Could you be good without religion?

Question

Thanks to all your answers. Have a great day!

Answer 1

If one has to be "told" what is "good," & behave according to what they are told, that is not being good.
You might as well have asked: "Are only religious people good"? which I'm sure you'd agree is nonsense.
Ted S>Was that a very good satire? I hope!

Answer 2

Every religious book teaches the best of morals and there is great commonality among various religions in this respect. I am convinced that if there were to be just one religion in the whole world, it would certainly have been the prime source of inspiration to be good. The trouble is that there are so many different religions...... and a narrow rivalry makes each religious leader to claim his religion as the only authentic one and in order to differentiate from other religions, the tendency is to do so through giving undue importance to rituals, symbolism and dogmas and put the commonality of moral views into the background.

In the context of the above, one needs to rise above the narrow practice of religion in order to give due importance to being moralistic and good and have a balanced mind to see the symbolism and rituals for what they really are after all. It is really an irony that highly religious people turn narrow-minded and biased rather than getting spiritually broadened to embrace good humanity values as the real route to God or salvation.

Answer 3

A person's "goodness" depends on the autonomy of their will. You can make an animal or a machine do the right thing but it isn't good because its acts are not autonomous. Religion imposes values from outside of the person's own will- actions that the person may even think wrong- and therefore religion is the antithesis of ethics.

Answer 4

The meaning of good is different from person to person. Any individual can make their on meaning of good and stick to it, therefore on that basis, yes people can be good without religion. There is also the law, follow the law and the leagal system sees you as being good. So again the answer is yes

Answer 5

it depends on the individual themselves.. you can't say that if you don't have a religion you're bad, however people with a religion turns out to be bad too.. it is because some of them can't choose their religion and nurtured by the family since young.. I live around tuns of people who each believe in their own religion and some don't but it turns out the individuals can choose whether we want to be good or bad.. that is why we have faith or intuition.. =)

Answer 6

Good for what. I assume I could be, but it could never be proved only proofed; I am already contaminated. I may assume in judging religion it need be negated, but to oppose something which has incomplete coherency would lead to an other incomplete coherency, science.

The Will is positive, the Judgment is negative.

Answer 7

I don't think you need religion to be a good person, you have to want to be a good person.

If you do something bad and feel remorse and regret, I think that makes you ultimately a good person. If you do something deliberately, knowing it was wrong and don't feel any remorse or guilt, that makes you a bad person. Religion teches this but you don't need religion to know it (if that makes any sense :) )

To be a good person, you need a concept of right and wrong and a conscience.

Answer 8

Yes.
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Christian perspective:

Religion is used as an excuse to many "bad" things, so religion is not always good. Likewise non-religious people can still seem to have nice thoughts and do good things.

Even if you believe the bible you might still argue that God can speak to the hearts of non-believers, or use bad things for good purposes.

In the book of Genesis if Jehova said something was "good" it was considered "perfect". The Bible also teaches that by God's standards noone is perfect. The word "sin" means a blemish or "falling short of the mark". So the saying "all have sinned" means "noone is perfect".

Jesus supposedly prefered to spend time at the pub with honest sinners rather than pious religious hypocrytes. E.g. "beware of men in robes"

Jehova also seemed to value honesty over piety, and prefered people who had the courage questioned him like Moses over yes men. Similarly he described the murderer/adulterer David as a "man after his own heart".

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Academic perspective:

Goodness is a relational concept. E.g. a thing may be called good if it helps to achieve a goal. I.e. it is good at achieving the goal.

Asking if something is good is like asking if something is big or bigger. For something to be good in itself we must assume an absolute to judge it by.

In evolution we assume the absolute to be survival. If something helps species to survive then it is good. Under this idea the dying off on one species may be good if it allows a "better" species to replace it.

Generally speaking goodness is a very hazy concept unless you you ask very specific questions in the form "is this good for that?"

Some argue that the purpose of life is to increase good things like pleasure or usefulness and minimize bad stuff like pain or handicap. This reasoning is sometimes used to justify killing horses who break a leg or not giving expensive treatments to old people who are a drain on society.

Even some people who follow the "do unto others ..." rule may want to die quietly and make room for the next generation rather than being a drain on society.

Others (e.g. psychopaths) may seem to follow an "every man for himself" approach and are happy to even destroy the planet if it means a little extra cash in theior pockets today. As long as they can say "It works for me" they are happy.

Similar to this is the "If it feels good, do it" approach which can lead to "bad" actions if if someone enjoys gets more pleasure out of cruelty than charity.

Answer 9

It's possible to be good without any religion the same way it's possible to be bad being religious.

Answer 10

With or without religion, a person can be good if he/she wants it to be.

Answer 11

Good has nothing to do with religion, its GOD who is linked to religion, not goodness!

And lets face it there are a fair few Christians and religious folk who are very hypocritical. They seem to preach the "don't do as I do, do as I say" philosophy on life, conduct and morality.