Why believe in a god?
The slogan on the US atheist bus, ‘Why believe in a god? Just be good for goodness’ sake’ brings to mind one of my bugbears about religion: I don’t understand why religious people think people can only be good because some deity tells them to be good. And do we especially need the threat of eternal fiery damnation or having to spend our next life as a caterpillar to be good? Why can’t they believe in the milk of human kindness without having a god to put it there? And people say atheism is negative.
[seen on fergycool's twitter]
[Update and an aside: to be fair to OneTooMany, who commented on the original Guardian report, there are adverts on the inside of the buses, as the picture with the caption 'An ad from the American Humanist Association inside a bus in Washington DC' (emphasis added) clearly shows.]
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Can’t speak for other religions, but the point of Christianity is that no-one can be good, even if “some deity tells [us]“. Hence we all need forgiveness.
Hell isn’t an incentive to do good. Good works should be a response to God’s grace, not a response to the fear of hell!
I admit that some of my compatriots may have (intentionally or not) made it sound like you cannot be good if you are an atheist. But that’s a twisting of the Christian message – the message is that no-one can be good. Even Christians. But we can be considered righteous by God, which is a different thing altogether.
1 said Phill (12th December 2008 at 2.33 pm GMT)
Good works are actually selfish works: do good (or be righteous in God’s eyes, if you prefer) and you’ll be rewarded, otherwise you’ll be punished. Therefore, you’re only being good/righteous to benefit yourself in the long run.
2 said Pandammonium (14th December 2008 at 10.18 pm GMT)
Good works are a consequence of salvation, not a prerequisite for. We’re not saved because of good works. Although I believe that if you are saved you will do good works (as the book of James makes clear, for example).
The myth of good works getting us into heaven, therefore all good works are selfish ones, seems to have come about through a misunderstanding of works and grace.
Besides – if you believe in the Dawkins “evolution is all there is” philosophy, altruism must have evolved, therefore there it must be selfish at some level. I’ve heard it argued that altruism is done because we expect good repercussions from it. Don’t know what the current state of thinking on it is now, I guess that one’s been pretty much discredited.
3 said Phill (15th December 2008 at 8.54 am GMT)
I agree that altruism is selfish – there’s usually some reward for the altruist, even if it’s as simple as someone else being happy makes you happy. I’ve always thought this; Dawkins has nothing to do with it for me. Perhaps true altruism is when you do something for someone else’s benefit but get negative effects in return (and you knew that in advance).
So at what point is it that you’re officially saved, then? Is it the point at which you start doing good works?
4 said Pandammonium (15th December 2008 at 6.22 pm GMT)
Well I think being saved is a matter of the state of your heart and mind. It involves believing and trusting God, repenting of your sins, and trying to live life without sinning and – yes – doing good works. But that’s definitely not what gets us into heaven.
This is why, for example, I think it’s possible for someone to be saved on their deathbed.
5 said Phill (15th December 2008 at 7.06 pm GMT)
So I could deliberately set out to be a really bad person, but as long as I repent sincerely on my deathbed, I’ll be fine?
6 said Pandammonium (15th December 2008 at 11.23 pm GMT)
Well…. yes. I don’t think you can “beat the system” as your comment suggests (you can’t plan to sincerely repent on your deathbed, in fact could you repent sincerely in such a scenario?) but at the same time it doesn’t matter how bad you’ve been or when you repent sincerely.
7 said Phill (16th December 2008 at 9.03 am GMT)