I especially enjoyed this part, as I have much respect for personal responsibility:
Valuable also is the moral lesson of atheism. Virtuous atheists actually have a stronger claim to real goodness than virtuous Christians, Jews, or Muslims, because there can be no taint of cupboard love in their obedience to the moral law. They do not believe in a reward for goodness, and thus must love goodness for its own sake. The challenge to religious people is that they ought to do the good as if there were no afterlife, no heaven, no reward. God does not get a reward for all the good things he does, and if we are supposed to become as much the image of God as we can, as we are told in the scriptures, then we should seek out that life of love and service that is its own reward.
Not that I'm an atheist or anything, but it is good for one to face up to things which make you think.
1 comment:
Wow, that is a really good point whether one is atheist or not. It definitely is harder to be good when you aren't doing it in expectation of a reward or at least avoidance of punishment.
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