this post was submitted on 16 Nov 2025
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I've had religious people ask me (am atheist) "without God what is stopping you from being evil?" and holy shit, I can't believe people think like that
A good answer is "I rape and murder exactly as much as I want to, which is none. If eternal hellfire is the only think keeping you from doing those things then I hope you never lose your faith."
Please do not stop believing in the dumbest thing I've ever heard. [Jump to 2:28]
I can hear Penn Jillette saying this...
That and the "without the Bible, how do you know what's right or wrong" crowd. They have become so externally reliant on direction that they dont even have an independent sense of morality anymore. Also, they must think, in turn, that that non-Christian cultures and people are inherently amoral or immoral. The irony.
Unfortunately, you hit the nail on the head there. When you're so used to having someone tell you what to do, for every little action from how to dress to how to speak, you become dependent on it for everything.
Source: Left a cult. Had to relearn 'good' and 'bad' in therapy.
Damn, that takes a lot of courage, good job. Not many people can handle it
This is a real problem we're facing.
It's part of the overarching authoritarian worldview, that fear of consequences from someone above you on the food chain is the primary motivation for anyone to be "good".
The problem comes from it being extremely time consuming to explain how "being good" benefits you personally, even if all possibility of consequences are removed. Essentially you have to explain the entire concept of the word "honor" to them. What are the benefits of being honorable, and how do these benefits (for you personally) outweigh the benefits of being dishonorable?
But if someone wasn't raised that way, then it really does need to be explained to them. Otherwise it's unrealistic to expect them to just somehow figure it out for themselves.
edit for grammar
edit2: To elaborate a little bit, the benefit of honor boils down to efficiency and the advantages of cooperation. People can perceive patterns, and when someone is dishonorable, even if people won't come attack them somehow, they'll still be reluctant to ever cooperate with that person. An honorable person thus has far more resources from their community that they can draw on in the pursuit of their own personal goals. In addition, it simplifies their lives. Instead of having to, say, track the lies you've told so you don't mess up and create inconsistencies, if you live honorably you free up all that energy to devote to your goals in other ways.
Note, my summary argument is not overly compelling just on its own. I had to boil it down too much to make it a reasonable length. You need many examples, or preferably actual life experience on how it works, for the argument to actually become somewhat convincing.
I don't need any benefit though, I just like being good
Personal preference is fine too. For many people, though, they will require a personal benefit. They won't just enjoy it. Especially if they see other people who aren't good and are doing better than them.
Everyone needs to watch the 90s movie Clifford, it explains this awesomely. Clifford is an annoying and manipulative brat who only cares about one thing. He gets it, and then he decides that he'd rather be well behaved, because he wants people to like him.
Nothing like them being flabbergasted at the response of "I don't need an external threat of eternal punishment to be a good person"
Can confirm, how corrupt does one have to be to think like that? Isn't it logical to just think to behave towards others as one would like them to behave towards oneself?