How do you know that you are a good person?

I find this is a very good question because there are not many who think of themselves as not being a good person. I remember before I became a Christian that I thought of myself as being good because I didn't kill, I didn't steal, I didn't lie too much, I sweared only a little, I drank a little therefore I was a good person. Its a common perception that killing is a great sin, but lying is not. However, even thugs are praised when they die by those surrounding them!

Only to realyze that sin for God is sin. There is no great or little sin, just sin. The mistake I made was to compare myself with others. I was thinking: "Oh! I am a good guy after all".

But Paul said : "For we dare not class ourselves or compare ourselves with those who commend themselves. But they, measuring themselves by themselves, and comparing themselves among themselves, are not wise." (2 Cor 10:12)

The measuring stick at the end of all things will remain God and no one can boast before God.

You say you have a bible that tells you right from wrong. Why do you Christians try to claim morality for yourselves? Your bible was written to embrace the morality of the times in which its authors lived. That is why you don't follow the dictates of the Old Testament. I've been told many times by Christians that they were written for a different time and are no longer applicable. Same for the New Testament. You pick and choose what you want to follow as "word of god" and what is just a holdover from a different time.

The morality you claim you learn from the bible is simply the morality of the society that existed at the time it was written. You bible adopted that morality, it didn't invent it.

If your bible was truly inspired by a god, the morality would be universal and constant, not dependent on the time it was written.

are you really so empty that without your bible, you wouldn't know good from bad?

i guess i compare myself to people like you. so, yes, i am a good person.

edit* how did i insult you? didn't you just tell us that your bible "tells me right from wrong" and "provides a standard of good and evil"? that, to me, means you are only being good to obey a book, does that truly make you good?

those of us who don't need to be told, do the right things because they are the right things to do.

By the number of people who love and trust you.

PS: I don't need a Bible to understand the concepts of 'sympathy' and 'empathy'.... aka the driving force behind morality.

So are you telling me the millions of people BEFORE your religion were never "good"?

It's more of a "I'll scratch your back, if you scratch my back" ordeal. It's part of our nature to survive, and so comes common sense.