Can you be good without god?
I submit you can ONLY be 'good' without god, because acting a certain way out of fear of retribution from the sky daddy is not being 'good'. To be 'good', you must act properly because it's beneficial to others, acting properly because it benefits you is self serving, not good.
Could be a *quality movie, certainly a quality discussion that should take place.
*doublepromote

Anybody got a length? The way it played on my computer, it didn't show a progress bar or length....I didn't know if I was in for 2 min, or 2 hours (it was the former).

Double-Promoting this video and sending it back into the queue for one more try; last queued Wednesday, January 4th, 2017 3:32pm PST - doublepromote requested by newtboy.

Boosting this quality contribution up in the Hot Listing - declared quality by newtboy.

*length=4:43

The duration of this video has been updated from unknown to 4:43 - length declared by eric3579.

The question isn't whether you can be good without God. Atheists and agnostics can do good works as much as anyone else can. They love, they have kindness and compassion, and so on.

Do you know that if, when I died, I arrived at Heavens gate and I met Jesus..and He asked me this question "Why should I let you into My Heaven?" and my answer was, "because of all of the good things I did", He wouldn't let me in?

Why is that? Atheists and most religious people actually have something in common; a fundamental misconception of what goodness is.

Most people have a list of certain crimes in their mind that, so long as they have not committed them, they consider themselves to be good people. They'll say to themselves "I'm a good person. I haven't killed anyone." "I may not be perfect but I am no Hitler or Stalin". Or, they think if their good deeds outweigh their bad deeds, they're good people. There are some religions like that.

It's a relative goodness. Most everyone will acknowledge that they've done some wrong, but most will tell you far more right than wrong.

The problem with a relative goodness is that is all it is; it is relatively good. It is only good some of time. That is how human beings are. Goodness in Gods eyes is not relatively good, it is perfectly good. That is why the bible says there is no one good except God. The reason why Jesus won't let me into Heaven based on my performance is because once I've sinned even once I have failed to meet Gods standard; moral perfection. That is the only thing God considers good. Once there is a fly in the ointment, it is ruined.

The inference here is, if that is true then no one can get into Heaven. That's the dilemma, and that is why God sent His Son to die for our sins on a cross. Jesus had met Gods moral standard, He had never sinned. He was Gods spotless lamb, qualified to be a sacrifice for our sins on our behalf, taking the punishment that we deserve. Because of sin we are disqualified but Jesus qualifies us, that is why we need Him, why He is the Messiah.

Because Jesus took the punishment for our sins, when we believe in Him as Lord and Savior, God can forgive our sins and impute the righteousness of Christ to us. God counts our faith in Jesus Christ as righteousness. Not because we ourselves are righteous, but because He is righteous and our faith is counted towards us as righteousness. It is a legal transaction, once we believe God can dismiss our case because justice has been done for our sins by the atoning death of Jesus Christ.

So, when Jesus asks me why I should be allowed in, the only possible answer is this: "I am not worthy to get in; it is your righteousness counted to me that will open these gates. You died for my sins and rose the third day; I believed your gospel and received you as my Lord and Savior."

Atheists can be good without God, so can hindus, buddhists and even Christians. The trouble isn't whether they can be good, the trouble is that it isn't good enough.

You mean apart from the time he got angry in the temple (or is wrath not a deadly sin if your dad is god?).

How about the time he questioned gods plan (let this cup pass from me)?

Jesus wasn't perfect.

And "good enough" for what? To get into heaven? Thanks, but no. If it's a choice between fornication and indulgence for my mortal time or having to spend an eternity with god.... sign me up for the sex, drugs and rock'n'roll.

