Subject:
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Why be 'good' without god (was Re: Worthlessness)
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Fri, 17 Sep 2004 08:22:14 GMT
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Viewed:
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1760 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Pamela Hale wrote:
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, John Neal wrote:
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Not at all the same. I still don’t have a satisfactory answer from atheists
to the question “why do good?” (from a personal standpoint rather than
some overall societal efficiency explanation)
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Here’s an answer for you: I “do good,” as you put it, because I have spent
time thinking about life, the universe, and my role in it and have decided
based on my own observations that mean people suck. I don’t believe in any
god, but I do believe in personal responsibility. I do not want to be the
kind of person I dislike, and it is my choice as to what kind of person I can
be.
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Damn straight. I like this. It more or less reflects me too. Based on my own
meagre experience of life, I have found that there are some people I like and
others I do not, some actions I like and others I do not, and some things I like
to be and others I do not. I have a pretty clear picture of who I have chosen
to be, and try surprisingly hard to be that person.
I would note that to me the things I do are not ‘good’ things, although the
general consensus is that most of the stuff I do falls under that heading. For
me, its not ‘good’ things, but things ‘I have found I enjoy doing’. A small
proportion of the stuff I do does not fall under the generally established
consensus as to ‘good’, and I am fine with that.
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I wonder what is meant by “good” here in the first place. What are we
talking about? Giving to charity? Volunteering at your local homeless
shelter or library? Probably we all have different ideas of what is meant
by “doing good.”
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Based on some of our discussions here there are some wildly different
conceptions of what constitutes doing good.
Interestingly, in my experience, where there are the widest and most unhelpful
distinctions between different people’s perceptions of what’s good and what’s
not, it almost always involves unshakeable (often but not always religious)
faith on someone’s part.
Its one of the reasons I’m not fond of ‘good’ per se, or religion for that
matter.
It occurs to me that organised religions, like corporations, are by their nature
(and in most cases in their actuality), generally very beneficial for the top
management, more or less ok for believers, and bad for non-believers. My
personal test for worthy organised religions (like corporations) is that they
are good for believers and top managememt according to their contributions, and
not bad for non-believers.
What, no measure of ‘truth’?
Nope ;-)
If you want a religion based on truth, ask the first believer you can lay your
hands on. THEIR religion is the true religion.
To them.
Richard
Still baldly going...
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Message has 1 Reply:
Message is in Reply To:
 | | Re: Worthlessness
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| (...) Here's an answer for you: I "do good," as you put it, because I have spent time thinking about life, the universe, and my role in it and have decided based on my own observations that mean people suck. I don't believe in any god, but I do (...) (20 years ago, 16-Sep-04, to lugnet.off-topic.debate, FTX)
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