A coalition of atheists and agnostics are meeting in groups in their communities and started not only posing that question but attempting to live within that reason.
The campaign that started this question started simply enough with signs on subway cars, I-895, I-95, M&T Bank Stadium, New York, California, Massachusetts, Texas, South Carolina Virginia. Not everyone has been so receptive to their message. Bloomington, Indiana said no go with their signs. Normally, I do not bristle at mass advertisements, but this topic struck a chord with me and started me to think.
The National Director of the United Coalition of Reason, Fred Edwords says,”The point of our national billboard campaign is to reach out to the millions of humanists, atheists and agnostics living in the United States, Nontheists sometimes don’t realize there’s a community out there for them because they’re inundated with religious messages at every turn. So we hope this will serve as a beacon and let them know they aren’t alone.” An additional goal is promoting the release of “Good without God: What a Billion Nonreligious People Do Believe,” by Greg Epstein, the Humanist chaplain at Harvard University. It’s definitely one way to promote your book. It got everyone’s attention. Do I intend to read it? No. Do most people? Probably not.
I want to make it completely clear that I believe in supporting free speech, even if I disagree with it. I think it’s actually a good thing? Why? It makes you actually act and affirm that which you believe. Are you doing good to do good or are you doing good because it’s the right thing to do. There is a much deeper discussion here.
How do you define good? For those of us with Faith there has to be a standard, that is not subjective. If you say you are good because you feel good, someone else might look at you and say you are evil. It’s all subjective unless you have a standard like the Bible.
- Romans 3:12 “There is none who does good, no, not one.”
- Mark 10:18″ No one is good but One, that is, God.”
- Romans 3:23 “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God”
God’s standard is perfection. Some of us, admit to that better than others. It’s a part of the human condition that we fail. We can never be good on our own. We can only admit our need and trust in Him to save us. As followers of God we humble ourselves to know that we on our own cannot do it. Romans 6:23 “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” All we have to do is believe in Christ as our only God and Savior. I know, people don’t want to admit that they can’t be good enough on their own. We want to save ourselves, or better yet, not need a savior at all because we’re “good enough”. But, once again, good enough for what and for who and who gets to decide? I guess if you don’t believe in eternity, you probably don’t care anyways. It’s a pretty big gamble, though. Saying you can be good without God is not an attack on Christianity. It simply gives confidence to people who are questioning faith so they don’t feel guilty about it.
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