Ephesians 4:26 Be angry, and do not sin: do not let the sun go down on your wrath

There is room for righteous anger; it is right to get angry at injustice and sin. What we are not permitted to do is react inappropriately or harbor anger towards others. Jesus was righteously angry at His Fathers house being profaned, and he drove out those who were profaning it. That is why He said this after he drove them out:

Matthew 21:12 And He said to them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer,’ but you have made it a ‘den of thieves

There was no sin there. Neither was Jesus in sin when He asked the Father to take away the cross. He was still submitted to the will of God, willing to do whatever He commanded:

Luke 22:41-42 And He was withdrawn from them about a stone’s throw, and He knelt down and prayed, saying, “Father, if it is Your will, take this cup away from Me; nevertheless not My will, but Yours, be done

God will tell us to do things that we don't want to do, or don't think we can do. We can't pretend we want to do something we don't want to do; the sin would be in refusing to do it

That is where you are at; you don't love God, and you don't want to do Gods will, and you are acutely aware that things would need to change in your life if you followed the Lord. You would rather spend a limited amount of time doing your will than an eternity with God. You don't have to pretend you feel any differently than you do, God knows.

The thing is, even though you feel that way God still loves you. He is reaching out to you in love and is calling you to commit your life to Him. I used to feel the same way you do, that is until He revealed His love to me. I wasn't even looking for it, and certainly had done nothing to deserve it. He didn't love me any more than He loves you, because while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. If you knew His love, instead of saying what you've said, you would wish more than anything that you had met God earlier in life. I know how you feel, believe me, but there is a lot to know about God that cannot be described in words, and has to be known through His personal revelation to you alone.

Let's not forget original sin. Jesus certainly committed that one by being born.

I also take issue with his short vacation in hell equating to "taking the punishment we deserve". How does a long weekend by one equate to eternity for billions? I've discussed that with shiny before, but I don't understand his answer.

I'm with you, though. Much better to party at the hookilaou in hell than lay prostrate in heaven.

In other words, as is always the way with Christians, it doesn't matter what you believe, if you don't believe in what they do, you're damned.

Hey newtboy, you have a misunderstanding there. The original sin was committed in the garden of Eden, when Adam and Eve ate of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Because of that, death entered the world through Adam:

1 Corinthians 15:21-22: For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man. 22For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive.

Jesus didn't have a sin nature because God was His Father. That was, I think, one of the reasons why the virgin birth was necessary. Jesus is the new Adam.

In regards to Jesus bearing our punishment, Jesus fully bore Gods wrath for all sin. The way I understand it is this: Jesus, being God, is an infinite being. Because He is an infinite being, He could bear an infinite punishment in a finite amount of time. It seems counter intuitive to us finite creatures, but there is a good illustration of the concept by a mathematician named David Hilbert:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hilbert's_paradox_of_the_Grand_Hotel

The idea is that you have a hotel with an infinite amount of rooms which is totally occupied. A guest comes by who wishes to be accommodated so the owner has the guest in room 1 move to room 2, and the guest in room 2 move to room 3, etc, which makes room for the guest. You can do this an infinite amount of times.

As far as partying in hell, that is not what the bible says will happen. The bible describes hell as eternal conscious torment. In juxtaposition to that, this is what the bible says Heaven is like:

Revelation 21:3-5

And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying:

“Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man,
and He will live with them.

They will be His people,
and God Himself will be with them as their God.

He will wipe away every tear from their eyes,
and there will be no more death
or mourning or crying or pain,
for the former things have passed away.”

And the One seated on the throne said, “Behold, I make all things new.” Then He said, “Write this down, for these words are faithful and true.”

You have to realize, this isn't a problem you are having with Christians. This is a problem that you're having with Jesus Christ. He is the one who made the claim to exclusivity:

John 14:6

Jesus told him, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me

He said this because there is no other way to have your sins forgiven except through Jesus Christ.

Acts 4:12 Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved

Nope, you have some kind of misunderstanding. Jesus is at least 1/2 human, born of Mary, so totally guilty like the rest of us.
No, immortals, even demigods, do not somehow warp spacetime so they experience the entirety of infinity in every moment repeatedly. That's just silly mental gymnastics to make sense of the senseless and excuse the impossibility and contradictions of the fable.
Infinite space is not infinite time....and neither exists. More mental gymnastics, but this time for what? The infinite room fallacy just means hell won't overbook, not that someone can endure infinity in a weekend, no matter how magic pops is.
Leave the reviews of hell to those you relegate to it. You have no idea what kind of parties we're into. ;-)

Yes, Jesus is 1/2 human, but not the half by which our sin nature is passed down. The sin nature is inherited from the father and not the mother.

