This is a great question written by the great Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoyevsky. This question was a hot topic of the Conference on Science, Philosophy, and Religion. So can man be good without God? It seems that God doesn't measure men, he sets out rules and they either follow the rules or they don't. Everything else seems to be just a suggestion.

absolutely. Most who are good in everyday living don't stop to think about the 'spiritual' ramifications of the way they live and react.

Yes. Morality is not dependent on God. In fact, the old testament advocates several things against my morality.

Plus, to be more cynical, people prosper more in a stabil society. A stabil society requires law and a moral code. Therefore, when man acts "good" he is also acting for his own long term benefit.

I sometimes wonder if the rules and regulations set forth by god were meant only to scare the human race into being good or the always over rated "Normal". It seems nowadays with the mass of humanity becoming so religious its almost like an overwhelming need to become spiritual. I know many religious people and they dont seem to follow gods laws because they want to do good or be good it seems almost as if theyre scared that if they dont do what god wants then they will go to hell. So no i think man would do fine on their own but thats only because i dont believe anyone should live in fear.But hey if gods word is what some people need to keep themselves in check at least it keeps a little evil out of this already screwed up world

I could not have put it better myself! bravo, bravo and all that such nonsence.

Oh and also if you love god, dont love him because your scared of him.Love him because he loves you.

I think the bigger question would be, By whose standards would we be judged as good or bad?

Can man be good without god? No. Can man be good with god? No. I think we're done here. Conclusion: humanity SUCKS!

As it always has been, the community as a whole.

But different communities have different standards, would you be willing to be judged good or bad by the standards in say Saudi Arabia? Or perhaps a poor ghetto in New York where the standard is gang related?
If you were being judged by a community of cannibals the good might imply as an ingredient in a chili recipe

I agree to a point but I think you should of learned those things from your family & while you were in school. I've never mainted that you need religion to know right from wrong. If you instill that God is always watching them sooner or later they are going to realize that there might not be any God/s watching them & then all hell breaks loose because they feel that they have been lied to. Fear u=should not be used as a motivation to do the right thing in life.

No you don't need to believe a God to be moral. My father was an atheist and he was for the most part a moral man.

But there is a difference in knowing and acting. It seems that men now ape the good, but they do not know the ramifications. When man acts toward his own good, he is setting himself up as a model of that good. It may have been good to him, but there might be more that is good to you.
All that's assaying is murder is helpful to a murderer and meat is good for those who eat meat, no matter where the meat comes from, but that is not neccessarily good for you.

If being good is contingent on a belief in God and following his directions then no you cannot be good without God.

Good to me never equalled those things however. People have morality without God.

god i hate this as a justifiaction..
can you people not comprehend how many people have died over this bs? believe me the amount of "evil it keeps out this world" is paled in comparison to the amount of evil it manifests from faith in these stories.

people have seen the evolutionary benifits of monogomy, friendship, loyalty and companionship before we were even homosapians.. u can see this all over the animal kingdom, just asyou see the exact opposite.
god has nothing to do with it
"gods laws" were nothing new.. people operated by these things from common sense and a knowledge that you have a far better chance to prosper to observe these traits.
common sense buddy

amen, to this...IMO evil has been created by just such paradigms also...

Perhaps you would like to answer this question I posed earlier;

By whose standards would we be judged as good or bad?

we judge by mans standards now.

First you have to define/categorise good and its opposite along with the continuum in between. This can done using many parameters/references. Classically ethical systems based on human constructed belief/value systems out side religion fall into three categories.

Individual are held by individuals and comprise an ethical system unique to them and built on personal values.

Social, are value systems held by any social unit fron family to nation and may also encompass a veriety of religious or other groups. These have a common ethical base for members of that society, usually constructed in values and bliefs held by a large majority of the social unit.

So called universal ethical systems are supposedly so basic that they are universally true. these are often the realm of philosophers and ethicists who construct them as universal truths. While many humans would adhere to these ethical standards they are not actualluy universal in that many individuals might have good reasons within their individual ethical systems for not accepting so called universal values. A classic clash might be that cannibalism is taboo under a universal ethical system, but an individual one may place survival as a highr order of good than cannibalism as a theoretical evil.

There are some differences in religious constructs of ethical systems. Often, but not always, they imply an omnipotence in coming from a god. Thus believers think they are universal. Non believers may not accept this, but some may still see worthwhile elements within the value system. Such religious value systems skew values , although not necessarily in a negative way.

For example, religious ethical systems which include that man was created in the image of god, and has a unique soul, will normally attribute a higher value to human life because of that. Thus they tend to be more anti abortion/prolife, and also value each individuals life more highly on the spectrum. More social models may give more weight to such values as individual freedom and social advantage, where abortión may be seen as having some positive attributes.

In a nut shell, there is nothing to prevent mankind from doing good, without god, if you accept that man can set the parameters of goodness. Once you believe that a god has set absolute standards of goodness, it becomes harder to believe that man by himself can meet the standards set by a god. Religions often teach that this should not stop us from trying to attain those higher standards, and that god will help people to meet the standards he set, as long as they take the first steps themselves.

