Monday School: You don’t need God to be Good…

It’s the start of a new week… so that means it’s time for Monday School! Currently your best place on Open Diary to get your weeky dose of “The Rational Corrective To All That Nonsense They Tried To Teach You Yesterday!”

This week’s lesson: Does anyone really need God to be good?

I already know where I stand on this one. I can’t speak for everyone else, but I don’t require a higher being to be good or generous. I like to consider myself to be a very charitable person. I take part in yearly walks to raise money for cancer research, paint faces at ball games to raise money to help underprivileged kids. I’ve participated in events that have raised money for companies like Amnesty International, Hospital for Sick Kids in Toronto and the Greyhound protection league. Do I do these things to impress a higher being? Nope. I do them because I want to use what little time I have to help those less fortunate than myself. Do I do it out of ego? Not really, I happen to have the time to spare and I will always make the effort when I can. I wish I could do more and when or if I ever can I likely will.

As an Atheist, I don’t need religion or God to make me want to do these things. I feel perfectly fine using common sense as my guide to determine what is the right thing to do and sometimes the wrong thing to do. Yet for some reason, those who are religious automatically assume that people who are without God are without compassion and therefore are not charitable. It’s a load of hogwash, as not only are Atheist just as if not more charitable but the three most charitable people on the planet are Non-believers. Meanwhile there is countless examples of wealthy Evangelical Christians who can’t be bothered to donate a single dime to charity. Their hypocrisy knows no bounds.

Do you really need to be brided or threatened into doing the right thing?

This kind of ignornace reminds me of a story I remember hearing about a law professor that was lecturing to his students about what he believed was the most moral person on the planet. He asked his students if they could guess what that was. His students tried their best but could not find the right answer. Finally their professor gave them the answer: An Atheist who chooses to obey the law.

Confused by this answer, the students asked the professor to explain. He went on to tell them that an Atheist that chooses to obey the law does so not out of fear of damnnation in Hell nor for a possible reward being offered in Heaven. They choose to obey the law for moral reasons without any attempts of bribery or threats coming from organized religions and God. They choose to be moral because they want to be moral and for no other reason. That in the professor’s opinion made the Atheist who decides to obey the law the most moral person in the world.

Choosing to be good is the same as choosing to be generous. We do so not because we’re trying to impress anyone but because we already know it’s the right thing to do and don’t need anyone else to tell us that already. We don’t need to be threatened to donate, we don’t even need tax breaks… just the fact that good work is being done is reward enough for most people. While I’m sure there are many people of faith who are more than charitable with their money, the fact that they were previously told to do so hangs over them.

Worse than that, there are some religious folks who can’t be bothered to spend a single dime, even if they are sitting on a fortune, to make the world a better place for mankind. Even though there are countless entries in their own holy book that tells them they should give to the poor, they refuse. Especially in North America, greed has become the in thing these days as it’s usually every person for themselves. If these people are not willing to be good when God is telling them to, what are the odds that they will when we do? Not bloodly likely…

Non-believers do good things because common sense is our savior and no one should need to be threatened nor bribed into doing what is truly right. You don’t need God to be good and if you do then you have some serious problems that are well above my paygrade.

I will part with an interesting question that was floated during a debate of this very issue that too place a couple of years ago. During that debate someone asked:

“Is something good simply because God commands it, or does He command it because it is already good?”

I’m curious to see who religious people might respond to that question and hope they’ll try to give us an answer below. Until then, see you next Monday for another class!

Peter