God is eternal. He is uncreated, having no beginning or end. In other words, He isn't subject to time, time is subject to Him because He created it. It's impossible to really wrap our minds around that, being finite creatures who are subject to time. It should then therefore go without saying that how an eternal being not subject to time deals with time is beyond our understanding.

Whether we are able to fully comprehend it or not, the important issue is that to God, Jesus' sacrificial death was justice for all sin. That is good news for us! That means that we can be forgiven and receive eternal life.

I am also not sure why you are saying the infinite room idea is a fallacy; do you think this is a religious concept? This is a paradox postulated by mathematicians, not theologians:

"Hilbert's paradox is a veridical paradox: it leads to a counter-intuitive result that is provably true. The statements "there is a guest to every room" and "no more guests can be accommodated" are not equivalent when there are infinitely many rooms."

It is a logically valid idea according to mathematicians.

That's all just plain silly when looked at rationally. It all (and I do mean ALL) seems like idiotic rationalization to gloss over all the physical, temporal, and theological impossibilities...if it makes no sense....God....if it's totally irrational....God.....if it's contradictory.....God. for rational people, that is no answer at all, it's what those that have no answer say to pretend they know something they clearly don't.

Again, the infinite room fallacy (a fallacy because infinite rooms is an impossibility) is about space, not time. Having room in hell doesn't make it possible to spend eternity X untold billions in one long weekend.
Besides, how does visiting a place from Greek mythology work for a religion that denies the validity of Greek religion?
So many contradictions and impossibilities, the explanation "because God can do it" falls pretty damn flat. He should have been able to come up with MUCH better if he's so all powerful. You would think the all important truth would be inconcealable and there would be no question about it's validity, only those who willingly choose to not go along. Pretty damn shitty of him to make the most, only important truth in life so easily dismissed, obfuscated, denied, contradicted, etc. So thoroughly that it's not possible to know and just must be believed. He sucks.

So...if a fetus is created from only female DNA, it would be sinless?
Why aren't the church and all Christians pushing for cloning research then? It's only logical that, if sin is only from the father, and that sin, untreated, leads to eternal damnation, there should be an all out push to eradicate it like polio, by removing the offending relatives....but there's not. It seems the church either disagrees with you, or has completely failed to consider the implications and responsibilities of that stance. Today, given funding and removing the stigma, it's totally possible to make all the female Jesuses one could ever ask for, complete with virgin births, that could start the new era of sinless humanity, removing any need for Jesus or God. ;-)

Well, no, it's a problem I have with Christians because they say what Jesus says is the truth.

Jesus says, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me."

A Christian says, "See, Jesus said it so it must be true."

A person may then ask, "Er, so why should we trust this Jesus person?"

There follows a fair bit of circuitous reasoning from the Christian that usually ends with the assertion, "Because Jesus said so."

And there you stand along side the Muslim telling us that "Mohammed is the way - because Mohammed and I say so."

And along side the member of the Peoples Temple who says "Jim Jones is the way - because Jim Jones and I say so."

And you all sound just as bat-shit crazy.

You don't necessarily do good works in order to avoid retribution from a sky daddy if you believe in god, nor do you necessarily do it because you want to get the reward of living in heaven.

I believe although I do not insist god exists. I do what's right because it's right. I'm not looking for a cookie for doing it.

That's really the problem to me on both sides. People spend too much time justifying their own beliefs instead of understanding others.

...but that eternity with God is spent 24/7 praising Him for all He has done for us... basically being a slave... or doing what the angles did before one of them thought he deserved the praise (which proves angels have free will despite what some Christians seem to think) and a third of all the angles thought that was a right good idea, so God punished them and tosses them from Heaven. Then God decides to make people, so He'd have others who'd "choose" to love Him... of course for the first 4,000 years of this time with people He'll be a racist dick and have a "chosen" people.... then He'll open it to all people if they accept His Son and His sacrifice... As a reward for those who follow Him and His command to accept Jesus, eternity, thanking Him for sending Christ to save us from the Hell He created to punish those who don't accept Jesus... Meanwhile, Hell, is eternal separation from God, which is likened to a fire pit... which most Christians take as a literal place of torment (some have Satan/the Devil in charge, though it was created to be a punishment for him, not for him to rule over... what sort of punishment is being given your own kingdom?) and others take it to be the more interpretative idea of what is like to have no God around at all...

