BEING GOOD WITH OUT GOD

Spiritual without being religious -

Many people describe themselves as being 'spiritual' without being 'religious'. We ask “do they have any idea of what they mean”? Would they be hard pressed to give a meaningful response to the question. Do they simply mean that they believe in right and wrong and also believe that they think themselves to be better than others in their effort to be good. Maybe they mean that they think they can be good without God. But why would a person want just to be good? Do they want to be able to think of themselves as being good or do they want just others to think of themselves as being good or do they really want to be good? How good to they want to be – moderately good or really good? Or just better than others. We ask "why bother"? Trying to be good is a real nuisance. It means having to say 'no' to yourself, being honest when one would like to lie to cover their tracks. It means trying to avoid every selfish act. It will impinge on ones life almost hourly to not do what we would like to do or to do things we don't want to do. Is it possible to succeed in being good? Well to a degree, yes. If one works very hard they maybe able make themselves a bit better than others. But Christians would assert that if they want to be their best possible self, they will need God in their lives to help them deal with their pride, envy, self importance, etc. etc. If there is a God we think He will help us make progress but only if we give ourselves over to Christ. He can make us truly good, but we can never make it on our own. C.S. Lewis describes a religion without God as “having all the thrills of religion with none of the costs”.