If an atheist and a christian?

Question

A christian goes out of their way to help someone in need, its a morally right thing to do. The christian is moral because god tells them to, they think it'll help them get closer to heaven, and they may even recruit someone else to the word of god.

An Atheist goes out of their way to help someone is need, it a morally right thing to do. An atheist doesn't do it for approval from god, they don't believe in god. An atheist doesn't believe in an afterlife, and the atheist won't try and recruit them to join in their non-belief just because they helped them out of a hard time.

Who is truly the more moral person?

Answer 1

i think you answered your own question. :)

Answer 2

As a Christian I do things for others because I feel it is right. I don't do it to gain some "reward" from anyone, including God.
I also don't think I will "recruit" the person.
I think anyone who helps others is doing good and has felt a moral obligation to do it. What does it matter what their beliefs are.
To assume that Christians only do things "to get closer to heaven" is insulting, some of us, believe it or not are just good people.

Answer 3

Neither. They both did it for the reason of
being a morally-good person.
But, as for your scenario of the atheist not
trying to make the Christian one of their own...
nope; chances are, they would try to do just
that.
There is an old saying: "opposites attract."
The actual meaning behind that being this: no
matter how different any two people might be,
they have at least one thing--which may not be
immediately visible--in common.
So, in the case of your hypothesis, what the two
people have in common is that because they
both did a good thing, they would both want to
show each other what they consider to be the
right way to live, in exchange for their favors.
(But there, again, I must repeat: neither one.
Because nobody should tell another person
how to live. It plain & simply is not their place.)

Answer 4

Love is different from love-bombing. Love-bombing is what cults do. It can be really annoying. I've heard of people dying who've made requests about visitors to the hospital and people have totally ignored it and done the opposite. Some people really seem to think they know more about how human nature works than the people who speak their wishes. This can be explained by Colossians 2:18 which says that people who worship angels talk a lot about what they've seen, are intentionally humble and have idle minds that puff them up with notions. The word for "worship" here is threskeia, which refers to worship by ceremonies, rather than proskuneo, which means kissing the hand. An angel is a messenger, as opposed to a demon, which is a distributor, from daio - to distribute.

If the person in need is the messenger (I assume that they want to say something about what kind of trouble they're in and what kind of help they would like), then building up a ceremony around them is not really help. I think this is what contributes to post natal depression, when mothers are treated as merely the bringer of good tidings.

Does helpful equal moral, or does effective equal moral? What about if there is a God and it would conceivably be more effective to learn how to look after yourself properly before you start trying to do other people's work for them? It's a really annoying criminal euphemism that people have of saying, "I'll just help you out there." People seem to think that work is defined by seeing somebody else trying to do and taking over while resisting all efforts by that person to keep their stuff because it's theirs.

Instead of waffling on about morals (it's one of the 12 communication roadblocks), why don't you figure out what the arguments and pretensions are that you don't like?

Answer 5

Your logic fails when you say that the Christian thinks it'll help them get closer to heaven. That's not the reason that Christians help others. It's antithetical to Christianity. We rest in the saving work of our savior. As far as recruiting, I can not say that I have not seen any recruiting going on every time someone posts a question about Christianity and an atheist or an Atheist or many of either or both respond with vehement objection to the truth of what is being said.

Answer 6

How about that I am a christian, and I help someone because I like to and it makes them feel good. It doesn't help me get better to God because if you believe in God, then you already know that he knows your heart and if you do something just to "get closer to heaven" then it is not considered a moral thing that you've done because you've tainted that good deed by putting your own needs/wants ahead of the right thing to do! Good Question by the way!

Answer 7

You are assuming that a Christian would be doing this with an ulterior motive, but what if it were actually the reverse. Suppose the Christian helped another simply for the joy of helping someone else..and as an added benefit had the opportunity to share the fact that Yashua died for their sins...while the atheist did it in hopes of ingratiating themselves to the needy? Who then would be the more moral person?

Morality is subjective. There is no correct answer and no one passes go!

Answer 8

The question implies that morality may be measured. Morality is qualitative. In this example, the inquirer assumes to have a view into each person in the example. If I presume the same, I'd say that the Christian and the atheist were both moral enough.

Answer 9

Understand this. For religious people or anyone who believes in God, moral authority to decide what is right and what is wrong comes from God.

If you do not believe in God then from where does your moral authority come? It comes from you and you are only an imperfect human. That means, in a nutshell, that morality for you means whatever you want it to mean. That is the difference.

If you are the only one choosing right from wrong then right and wrong have no meaning. This kind of thinking is what leads to such contradictory behavior as radical environmentalists setting fire to homes because they personally believe that they need to stop over-development. This is what leads to animal rights extremists to burglarize private research companies to release animals.

If everyone is of the belief that they can decide morality based on only what they think you will quickly have anarchy.

.

Answer 10

Both the atheist and the Christian have a conscience that informs them of what is morally right and wrong. That conscience was created by God, and though the atheist is not aware of it what prompts him to do good is the love that God, who is perfect love, has placed in his heart. The only difference is that the Christian recognizes the source of all love as divine, while the atheist sees the source of love as himself. It is not true that the atheist does not try to recruit, I have encountered plenty of militant atheists in my day. This very question is an atheist recruitment effort.

Answer 11

If a christian is doing the moral thing just for the reason to try to get into heaven, he isn't really a christian. God asks one thing of everyone: to love thy neighbor.

So to be a real christian, you would go out of your way to help someone out of consideration for that person.

So the truly moral person is the one who goes out of their way to help someone out of the kindness in their heart.

If you feel that christians are just christians because they are trying to get into heaven, then you have the wrong view of what christianity is. Of all religions in the world, here's what God says in the Bible about religions:
"Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world." James 1:27