Why be good if there is no God?

I had an experience a few days ago that brought to my mind this question. It remains one of the the believer's primary arguments for the existence of God, the idea that, without God, there is nothing to make us act rightly, or against our own self-interest in order to do good. (Bear in mind that, even if this were true, which it is not, it doesn't mean that God exists, only that belief in God makes us do good rather than evil.)

But to my experience. Sitting in a managers' meeting with my boss, we're discussing the impending holiday season and how we should prioritize our team members' vacation schedule preferences. The boss tells us that priority would be given by virtue of seniority. One of the managers asks if that means seniority within the company or within our department. Department is the answer.

So we're going around the table and my boss says that means I have first dibs on vacation schedule since I've been here the longest of the members of my team. Right away I feel that I have to point out that, even though I've been with the company longer, I'd come over to the department shortly after another team member. And that's what I say.

Now, why did I say that? If I'd said nothing, I would have gotten first choice. What happened is, I would have felt bad about allowing the mistake to stand. To do that would literally have made me feel bad. And when I corrected the record, and when the others remarked on that, I literally felt good. Not only that, but I could easily see the advantage to me in showing integrity, which would engender trust, a cooperative spirit and goodwill in my peers and superiors.

What's the point? The idea of keeping quiet made me feel bad, and the idea of speaking up made me feel good. Added to that is the long term benefit of showing myself to have integrity. So I have lots of reasons to be good, and God is unnecessary and irrelevant.

(Believers will no doubt claim that my "conscience" is proof of God's existence all by itself. Why? Evolutionary biology explains it quite well, no need to pull God out of a hat, since cooperation and harmony is better for the thriving of my species than the opposite.)

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