How can the Religious be moral?

[Theflipside]

OK, STOP.

Thank you. Had to get that out of the way for the person who comes raging in here.

My question is as follows: If god exists, then you do good because you want to get into heaven or don’t want to go to hell. In this case, you are selfish, which is immoral.

How do you guys manage to work this one out?

 

[ahs]

I don’t think you have a proper understanding of doing good/avoiding evil. For example, I don’t “do good” (do the things God has said to do) because I want to earn Heaven, per se,…I “do good” because God said “do these things” and I want to obey God…out of love and respect for our Creator. When I sin and am sorry for my sin, it’s not because I don’t want to go to Hell…it’s because I am sorry that I offended our Creator. God deserves all my love and I want to give Him all my love.

Liken it to parents and children. Much of the time, my children do things that pleases me, as their dad, because they love me. They don’t do it to earn a place in the home. And when they avoid doing wrong, it isn’t to avoid punishment (well, in my house…not always) but because they don’t want to hurt me by disobedience. They love me because I’m their dad and they want to please me. In a similar way (and all analogies will fail at one point or another) I want to please our God because I love Him.

 

[oldcatholicguy]

OK, STOP.

Thank you. Had to get that out of the way for the person who comes raging in here.

My question is as follows: If god exists, then you do good because you want to get into heaven or don’t want to go to hell. In this case, you are selfish, which is immoral.

How do you guys manage to work this one out?

I stay up all night taking care of a sick child and let my wife sleep out of love for them, not because of some reward I’ll get for doing it. Same reason I do good. It’s about my love for God and my desire to strengthen our relationship. If you seriously think it’s a reward or punishment thing, than you are missing what my faith is really about.

 

[Burdensome1]

Even if that’s how someone’s religious life begins (doing right for the wrong reason is better than doing evil) it’s typical for people to grow and mature as they live the life well.

Not sure why that would be a surprise. That’s pretty much how everything goes. I go to kindergarten because my mom makes me. I go to college to improve myself and my life. In between kindergarten and college I grow up and my motivations become more mature.

 

[Burdensome1]

OK, STOP.

Maybe this person thinks that if you actually thought through your questions for 10 minutes you’d figure them out for yourself.

 

[Theflipside]

My apologies. Again.

(If I may try to interpret this)

So you’re born a blank slate (tabula rasa) and then mature.
God isn’t like a gun to your head, but rather a role model.

Am I close? Or am I being stupid again?

 

[vera_dicere]

As others have said, I want to obey God, I love him with all my wounded soul. I want to please Him and I don’t want to hurt Him with my sin.

Of course, here’s a point of consideration, if there is no God, then where does morality come from? From man? But man has the capacity to be incredibly immoral. In fact, many societies have embraced morality we would now consider disgusting. ie. slavery, women as property owned by their fathers/husbands, child exposure et al. So was ancietn Rome with its rampent immorality moral because it was their morality they were following and not some god?

If God does not exist, then morality is man made and subjective. In those situations, anything goes, so the athiest is then both immoral and moral. You can’t be both, yet that is the messed up conclusion of “there’s no god”.

Long and short of it, I’d rather be thought of as immoral by some atheist with the wrong end of the stick as he/she views my attempts to not sin as trying to save my backside from the eternal BBQ.

 

[Burdensome1]

So you’re born a blank slate (tabula rasa) and then mature.
God isn’t like a gun to your head, but rather a role model.

Am I close? Or am I being stupid again?

It’s like this:

Catholics believe in right and wrong.

To do right for any reason is better than to do wrong.

To do right out of love is best.

We do not chastise people’s motivations as much as try to help them do right.

We trust that in doing right as a habit, people will grow in charity and develop right motivations.

Some people “get it” very quickly or at an early age and are always motivated by love. Some people never “get it” (I may be one of these) and during their entire lives are motivated by fear. But either way, we encourage everyone to do right, always.

Let me know if that helps.

 

[oldcatholicguy]

My apologies. Again.

(If I may try to interpret this)

So you’re born a blank slate (tabula rasa) and then mature.
God isn’t like a gun to your head, but rather a role model.

Am I close? Or am I being stupid again?

You’re an atheist, so I assume you don’t believe in an afterlife or a reward/punishment system to guide how you act (moral or immoral, good or bad). If that is true, you apparently base your good actions and moral behavior on something other than what said actions get you (something other than a reward/punishment). If that is true, than can it not be possible that my good actions and moral behavior are also based on something other than reward/punishment?

 

[PaulToJesus]

OK, STOP.

Thank you. Had to get that out of the way for the person who comes raging in here.

My question is as follows: If god exists, then you do good because you want to get into heaven or don’t want to go to hell. In this case, you are selfish, which is immoral.

