On being a good person

[_Holy Ghost]

In the age of memes, every once in a while one sums up in a snappy sentence ideas that have floated around in my head for most of my life. When I've verbalized such a thought, the result has oftentimes been wordy. To read a meme sentence that distills and captures the thought succinctly is pleasing. Here in 20 words is one that caught my pithy fancy yesterday:

"If you need the threat of eternal torture in order to be a good person, you're not a good person."

Or, replacing the stick with a carrot, it might read:

"If you need the promise of eternal reward in order to be a good person, you're not a good person."

The religious judgment and punishment or reward notion has for most of my life seemed rather shallow. In high school seminary, one of the instructors explored this notion over three or four one-hour class periods. The last day, using John Lennon's Imagine lyrics, he asked us to
Imagine there's no heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky.

This made several in the class uneasy. As a back row denizen everywhere in my life, I could see several ahead of me in that class squirm a bit in their seats.

Then, the seminary instructor asked us to imagine further that we've been told by doctors that we have terminal cancer and only days, at best a week, to live. Then he asked what we'd do with that time?

One teen smart ass laughingly said he'd go to the local Chevrolet dealership, ask to test drive a Corvette and then drive it as fast it would go into a brick and concrete building. On follow up questioning, he defended that it would be a great way to go out in a blaze of glory, in his eyes. He didn't give a rats about the loss to the dealership, nor to society generally for all the man hours that went into making such an impressive machine that otherwise could be used properly for years.

Others, self-fashioned goody-two-shoes, said they would do X or Y for their parents, siblings or grandparents. The instructor pestered them with questions about why they would limit their short, remaining charity to just those that had done things for them. He flummoxed them by asking if those were really the most needy persons that they knew.

One girl said she would fast and pray her remaining time away. The look on the instructor's face, as he never asked her any follow up nor made any comment, was certainly one of "really?"

Sitting in the back of the class, Brother So-and-So never got around to asking yours truly.

I don't remember but two or three other specific lessons from those four years of seminary, and frankly, none from religion classes at BYU. This lesson is the one that recurs in my mind much more than any of them. I'm not sure how I'd have answered. It would have been informed by the answers given before me anyway. Over the decades since, when in my reflections I've revisited this question, on differing occasions I've felt each of the answers others gave.

It pains me to see suffering by people and animals. For those in my care, I do what I can to help them steer clear of suffering, and to comfort them when it inevitably happens. But I do that in great part to alleviate my own secondary discomfort not purely (perhaps not even in part) out of genuine love and concern.

In my real life, as I am less and less concerned about acquiring materials comforts, I hear more and more frequently people call me or refer to me as "a good man." It makes me uncomfortable each and every time. My 'generosity' that leads to them saying that--is it genuine generosity? It makes me doubt that I could deserve such an appellation, and then certain that I do not. So more and more, what I do for others I try to do in the darkness of anonymity, to make it so that I don't get any praise that I inevitably parse to being undeserving.

In the five years that remained of my LDS experience after that week in seminary, years that included BYU and a mission, I noticed that those in leadership and teaching a class would try to veer away from any questions or comments made in that vein, by others or by me. It seemed too messy, I suppose.

It is a riddle. One that I have come to realize that I will never solve. One that only on one occasion in my LDS experience did anyone try to unravel. I will here leave that seminary instructor nameless. He died this past year. I saw his obituary online. And though he is now dead, I write this to pay homage to a fellow being who obviously struggled with the same unanswerable question. I appreciate that he went off script that week.

[_Physics Guy]

"If you need the promise of eternal reward in order to be a good person, you're not a good person."

Maybe not, but to me this seems to me like saying, "If you need 81mg of aspirin every day to stay healthy, you are not healthy." Perhaps that's true, but for some people the daily aspirin makes them healthier. Nobody can count on staying as healthy as they would like to be, and nobody can be sure that they are going to turn out to be as good a person as they should be if push comes to shove. Things that help may not be guarantees but that doesn't mean they don't help.

Some drinkers and smokers live to ripe old ages while some health freaks die young; plenty of people who don't believe in eternal judgement manage to be inspiringly good while plenty of religious believers do horrible things. As a general tendency, though, how could sincere belief in eternal reward or punishment not have some effect on behavior? People modify their behaviors just from belief in tax penalties or benefits that will come around next April. It seems pretty implausible to suggest that sincere belief in eternal consequences isn't going to have any moral influence at all.

Part of being a good person, it seems to me, is not being too sure that you are a good person. If you really want to be ready to do the right thing in the time when that's hard, I think you have to invest in building habits of action and thought that will let your instincts help you do the right thing when it counts. Regularly thinking about eternal judgement might be that kind of investment. Perhaps a really good person wouldn't need it but a person who is at least good enough to want to be better might find it worthwhile.

[_moksha]

What makes you a good person is doing good things (being a good parent, neighbor, friend, helping others, being gracious and generous, etc...). Personal motives seem extraneous to doing good things, it is the action that defines the person.

[_zeezrom]

The existence of suffering and religious rewards makes me think God is not, nor has he/she ever been perfect, all knowing, or all powerful. Powerful? Yes. But not all-powerful. Smart? Yes, but not all knowing. Good? Yeah maybe, but not perfect.

[_SuperDell]

You are making it way too complicated. The Lord has shown the Brethren how tell who is a good person.

Check their Tithing and Donation records.

[_Kishkumen]

You are making it way too complicated. The Lord has shown the Brethren how tell who is a good person.

Check their Tithing and Donation records.