How do you politely refute the "I'm a good person argument"?

[PoliSciProf]

The “I’m a good person” argument doesn’t drive me nuts but it saddens me. When people say this, they generally mean they are nice to people, perhaps give to charity, don’t lie, murder cheat or steal, are considerate of others and so on. In short, they have a very tepid and secularized version of Judeo/Christian morality. They know what good behavior is but don’t realize its origins or implications. They are in way like the virtuous pagans before the Incarnation but probably not as reflective as the Stoics, etc. They seem indifferent to spiritual things, let alone spiritual growth (though I know one couple who proclaim the good person argument but have become Wiccans hence demonstrating that they need something beyond themselves) In short, the “good person” people often remind me of those who Nietzsche’s Zarathustra described as the last men “who think they have discovered happiness and then blink.”

 

[He_Man]

It seems like I repeatedly encounter people who don’t care about going to chuch or doing anything related to religion because they make the claim “I think if I try to be a good person I will be rewarded by a higher power in the afterlife.” Most of these people doubt that God exists, although they are not atheists.

Every time I hear this reasoning I get angry because I want them to be able to know God, and they seem to use this logic to justify all sorts of sins. For example, I had a boyfriend who used to say “It doesn’t matter if me touching you is a sin, because if we both try to be good people and we don’t go around killing people, we can still get to heaven.”

The way people try to say all they have to do is try to be “a good person” just drives me nuts, but I don’t want to start arguments over it. All I would like to do is gently explain to them why they need to do more then just try to be “a good person” and do some mild evangelization, but not enough to make them get overly defensive.

Just tell them they’re not. That usually ends the argument.

 

[stelline]

Just tell them they’re not. That usually ends the argument.

Gotta love that response.

Some short responses I would give to the statement “I’m a good person” would be:

“Says who?”

“Prove it.”

“I know. It’s because you’re so humble…”

“I’m sure Hitler thought the same thing about himself.”

“Me too. Wanna go lift some cigarettes at the local stop-n-rob?”

and " "

Really now, anyone who sets their own bar for “goodness” makes their statement lack any credibility whatsoever. When little “Billy” robs a bank, rapes a girl, pushes down an old woman, kicks a puppy, shoots his classmates and himself, and his mom says “I don’t understand! He was such a good boy,” I seriously question her standards by which she measures goodness.

If there is a set standard of what is good and what is not out there in the universe, people ought to find it and measure themselves against that standard. There can’t be multiple standards–that would be a contradiction.

And if anyone insists that there really is nothing we can look to as an absolute standard (moral relativism), then why don’t those same people go hog wild and live the criminal high life? Want that diamond necklace your neighbor wears? --go shoot her up and take it! Who cares? You’re still a good person, right? You’ve got no god to answer to and I’m sure you’re clever enough to avoid being caught…

Any standard is only as credible as the authority from which it originates.

 

[KCT]

I once heard a priest say, “Good is the minimum we’re called to be.”

He didn’t consider ‘good’ a compliment!