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.
