I was reading an interesting article when I was searching for the most interesting question when it comes to the believers and non-believers divide - can man be good without god?
Of course that is the question that everyone of the two camps had contemplated at one point or another and they arrived on an answer that ultimately divided them into these two respective camps. Yes that is basically my claim for this article.
I think this is the one true question that atheist and the religious ought to debate about and not God's existence since what matters is whether you had been a good person when you're alive and not your afterlife (if you're a christian you would have been judged by then anyway)
Here's the article stating the christian's point of view
http://www.apologeticsguy.com/2011/02/are-you-good-without-god/
From their point of view, we are lost sheeps without a common god. We've seen self righteous evil men claiming that their moral values are acceptable and doing atrocities and they believe these are the works of deviation from god's teaching.
There is another idea that is even more important that the previous. That is the freedom to debate about what is right or wrong gives the possibility for such a mad man to come to his own conclusion about which moral ruler to use. Therefore their idea is to have only god to decide what is right or wrong as it should since he is the wisest.
Lets for discussion's sake suppose that he exists but could not communicate with us directly just like people generally say is the case. He cannot throw down a big book of rules for every situation but only a few general guidelines on how to act in different category of situations. We are then left to interpret which are the perfect ways to handle a problem.
So what happens when two person disagrees? they should consult the wisest few who understood the guidelines best but which to pick if the wisest two disagree and both of them claims that their reasoning is better the the other? They debate of course, the wisest choice if I might be allowed to add. Of course, disagreement among the wisest does not happen very often but we are all human and we are all still not as perfect as god so they do happen and when it does they could maybe seek out for signs from god for answers (i have no idea how that works) but i think it would be a better bet that they figure it out for themselves.
my point for this discussion is that we ultimately have to decide for ourselves what does the bible or the scriptures of authority your religion teaches. even the wisest around does not have full grasp of the text, (if they did, they would have known how to convince the other that his way is the true way).
So the lack of faith in humanities' ability to discern the good from the evil is a problematic one. On one hand we believe that the followers would have the wisdom to follow the teaching of god on the other we refuse to believe that we can be decent people (decently wise in the matters of moral) without the teaching of god.
You might have guessed i am no christian and perhaps i got the part where christians believe we have the wisdom to follow the teaching of god and therefore be good wrong because surely one can only stand on one side, either man have or does not have the wisdom it takes to be a good person at least at the level acceptable to god. By acceptable I mean decently good relative to the rest of our race. This does raise another issue about how good is enough but I'll leave that for later.
Now I shall point out the atheist's view. It is a suspicion but I have a fairly good reasoning behind it. God was conjured as a symbol of goodness and an authority to be feared at one point in time possibly by someone who has no faith in human nature and wisdom for the reasons I mentioned above. And the fear of letting go of god is nothing but our lack of faith in our own race to do good things. Whether the true god exists and observed this event is irrelevant since he did not stop that person, he might have very well approved of his doings but that is not the point.
The point is I am faced with two possibilities. The first, god actually presented himself to some very wise chap hoping that he can comprehend what he has to say about morality and hope that he will pass on the wisdom to others. What the wisdom might be is a point of interest as well. It could be that the wisdom is that we as a race is still to dumb and unenlightened to comprehend what he has to teach, therefore we should just follow simple commandments he gave and improvise when it seems hard to apply them. The followup lessons on how to be good will be imparted to you in your afterlife (ok im not sure about this one but it perhaps serve no purpose at all to be good in your afterlife as I see it) OR the wisdom might be the actual wisdom to be good which has an implication of our ability to attain wisdom.
Second possibility is what I mentioned before. Irregardless of whether god exists or not, some person decided not to trust humanities' judgement on what is right or wrong. Corrections, it should be not to trust most people except him and perhaps a group of self righteous elites. It's definitely the simpler explanation which is the only one that needs no supernatural reasoning which makes it so much more believable. You can't blame some atheist for coming to this conclusion. The rationale for fabricating a god is valid and visible enough to be a big possibility.
All these needless argument about whether the bible is indeed god's teaching. It doesn't matter. What matters is whether each of us turn out to be a good person. I believe it is possible each and every one of us to be good without a god irregardless of whether he exists to watch us turn good or evil. Why is there a need to wage wars in the name of religion when what matters is not whether the teaching of the religion is straight from god's mouth or written by men. why is there a need to condemn those who do not believe in your religion and threaten them with hellfire when all you want is for them to be good and arrive at a good moral standard?
The answer to the question i pose in the very beginning is an important one. Can men be good without god? If yes as I hoped, there is no need for religion, god would be please as human's attain the wisdom to be a good person with enough collaborative efforts. If no as some of the christians believe then there will be no end to the conflict between different religion and evil is definitely here to stay because there will be no trust, no faith in man's ability to attain a good moral standard to live by. Such pessimism.
No comments:
Post a Comment