People who believe in a real god do see a more absolute and true morality in 'god's" laws because they were created by god. Non believers ,who think these laws are actually the creation of wise 'men'" over the centuries will, naturaly, not accept that they are in any way superior to laws/ethical systems which have been directly created by humans.

It is interesting that few such wise men over many millenia have ever claimed credit for the formation or propagation of such ethical systems. Almost universall,y they claim that the precepts and laws were passed down to them from some form of divinity. Perhaps they do so to imbue those laws with more authority, and to make them more effective, and yet it remains one of the few areas of society where men keep refusing to take credit for quite obviously powerful philosophical constructs.

Perhaps good and evil can be judged by the standards of human evolution?

"Evolution generated the moral sentiments out of a need for a system to maximize the benefits of living in small bands and tribes. Evolution created and culture honed moral principles out of an additional need to curb the passions of the body and mind. And culture, primarily through organized religion, codified those principles into moral rules and precepts." Michael Shermer The Science of Good and Evil

I hate to disillusion you (and given that you probably wont believe a word i say, i probably dont need to worry about it), but in my POV, you have got a lot of "facts" completely wrong here

First, animals do not operate in any thing like the same way as humans. Animals are completely driven by evolutionary forces. They do not, because they can not, weigh up philosophical values and make choices. They operate because either nature or a force such as humans has trained them to respond in that way.

Evolution in its operation is "designed" to propagate species, and within that, individual animals which exhibit superior fitness to their environment, will survive better. Certain types of communal behaviour have evolved, from swarms of bees to groups of apes, where evoution may have programmed altruistic behaviour into the survival mechanisms.

The "mothering instinct"is perhaps the strongest most commonly recognised such instinct. A mother animal does not protect its young out of love but for the evolutionary propagation of its gene pool. Whatever force which propels it to act in protection of its young is an evolutionarily programmed one.

Animals almost never abandon their young if they are healthy and have a good chance of survival. Humans have a much higher rate of abandonment, because they are able to overcome their programming with"logic"or "rationalisation"

Animals do not need laws to operate by and would not benefit from them, outside evolutionary laws.

When people developed self awareness, cognitive ability, and all the deeper thinking processes which come with that, they found the ability to step outside their programming. At a simple level, the ability to create and use tools gave humans a third option to flight or fight.

They had the security, and time to start to think about other possibilities. From this, both selfish and altruistic thoughts and actions followed. People would steal, not just to survive or get food but for a variety of psychological reasons such as jealousy or self gratification.

It was in response to these more complex behaviours, thoughts and deeds, that humans needed to develop ethical systems.
This became increasingly impt as humans moved beyond the social unit of the family, where self and group interest were usually the same, to the clan and tribe, where they could well be in conflict. At this level ethical systems became critical for the units survival. Most of the OT laws reflect this desire to strengthen and protect the tribal unit. Without the tribal unit survival of the individual was very difficult. Thus the codes reflected the value of obedience and fitting in, rather than individualism.

None of this has anything to do with common sense, in the sense that these beliefs are natural or intuitive to humanity. Look at children. They are not intuitively good. They may not be intuitively bad either, but they are certainly ego centric and self centred. Nature/evolution designed them this way, to give them the best chance of survival.

Ethics, values and moralities must be passed on explicity, and carefully, to each child. While it is true that if this is not, done some individuals may develop a more social conscience as adults, the success rate is not high. Most people who do not learn social principles, ethics and values as children never successfully learn them.

Although they may adopt protective camouflage behaviours to survive/ fit into their societies, they will never have the core values and attitudes which can only be inculcated into young children.

Just think how many people believe and act in ways which do not promote the common good and the motivations which drive them. Would you say they have no common sense or are reducing their chance for survival. In modern economies such behaviour is often rewarded.

Religious ethical beliefs, along with more "humanist" önes, wiil probably always have a place in constructing individual, social and universal ethical systems.

People mill about when the weekend comes and drink and party and commit all kinds of strange behavior.



Why, even today there must have been some unexplained terrorist activity by bears.

You have not at any time whatsoever gone into the mind of any other creature besides yourself, so that eliminates the prediction. The reason it appears that animals do not have the ability to make choices is that they don't have to and they can't because they have evolved into using the environment to the best that can be. Tell me, what other way could a cow eat grass and produce the mushrooms they can? Doesn' that help in the philosophical mind? And who said that animals have no philosophical value?

Why, the birds in their flight; what philosophical dreams that produces with people on mushrooms!

I dont fully understand the profundity of your response, but i will just add this.

While I said animals are incapable of operating in the same way /from the same motivations as humans; I did NOT say that humans can/do not operate like animals at times. Humans are indeed animals, but animals are not human.

And actually modern measurement of the brain patterns of animals and humans does show that humans use parts of the brains in ways that animals do not. Those parts of the brain have already been shown to be where different aspect of higher order thinking occur. Thus while not conclusive, all the available evidence is negative that animals can, or do think, at the higher order which humans demonstrate constantly.

Of course it is always possible that cows are so intelligent that they deliberately shut down that part of their thinking patterns while being assessed. This does not expain why we eat them, however, and not vice versa.

Animals have a huge philosophical value, but only to humans.

Yes...and even better without religion.