Why be good

I think that I have always had compassion, at least as far as I can remember. I'm not sure why exactly, most likely something to do with being born the youngest in my family, upbringing, environment, society, genetics, I'm not really certain. Currently I generally believe in being good, that is I believe in doing my best to be beneficial to myself, and those, and the environment around me.
Many religions have concepts of good and believe that people should behave as such. The question that I fine difficult to put into words, that could convince another, is why a person should be good?

I suppose the first step should be to define what is good. Some consider goodness to be subjective to the individual and believe that what one person considers good, others may not. Some consider goodness to be a universal concept and fundamentally comprehendible to every living being. I think my above definition of goodness is probably accurate, in defining goodness as doing ones best to be beneficial to themselves, their society and their environment. The difficulty is applying it to a specific situation, as goodness is not a simple question of true or false, but a complex measurement of several factors. A specific act could be genuienly considered both good and bad to varying degrees, because it is composed of many effects.

It is easiest to measure goodness based on its synonyms. These include compassion, kindness, fairness, thoughtfulness, consideration, ethics, morals, honesty, etc.

Many religions give a simple easily explanation answer to why, be good because God or certain gods or goddess want you to be so. Many religions believe in a notion of a Heaven, or some after-life reward for leading a good life. Many religions also have a concept of evil, and have a notion of a Hell, or some penalty for leading a not so good life. Some religions believe in Karma, or that your positive and negative actions can come back to you in this lifetime or the next, or the after-life.

But how would a member of one religion whom believe in being good, offer an explanation to a member of another religion, or to an agnostic? This is more difficult, but here goes my best attempt.

We do not live in isolation and are not independent from ourselves, our society, and our environment. If we attempt to live in a manner that is beneficial to ourselves, our society and our environment, this will lead to improving ourselves, our society and our environment and thus improve our own life. What is the benefit of improving our own life? Life, as anything, if worth doing is worth doing well.

Humans as individuals are not capable of much, the sole reason we evolved to achieve such great achievements is because of our ability to work together in a mutual beneficial society. Without our society and societal knowledge we have built up over 100s of thousands of years, we would have nothing and would still live primitive lives similar to 100s of thousands of years ago. It is ingrained in our genetic code to good, that is how we evolved in spite of evolution. We did not evolve because we were individual the most fit, but because the more fit of our society aided the less fit and we gained the societal rewards.

The best religion is?

There are many religions, created by many prophets and split into many sects. Which ones is the best? It is most likely not possible to derive a single conclusion as the best religion depends on the person and their circumstance.

By numbers one would have to say Christianity, then Islam, then Agnosticism (perhaps lack of religion is one as well), Hinduism, Buddhism or Chinese polytheistism of Buddhism / Confucianism / Taoism.

But numbers is probably not the best way to go. It may be better to look at the prophets of each religion, if they all had a chance to discuss and figure out amongst themselves whose philosophy was right, who would win? Of coarse many religions do not have a prophet, so that wouldn’t work, but would be an interesting discussion none the less.

I have studied various religions enough to know that Buddha’s philosophy probably makes the most sense to a plain agnostic atheist like myself. A religion with no God, a prophet claiming to just be a mortal man, with his own humble thoughts, describing his own religion as a boat that can help guide one across the river to enlightenment, and once across should be thrown away as then one can think for themselves. Seems pretty reasonable, but didn’t seem to take off as well as the more popular religions that tell people exactly what to think. I think Buddha’s main fault was that he had too much confidence in people’s ability to be able to think for themselves.

Mohammad, Mosses and Jesus seemed to have much more success in controlling people’s thoughts. Quite the opposite side of the spectrum, their teachings were the word of God, not to be questioned and followed exactly. Mohammad’s Koran details exactly how one should behave dictating the law and even basic hygiene. I think Mohammad probably had a little more knowledge of humanity having been raised in less of a secluded lifestyle, having fought wars, having been a businessman, and political leader. He had less confidence in people’s ability to come to their own humane conclusions and knew what the average person was capable of if left to their own reasoning.

So, I not sure I can pick an ideal or best religion, all religions have their good and bad points, what beliefs they have in common is probably the best religion of all.

Religion is Evil

Or at least so I have always thought. But lately I'm beginning to think it may not be all bad. I guess my main issue with religion is it often promotes stupidity and closed mindedness amongst people. People generally seem to be quite happy to start acting like sheep instead of self thinking beings, and go along with whatever some religious figure or book claims, or what ever their ancestors did instead of thinking for themselves or using their best judgment.

I guess my other main issue with religion is that it seems to divide people. It seems like the easiest way to create or promote a war or conflict is to separate groups of people into different religions. Religion has got to be one of the main promoters of conflict.

This is somewhat ironic and illogical considering most major religions are founded on principals of peace. The funny part is that most religions are aware that religion can promote conflicts, and their proposed solution is for everyone to convert to their own religion. This cannot work given both religions in the conflict desire the other to convert. Even within the same religion most of the bloodiest wars in history have been fought between different sects.

My final issue that I'll add to this blog is just the plain illogical stupidity of it all. Granted there are some religions that make actual sense, but most have so much mythical hocus pocus they are hard to take seriously. Most religions have some god or group of gods and corresponding mythology that if told to grown person that was not brought up being brainwashed by the stuff would be as believable as the tooth fairy. Also religions are so condescending and hypocritical of other religions, especially older "pagan" religions, thinking them naïve and unbelievable, when their own is no less far fetched. I don't see how someone could believe in one religion, and yet not believe in the 1000 other equally far fetched (but completely different) religions that mankind has invented since the dawn of time, and since they all contradict each other, I don’t see how anyone could believe in anything.

So, that’s enough of religion bashing, and on to what I really want to talk about. Which is that lately I have begun to think religion, which I would dare to define as a belief system, is not such a bad thing. After all, the alternative to believing in something is to believe in nothing, and where is the fun in that. Can humanity really be saved, or expected to not march merrily to its own doom, without some kind of common belief system? If you ignore the fluff of most religions, and look more closely what they, or at least their prophet preach, they seem pretty ok. Most preach things like compassion, humility, caring, love, honesty, generosity, passivity, ethics and even common sense. Without religion, or some belief that it is our duty to be good, what direction do we have in our lives?