How to be good without God

There is no morality without God.

If there is no God, murder isn't wrong.You may think it's wrong, but how do you know it's wrong? As many religious people say, without God, all morality is mere opinion.

This is an odd idea that humans cannot treat each other well without instructions. And that the only solution is to have an all seeing eye supervising in the sky, noting down a running score of good and bad deeds done over a lifetime.

Added to this claim, is that God invariably tells us exactly what is good or bad by means of his holy book, and also by means of the men who represent him and his views on earth (plus a few women here and there), God lets us know what is righteous and what is wicked, what is a sin and what is a crime. Without these provisions we have no way of navigating through life as a decent people with a moral compass.

Yet a secular morality is easy to understand, and no God is needed. We simply need to consider that all other people are equal to ourselves, and their wellbeing is equally as important as our own. True morality stems from that

If you believe in Equality then this is a good starting point. It is the principle that everybody in our society deserves to be treated in the same way. A persons gender, race, religion, sexuality, age and any other trait that they may have, do not alter that basic principle. Clearly not every person is equal in every way, in height, bank balance, brain power or taste in music. But everybody should be treated the same way by society. This means that we do not treat strangers, or those that are different to us badly. We treat them as we expect to be treated.

I know that cruelty, violence and theft are wrong. I do not need a God to tell me not do it.

I have been the victim of them more than once. Each time it has happened, it has been a painful experience in one way or another. I do not want to cause that kind of pain to others. I try not to be cruel, I avoid violence and theft. Not just because some of them are punishable crimes, but because they cause harm to others. I would never think to murder or rape anyone.

The idea that I may do that simply because I do not believe in a God is deeply offensive to me. It says more about the person who made the original statement than it does me. Considering the wellbeing of others matters is not hard to grasp. Why would a normal person who has empathy for others ever think otherwise? Most of us actively try not to cause harm to each other. And we do not even think about it. We do it because life is better that way for everyone.

There are some who do not agree with these generally held principles. They may steal, murder and sometimes they get away with it. People commit terrible crimes and are never punished for them. We also know that these people are a tiny minority of any population. In all countries the law forbids these actions, and takes step to prevent dangerous people harming others. The fact that some people will act in this way does not mean that everyone will. In fact statistics show that as a species, humans are slowly getting better at being good. People still do terrible things to other people. Sadly that is part of humanity, but we do not need a God to tell us how to act in a different and better way.