being good through desire or fear...

[joko]

does being good only because your religion tells you to because you wont get to heaven etc if you dont - and therefore is through fear rather than actually wanting to be good - count as genuine goodness...?

are some religious people therefore not 'truly' good in the heart and soul, seeing as theyre just following orders...?

so are the people who are not at all religious yet good of heart and soul because they want to be, the real saints iin the world?

obviously i mean SOME, not all...

[naomi24]

And you'd be right, Ummmm.

[jomifl]

I mistakenly posted this on the wrong thread probably due to god diverting my key presses. Thankfully Naomi was able to defeat god's cunning plan by letting me know. :-)
Surely the rules of relgions were just made up to enforce good behaviour, without having to pay a police force. Then it got a bit silly.

[keyplus90]

Heard this argument so many times. Perhaps few people have very short memory.

[keyplus90]

And very soon someone will post that without religion good people would still be good .............. and so on. Wait and see.

[Marijn]

We had a priest at the church I went to, who was very hard on everyone and telling us we're all sinners and we should pray more, he was negative towards people and made them feel not good enough. A few years ago he was sent away because it was discovered that he had fathered two children. The mother of the childten was the wife of a friend of his. Anyway, it's made me think that the more people go on and on about how wicked other people are, the more likely it is that they're trying to cover something up about themselves.

[jomifl]

Notafish....what you have observed does seem occur frequently. It is easy to be self righteous when you haven't been 'tempted'. I have far more respect for people who have been 'tempted' a lot and stumbled a few times than those pompous and self righteous pillars of society who succumb completely to the first 'temptation' that they encounter and conceal it and still condemn others..

[Marijn]

Yes, he did upset a few people becuase of his hellfire and brimstone attitude. He was a Catholic priest, so sex with anyone was against his religion, but having sex with a friend's wife was even worse.

[ummmm]

Keyplus, are saying that isn't true then?

[jno]

I think keyplus is just predicting the course of the debate...

ludwig, when you say people do good in order to feel good about themselves, isn't that a definitional truth? "Good" must be defined by the person who does it (or by a religious text he/she also thinks is "good"), so it must imply something that makes you feel good?

[naomi24]

Keyplus, you need the ESP thread. Here you are.

http://www.theanswerb.../Question1078979.html

[jomifl]

Keyplus, are you implying that people cannot be good without the aid of religion?

[roger]

I'm an atheist and I think I'm a fairly good person. I don't hurt people or animals and I've lent a helping hand from time to time. I believe in Empathy. Works for me.

[craft1948]

I'm just a very nice person who happens to be a Christian..............

[sara3]

I'm a nice person, and I believe in Father Christmas.

[RATTER15]

That is exactly it Craft, Christianity didn't make you a good person, you would be a good person with or without Christianity.

[craft1948]

Thanks Ratter.............I think I'll stick with it :-)

[RATTER15]

Sara.... well we all believe in father Christmas, we aren't that silly, we have all seen him!!!

[sandyRoe]

There was an old phrase, 'As cold as charity'. I suppose it hinted at the fact that people who did 'good' as a duty clearly didn't have their heart in it.
In contrast, f you act from a combination of altruism and true Christian charity, as I sometimes do, you would give a poor person the last shilling you had.

[naomi24]

Craft was going to duff me up with a pudding yesterday! Huh! So much for religion! :o)