Good Without God?

Can human beings with good without God? This was our the prompt for our third blog post and the question is so simply stated that it implies a yes or no answer - but there is no possible way to be so black and white. Before answering this question, we need some more clarity on the subject of "good" and the subject of "God". Most people address the God part of this question because, as we all know, not every human being believes in God or any higher spirit for that matter. So by simply adding God into the question, are we assuming that all people believe in God? Are we assuming that we all follow the same, one God? To make these assumptions in our current times would be ignorant. There are many world religions and some of them are monotheistic (believing in more than one God). For as many people that claim religious affiliation of some sort - there is an equal amount of people who claim no affiliation at all. The next thing I'd like to mention is the meaning of "good" in this statement. Who's to say what good is? We can all define and label bad human behavior but who's to judge what is good behavior? Which morals do we need to have in order to be "good"? I realize I'm asking a lot of questions but the question of being good without God is so vague that I had a hard time deciding on a direction for this blog post.

Before reading the related articles, I can admit to believing that belief in God could reduce the violence and hatred in the world. After reading the articles, I am not so sure. Before I could assume that a belief in God meant that a person had a strict list of morals and values and actively worked on upholding those morals. However, identifying yourself as a believer in God does not automatically give you the same set of morals and values that another Christian Charlie has, and that is where the communication breaks down. In a perfect world, the religious followers would be trying to make the world a better place and be advocating against violent crimes but that is not the case, "Recent research suggests that a religious person is more likely to commit a crime than a non-religious person. One can even argue that the more religious the society, the more likely it is to have high crime rates" (Conyers and Harvey, 63). This can be examined in some of the most religious countries; the Middle East (Iraq, Pakistan, etc.) where religion is of utmost importance while war is waging and innocent lives are being shed, and also here in the United States. "If America is very religious, and if religious communities thwart crime, one would expect to find a very low crime rate in the United States. The opposite is true; the United States is among the most criminal, violent countries in the industrialized world" (Conyers and Harvey, 65). The statistics continue, and in more shocking scenarios. The researchers of social sciences will continue to battle over this issue for years and years, battling over petty semantics.

As for my own, individual belief - can we be good without God? My answer is yes. I feel that although having a religious affiliation instills better moral standards, that does not define being a "good" human being. I feel that some of the most non-religious affiliated people perform the most good deeds - not because they need to please a higher power but because they are "good" human beings. I believe that, regardless of affiliation, a person must be taught to be good, kind and loving. If we are not taught these essential traits, we are left to fend for ourselves in an ever-increasing violent society.