Can we be good without God? by Chad Tomasso

If there is no God, then there cannot be a standard by which we know what is ‘good’ or ‘bad’. By this alone, Matt Slick argues, the question of “Can we be good without God?” can only be answered 'no'. He goes on to say that God alone determines what is good and bad and removing him from the human experience would leave humans wondering what is right and wrong and what is moral and immoral. Matt Slick, a Christian apologetic, argues these points in his debate against Dan Barker at Harvard University, but he is not alone. Most believers have similar convictions. Are they right? First, I believe it is essential to define what good and bad mean here, or rather what morals are. What are morals exactly? Morals are defined (by dictionary.com) as “pertaining to character” or “proper behavior of a person in society”. These are very vague definitions, but I believe this is appropriate. Let me explain. What does it mean to have proper behavior in society? On its face, it appears that morals are subjective to, or rather determined by, individual societies. It is of no consequence to Matt that our society is constantly changing its views on acceptable social behavior: slavery, women’s rights, gay rights, etc. Throughout history we have seen people rise up against these ‘human rights violations’ in the name of equality and compassion, and change the view (of society) on what is deemed most beneficial for all of us. To tackle the question in a more evolutionary way, we might easily deduce why stealing, killing, cheating or lying might be looked at as undesirable actions. Humans are social creatures, we know that. We interact with each other because it benefits each of us individually in our goal to survive and recreate. A fundamental requirement to sustain a functional and sustainable society is trust. Without trust, we couldn't rely on our neighbors to help us in a disaster, or to not kill us when we sleep, or steal our most precious things when we're not looking. On a bigger scale, we need to trust our government agencies to protect us from enemies both foreign and domestic. The list goes on and on, but lets digress a bit and try to start from the beginning. Imagine if you can, you live in a small tribe, much like our ancestors did. One member of the tribe is caught stealing extra food rations from the group. This stealing affects you and everyone in the tribe (even more so if rations are low). It would be absolutely necessary to confront the member and correct the problem. Based on our experience with other social animals, the result would likely be expulsion from the group, which would be a virtual death sentence for the accused. They might be mauled to death by a wild beast, killed by a neighboring tribe or simply starve to death. In the end, stealing would be considered a bad choice for an individual and thusly avoided out of fear of being punished. In this scenario, it would be plain to see why stealing would be highly regarded as bad, at least in human terms. It would be taught to offspring to ensure their long-term membership in the group. And over the course of thousands of years this teaching and ‘way of life’ will have been engrained in the human psyche, much like ‘do not murder’ would be under this same premise. Divine commandments are not needed to remind humans to refrain from killing or stealing. It is evident we had worked this all out long before the first Jew or Christian showed up. To their credit, however, the great religions of our past recorded these ‘social codes’ in their holy texts and passed them to us much in the same way as our ancestors did before them. If you ponder your own social circle, you will find this need to ‘trust’ others as still being quite foundational to our way of life, and essential to our survival. You want to go out but have kids? You need a babysitter who will do what they say they are going to do. You need a cab ride home? You need a driver that can do it without needlessly endangering your life. You have a health issue? You get the picture. There is no escaping it. So to say we cannot know what is ‘good’ without positing a God is absurd at the least. This debate, in this day and age is old news. Humans are aware of what is good, at least in terms of how we should treat other humans. We each have certain expectations and we trust others will uphold to them as well. These are called morals and they need no supernatural explanation. So what about our need to help others? Where does that come from? It is an interesting question and one that is repeatedly brought up in philosophical debates. Many posit the idea of reciprocity; you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours. This works fine and dandy if you are surrounded by people you know and could expect to see again, but what about perfect strangers? Why do people risk everything to help them if they know in doing so it will likely go unrewarded? Let’s explore this by using another hypothetical. Let’s say you are traveling in Europe for the first time. You see a burning building full of children and you are the only one who can act quick enough to save them. It is almost a certainty that you will suffer terrible injury (maybe death) , but you push all that aside and rush in. It is right to say we view this type of act as heroic and selfless. It is the quintessential marker that separates us from the rest of the animal kingdom. But what if there is a selfish explanation for this type of behavior? According to recent neurological studies, humans are capable of feeling pain even when no physical harm is being done to them. Huh? Let me illustrate by giving yet another example. You are watching a speaker at a conference and in the middle of his presentation he starts jabbing a long needle into his arm. Unless he is on very powerful pain killers, he is experiencing extreme physical pain. His skin registers the damage and his brain receives the signals. The interesting thing is, if we hooked the audience up to brain wave sensors, the exact areas of the brain that are lighting up in the speaker’s brain are also lighting up in theirs. So what does this mean? We are ‘feeling’ the pain with him? You bet. Immediately, we would expect to see several people from the audience rush to stop the man from jabbing his arm, but are they doing it for him or for themselves? It would seem that at least mentally, they have a reason to act on their own behalf. In much the same way we turn the channel or close our eyes when we know the slasher is going to kill his next victim, we try to avoid our perceived pain. Now back to the burning building; are you rushing in to save the children from harm or yourself from harm? It is at least debatable. The science is very interesting around the function of human empathy, our ability to feel what others are feeling. It may shock people to know that our greatest human attribute-saving others-may be steeped in selfish motivations, but this is no way diminishes the incredible act of risking our own well being for others. It should, however, give pause to those who believe that only God could have given us this ‘innate desire’ to help our fellow man. We can be good without God. Good being a subjective idea. What is good for us, may not be good for fish, or birds or aliens on another planet. Good is what benefits humans within the human experience. And the human experience has been going on for at least 100,000 years. Its safe to say we know what works and what doesn’t. What works is good, what doesn’t is bad- put in very simple terms. So be good, for goodness sake.