that people abandoned spirituality he sent Christ to remind them of the spiritual path. So became nuns and monks. Worshiping them every single time. Then he realized that was wrong too. You shouldn't go all the spiritual way or only following commandments. So he sent Muhammad to remind people once again to live spiritually BUT to live with society too. I mean, pray to god every day and what not and still live in society. That's the common explanation of a theistic person.

[Morning Glory]

ah, I see. people are too stupid to get it, so God has to continually invent new belief systems and religious texts for people to follow, even though there just keeps getting more and more people and they become more and more secular. he should just wipe everyone out and start over again. oh wait, he tried that and it didn't work either because the guy he picked to continue humanity was a lazy drunk. it sucks to be God.

[Velvet-Tongue]

Or you know MG, from a religious standpoint, God gives you things to live by but you can still ignore them and live in your ego.

The point from these stories is that even though humanity keeps fucking up God will help those that ask for it.