If there is no God - Why then the need to be good?

Question

If there is no God, why do we even have the fear of not being good as apposed to doing whatever we so desire.

Answer 1

Good point. If there is no God, no after life, than Christians are the biggest morons to walk on earth. But what if we are right? What if there is a good, holy, loving God? Well then doing the will of God rather than what we want is a small price to pay to be with God the Father, our Lord Jesus, in unity with the Spirit.

Answer 2

Because we are not savages who cannot control our whims. I act in ways that are moral and good not because I fear God or Hell but because I instinctively know right from wrong, and I know that being cruel and mean is not the way I want to be as a person.( I have put this in as an afterthought after having read all of the answer's and it actually relates to the question. Guys why are you so mean to each other? People who are deeply religious are not sad idiots and people who are less religious or not religious are not destined for Hell... I will be forced to stay in the beauty section if this bickering doesn't stop!)

Answer 3

This is a frequent and ‘telling’ question from the pitifully pious and pathologically faithful.

Essentially, you are admitting to feeling serious anti-social, if not pathological, feelings that can only be controlled by threats of eternal punishment from a supernatural dominatrix.

There are explanations for altruistic, cooperative, social, and moral behavior beyond the obvious fact that Atheists are simply born with superior intelligence, purer souls, and better looks than theists. The explanations lie in the physical and psychological evolution of the species and are addressed at length in many sources.

You would already know this if you bothered to read anything other than the folktales of quasi-historic Semitic tribes of illiterate goat herders who lived thousands of years ago and who had to appeal to their God for a verdict on whether they could keep having sex with their livestock, and whose biggest contribution to humanity was circumcision.

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Elisha --

If there is a good and just God, conservative Christians are in real trouble and better start praying that there is no such thing as Hell.

Answer 4

I believe the important question to ask is, what prevents us from reaching our desire? If human morality prevents us from reaching our desire, then that is our answer, and also a source of further question regarding the fact that it is within our instinct to avoid harming each other.

The other question is, if there is no God, where does goodness come from? To which you can bounce this back by asking, if there is God, where does evil come from?

Answer 5

Because we're social animals, and all such have a moral instinct.

Without this instinct, any animal society would sunder. It would never get started.

Meerkats do it - it's not magic, and it certainly isn't God-given. It's just an instinct that makes us tend to do things that benefit the group or society. At heart, it's just the Golden Rule: do unto others as they wish you to do.

This was invented long before humans.

CD

Answer 6

People tend to treat you how you treat them. Approach people in the spirit of benevolence, and you can usually (not always, but usually) expect the same in return. When you aren't dealing with a such a "tit for tat" person, you can almost always choose to remove him/her from your life.

It's not fear; it's a matter of choosing to have the good people that you find around you, and having far fewer hassles in life.

Answer 7

The desire to do good doesn't imply God. The fear of doing wrong is even easier to explain. Law, Punishment, social rebuke, instilled consciousness, fear of getting caught....etc.

Answer 8

Some of the most moral people I've encountered have been atheists. Some of the most unscrupulous and hateful call themselves Christians. One doesn't need a belief in a God to have moral standards and scruples.

Answer 9

DRINK! If you really think that in order to be good you need a belief in god and a book to tell you how to do it, I fell very bad for you. ANyway look at the middle ages nearly EVERYONE in europe was christian and they killed eachother they had the same ten commandments as you do but they didn't follow them at all. they rapped and killed and stole and somehow this arguement is still around. Its stupid you don't need god to have good people. i don't believe in god and I don't go around killing stealing and raping.

Answer 10

Is that the only thing that makes you want to do good, your fear of your god sending you to hell. What a poor sense of humanity you have.