Being Good Being good without God. I cannot imagine a world and a life without God.

I believe our life will be in chaos if we will just do anything that we consider right or good. What is good for me may not be good for others. Now there is a question of what we think of the word good. The Websters dictionary defines good as morally excellent; virtuous; and worthy. So what do we mean now by being good? Does it mean being morally excellent? If that is so, then can we be morally excellent even without God? A person may ask now about the connection between God and morality. The Bible says, "In those days there was no king in Israel: every man did that which was right in his own eyes. (Judges 21:25, KJV).1 It is indeed frightening if people will do anything which they think is right or good in their own eyes. I read the following article: consider the ancient Aztecs, who believed in human sacrifices. Prisoners, young women, even children were sacrificed on a massive scale by having their heart cut out of them while they were still alive. The Aztecs considered this good. Most today would consider this immoral. But is our belief that it is immoral entitled to any more consideration or weight than the Aztecs' belief that it was moral? 2 If we do not have a universal standard for what is good or moral then how can we say that we are good and others are not. The existence of God provides a coherent explanation as to the source of morality that transcends any one person's or culture's preference. But more than just providing a justification or coherent explanation as to the source of morality, it provides an objective standard of what that morality is. The "good" is that which conforms to the nature and direction of God. The "bad" is that which is contrary to the nature and direction of God. 3

If we do not believe in the existence of God as the supreme being then to whom or to what are we going to base our standard of what is good and bad. Now what if we say that it is possible to be good even without God? If an atheist donates money to a charitable institution , cannot we consider that act as being good just because the person denies the existence of God? An atheist can do that for a reason. I believe that everything we do has a reason. For this, we can consider the view of Epictetus. The role of the Stoic teacher was to encourage his students to live the philosophic life, whose end was eudaimonia (happiness or flourishing), to be secured by living the life of reason, which for Stoics meant living virtuously and living according to nature. 4 Someone who seeks to make progress as a Stoic (a prokoptn) understands that their power of rationality is a fragment of God whose material body a sort of rarefied fiery air blends with the whole of creation, intelligently forming and directing undifferentiated matter to make the world as we experience it. The task of the prokoptn, therefore, is to live according to nature, which means (a) pursuing a course through life intelligently responding to ones own needs and duties as a sociable human being, but also (b) wholly accepting ones fate and the fate of the world as coming directly from the divine intelligence which makes the world the best that is possible.5 Some people may reject the existence of God but in the end they will come to a realization that a life without God has no meaning at all. I have learned from my professor in Law that denying the existence of God is just like going against our nature. After considering the points mentioned then now I can say that it is not really possible to be good without God.

References:

1. http://voices.yahoo.com/being-good-without-god-2220506.html
2.http://christiancadre.org/member_contrib/cp_moral.html 3. http://christiancadre.org/member_contrib/cp_moral.html

4. http://www.iep.utm.edu/epictetu/ 5. http://www.iep.utm.edu/epictetu/

Being Good
by Rosie Gillesania Alvior

Submitted to: Attorney Julius Concepcion