The Christian is in a different position from other people who are trying to be good. They hope, by being good, to please God if there is one; or — if they think there is not — at least they hope to deserve approval from good men. But the Christian thinks any good he does comes from the Christ-life inside him. He does not think God will love us because we are good, but that God will make us good because He loves us; just as the roof of a greenhouse does not attract the sun because it is bright, but becomes bright because the sun shines on it.

Remember! — It is Christianity to do good always — even to those who do evil to us. It is Christianity to love our neighbours as ourself, and to do to all men as we would have them do to us. It is Christianity to be gentle, merciful and forgiving, and to keep those qualities quiet in our own hearts, and never make a boast of them or of our prayers or of our love of God, but always to show that we love Him by humbly trying to do right in everything. If we do this, and remember the life and lessons of Our Lord Jesus Christ, and try to act up to them, we may confidently hope that God will forgive us our sins and mistakes, and enable us to live and die in peace.

A world contrary to God must be kept within bounds by the world’s sword. But true Christians love God and their neighbors as themselves; they commit no evil by the grace of God. It is not necessary to compel them to goodness since they know better what is good than the law-imposing authority. They have a knowledge of God within, which is a knowledge of His commandments and His love. Having His love within they do good to others and are just to all men in accordance with His law so that the authorities which rule the world have no occasion to find them guilty.

We can’t be saved without being good, but ’tis not because our goodness is sufficient, or can do anything of itself. But ’tis because all whose hearts come to Christ will be good, and if men ben’t good, their hearts never will come to Christ.

If religion doesn't make people good, why do people think that it does? Simple: Because religion teaches that it makes people good. It’s part of its sales pitch. But it's also quite possibly untrue.

Goodness is not the pursuit of conformity. If you conform to a belief, to a concept, to an idea, to a principle, that is not good, because it creates conflict. Goodness cannot flower through another, through a religious figure, through dogma, through belief; it can only flower in the soil of total attention in which there is no authority. The essence of goodness is a mind that is not in conflict. And goodness implies great responsibility. You can't be good and allow wars to take place. So a person who is really good is totally responsible for his whole life.

Do you really mean to tell me the only reason you try to be good is to gain God's approval and reward, or to avoid his disapproval and punishment? That's not morality, that's just sucking up, apple-polishing, looking over your shoulder at the great surveillance camera in the sky, or the still small wiretap inside your head, monitoring your every move, even your every base though.

May we not say, perhaps, that the evil man is annihilated because he wished to be annihilated, or that he did not wish strongly enough to eternalize himself because he was evil? May we say that it is not believing in the other life which causes a man to be good, but rather that being good causes him believe in it? And what is being good and being evil? These states belong to the sphere of ethics, not of religion; or rather, does not the doing good though being evil pertain to ethics, and the being good [forgivable] though doing evil, to religion?

The question is whether such a technique can really make a man good. Goodness comes from within, 6655321. Goodness is something chosen. When a man cannot choose he ceases to be a man.

As Einstein said, 'If people are good only because they fear punishment, and hope for reward, then we are a sorry lot indeed. ' Michael Shermer, In The Science of Good and Evil, calls it a debate stopper. If you agree that, in the absence of God, you would 'commit robbery, rape, and murder', you reveal yourself as an immoral person, 'and we would be well advised to steer a wide course around you'. If, on the other hand, you admit that you would continue to be a good person even when not under divine surveillance, you have fatally undermined your claim that God is necessary for us to be good.

Christians must show that misery fits the good for heaven, while happiness prepares the bad for hell; that the wicked get all their good things in this life, and the good all their evil; that in this world God punishes the people he loves, and in the next, the ones he hates; that happiness makes us bad here, but not in heaven; that pain makes us good here, but not in hell. No matter how absurd these things may appear to the carnal mind, they must be preached and they must be believed. If they were reasonable, there would be no virtue in believing. Even the publicans and sinners believe reasonable things. To believe without evidence, or in spite of it, is accounted as righteousness to the sincere and humble christian.

In short, Christians are expected to denounce all pleasant paths and rustling trees, to curse the grass and flowers, and glorify the dust and weeds. They are expected to malign the wicked people in the green and happy fields, who sit and laugh beside the gurgling springs or climb the hills and wander as they will. They are expected to point out the dangers of freedom, the safety of implicit obedience, and to show the wickedness of philosophy, the goodness of faith, the immorality of science and the purity of ignorance.

Goodness comes from within, 6655321. Goodness is something chosen. When a man cannot choose he ceases to be a man.

Would you define Good for me, Citizen Abbot?" "Certainly. Good is that force within us which inspires men to acts of conformity and subservience. The worship of Good is essentially the worship of oneself, and therefore the only true worship. The self which one worships is the ideal social being: the man content in his niche in society, yet ready to creatively advance his status. Good is gentle, since it is a true reflection of the loving and pitying universe. Good is continually changing in its aspects, although it comes to us in the... You have a strange look on your face, young man." "I'm sorry, Citizen Abbot. I believe I heard that sermon, or one very much like it.

You do not become good by trying to be good, but by finding the goodness that is already within you, and allowing that goodness to emerge.