So yeah, eternity as a slave praising God for saving me from the hell He created to punish those angels who dared not praise Him and focus on one of them, or eternal separation from said God... I think I'll chose that eternal separation. Better to be free and tormented, than a slave without will.

And wow... Shiny came out... haven't seen them for awhile... now we just need whomever it was with that Mr T avatar... and of course Bob...

Anyhow, nice to see the debate go, which I figured this would do... then again I took the video to be more about discrimination against Atheist by the US and the world at large more than the subtitle about being good without God, and figured that was where the talk was going to go.

So...if a fetus is created from only female DNA, it would be sinless? Why aren't the church and all Christians pushing for cloning research then?

Even if it were possible, it would all be for naught once the first sin was committed. Adam didn't have a sin nature either until he committed sin.

you need infinity +1 rooms, and then you're moving into unreal numbers....not the place to be when trying to prove something is real.

You can talk to the mathematicians about it. I was only using that as a rough analogy to illustrate an idea. I can't say for sure how the mechanics of it worked, I only know that God considered it justice for all sin.

If he atoned for all sin, why is disbelief still a sin? All sin is either atoned for or not.

There is atonement for unbelief but there is something you have to do, which is repent and believe the gospel. If you're in court and the judge tells you that if you go and see the clerk and sign some paperwork he'll let you go free, and you refuse to sign the paperwork, he isn't going to let you out.

The reason I believe Jesus had the authority to say that is because He demonstrated who He was through His life and ministry, and God proved that when He raised Jesus from the dead. Jesus is alive today. We serve a living God who invites us into a personal relationship with Him through Jesus Christ.

I also believe because of my own experience, which is that every single word that Jesus said is true. When He said you would be born again, I can testify that He was telling the truth. I have experienced that. When He said He would be there for me in every situation, I can personally testify that is true. His love is always with me. You can find out for yourself by asking Jesus to come into your life as Lord and Savior. Start reading the gospel of John, asking God to show you whether it is true and what your responsibility towards that is. I know God delights in answering those prayers friend, and will be faithful to reveal that to you.

Fair enough. When he's in front of me with the impossible irrefutable evidence that he's God, I'll admit it, tell him thanks, and go on to heaven (which better be MY idea of heaven or I'll have some complaints to make to the management).
If he's God, I won't ever have to tell him I'm sorry for the bad things I've done, he'll know it.

Until then, you must admit that he clearly must have a plan requiring my total lack of belief, because he glued it in there but good. ;-)

The USA isn't the worst place to not conform to the standard state religion. ...But it sure as hell isn't the best either.

Growing up atheist (I started identifying myself that way around age 12-13 or so) in the bible belt (Kansas) in the 80's was tough. Not as tough as growing up gay at the same time/place, but I get the feeling that Millennials are miles beyond my generation (late Gen X) in terms of accepting sexuality. I don't think they have made as great strides in accepting atheists / religious differences, but progress has been made there also compared to my day.

About 10 years ago I moved to Thailand. I went from 85-90% Christian USA to 95% Buddhist Thailand. And yet even though I'm in an even smaller minority as an atheist here, it simply isn't an issue at all compared with back in the US. I don't think Christianity itself is to blame for that, because one can comfortably be an atheist in some other countries with rates of self-identifying Christians similar to the US. No, I think it is a cultural problem largely unique to the US. Which certainly contributes to my high level of comfort as an expat.

If you believe heaven is real, then why are you wasting your time here on earth? Each moment longer that you live on earth is another moment you risk going to hell. So get to heaven as soon as you can while the odds are still good! But please don't take anyone without unless you have their consent.

I think it's a trick-scenario. It's a sin to kill one's self, if I recall...

Although i don't think sinning has anything to do with getting into heaven. Ive always been under the impression it has to do with believing in god/christ.

John 3:16
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

It's kind of a sweet deal You can be a total dick hole and still be part of the gang. How very convenient.