How do you guys manage to work this one out?

Heaven = God.
Now read your sentence again changing the word Heaven.

 

[Phaedra777]

So you’re born a blank slate (tabula rasa)

No, you’re not. The truth is written on your heart. That’s why you know that murder is wrong, for example. You say, “Well, I agree with that rule of God.”

Trouble is with atheists, you pick the rules you agree with or that make your earthly life easier (when judged by other earthlings). You start to complain when God as He has revealed Himself to be says something that you, in your fallen state, don’t like.

God is actually smarter than you. If He has said, “Thou shalt not…”, it is out of love for you, because that evil thing you think would be fun, or good is not.

 

[Phaedra777]

My questionn is as follows: If god exists, then you do good because you want to get into heaven or don’t want to go to hell. In this case, you are selfish, which is immoral.

I don’t see a question.

I do see you stating that to want to get into Heaven is selfish. How so? “Selfish” implies that I want something and I don’t want someone else to have it. Ridiculous. No one can have my place in Heaven. Indeed, no one can ensure I get to my place in Heaven and I can neither prevent nor force someone else into Heaven.

Since God created all of us to be with Him in Heaven, it is our natural home. Only those who reject God’s love, who put themselves above God are truly “selfish”. And they freely choose to live apart from God forever.

 

[bzkoss236]

Christians believe we don’t earn our ways into Heaven.
So by doing good isn’t enough for us get to Heaven, so that’s not why we do it.

We believe in God, and through the Bible, His prophets, and the succession of the Apostles we are told who God is. And it is because we love God as our Creator and Savior that we do good just as you would do what your parents want you to do when you are younger because they love you and you them, and they know better than you.

 

[JRKH]

OK, STOP.

Thank you. Had to get that out of the way for the person who comes raging in here.

My question is as follows: If god exists, then you do good because you want to get into heaven or don’t want to go to hell. In this case, you are selfish, which is immoral.

How do you guys manage to work this one out?

For myself it is quite simple. It all starts with Love.

I love God and I love myself…This is perfectly consistent with the “root” of all the law and prophets (Mt 22:36-40). I cannot properly love others (as commanded) unless I love myself - make sense? Therefore, self love and a desire to be with God is the proper order of love and not “selfish” at all.

Where your proposition makes it’s mistake is in an incorrect understanding of “selfish”. In order for something to be “selfish” I must desire to keep something for myself to the extent of denying it to someone else.
My desire to see heaven denies no other that same possibility and therefore is not selfish. On the contrary, my desire to see heaven encourages me to help others to this same goal. To bring them along with me to heaven. To love them as I love myself.

So - I see nothing selfish in any of this.

I hope my somewhat simplistic explanation is of help.

Peace
James

 

[mountee]

My faith in God does include the opportunity to join Him in heaven but I don’t think that is selfish. God has a plan for me and my life and He has given me the rules to follow to fulfill His plan. Most of the time when I fail to fulfill the rules it is because I have been selfish with my choices. Wanting to join in the rewards of an afterlife in heaven has never seemed selfish to me but rather the completion of the plan God mad for me when He created me.

 

[JRKH]

My apologies. Again.

(If I may try to interpret this)

So you’re born a blank slate (tabula rasa) and then mature.
God isn’t like a gun to your head, but rather a role model.

Am I close? Or am I being stupid again?

I’d say yes you are close, but I would not say that God is a “role model”.
The Saints are role models. God is the Ideal, the Creator. The Holy Spirit tells us through St John that God IS Love (Agape) (1 John 4:7-8)

That said - you are correct that God is not a “gun to your head”…rather He is big, loving, strong warm arms desiring to hold you close and give you peace and immerse you in His Love.

Peace
James

 

[Fone_Bone_2001]

OK, STOP.

Thank you. Had to get that out of the way for the person who comes raging in here.

My question is as follows: If god exists, then you do good because you want to get into heaven or don’t want to go to hell. In this case, you are selfish, which is immoral.

How do you guys manage to work this one out?

Easy.

Remember that in Christianity we don’t save ourselves. We can’t work our way into heaven. We’re saved solely by the grace of God, and though saving faith necessarily results (if it is genuine) in good works which please God and may cause Him to share further blessings with us, those good works aren’t what get us into heaven.

Furthermore, heaven isn’t an artificial reward tacked on to being a good little boy or girl. God doesn’t bribe us with heaven the way a parent might bribe a spoiled child with candy.

Heaven is an intimate union with God, Who is Love - heaven is love perfected and united with its source in the divine nature. So heaven is not - indeed, cannot be - a mercenary reward. It is everything a life of selfless love is, in a perfected state.