Do we need religion to be a good person?

The Christian definition of what 'a good person' is will rock you to the core of your being. Nobody on the planet can call themselves 'good'. Other religions encourage you to strive hard to do good deeds in order to please God and to get paradise / heaven. Christianity says only God can come down and move you to a place of spiritual well-being, by grace alone. Then you are forgiven, cleansed, loved and accepted, and you grow in grace for the rest of your life, becoming more like Jesus.

Without the Christian explanation, we can all thoroughly deceive ourselves and think what fine fellows we really are - compared with others. God sees us all as dead in our trespasses and sins. Till He comes along to give us new life.

Edit for Aggy - The truth will set you free - but first it will make you miserable. The good news cannot be appreciated without the truth of the bad news hitting home first. Fortunately for me, God had no sooner brought home to me my hopelss, lost state, when He showed me how Jesus had done the necessary to save me!

You do not need religion or God to be a good person; and having a religious belief does not automatically make you a good person.

Some of the least tolerant, most hypocritical, uncharitable, cruel, bigoted and self-centred people I have ever met have considered themselves devoutly religious. One of them, whom I know personally, has been awarded a medal by his religious leader, and I consider him to be one of the most revolting specimens of human-kind ever to have crawled out of a hole; He has delighted in making the lives of those around him a complete misery for the entire length of his sickening existence.

By the same token, I have met some religious people who are the kindest, sweetest most loving and generous people you could ever find.

The same goes for non-religious people, you can find both good and bad.

My conclusion: People are good or bad with or without religion. Religion makes no difference and I personally believe that religious fundamentalists cause so much harm as to wipe out much of any good effect caused by religion.

As far as I'm concerned, the only things I will ever thank religion for are for inspiring some of the most beautiful art, architecture and music in the world.

As I understand, 'religion' is PHILOSOPHY IN PRACTICE and 'good person' means a person who believes in truthfulness (honesty), self control (Brahmacharya) and non-injury (Ahimsa) and lives strictly under those disciplines throughout his life. Ahimsa is mentally one is automatically happy in other's happiness and vis-a-vis and never even think of harming in any way others. When we look from this angle, a religious person must be a good person.

Now the need of religion. Hindu scriptures say human birth is to enable us to exhaust our 'Vasanas" (tendancies to reap the fruits (bad or good) of our past actions. These tendancies (also known as one's Prarabhdas) play significant part in our actions and reactions in life while living. None can escape from results of one's onw actions (fruitification of action) and bad actions result in bad fruits and good actions good fruits. Therefore happiness or sorrow in life depend upon one's own past actions. However, the people at large are being educated more seriously only on the ways and means to live in the materialistic world. True Religious texts contain the teachings on ethical and moral values, the real education for human beings by knowing which we can be a better person. This is possible by actually living in self control etc. without becoming victims of sensual temptations. Hindu scriptures advocate no suppression but sublimation of our sensual urges. Thus it is true and proper education that we should mean by religion and same will certainly enable us to be a good person.

Not even slightly.

Look at all the rotten things that have happened in the name of religion, or been done by religious people. Plenty of non-religious people live their lives by similar values to the religious, but without the observation of worship.

Some argue that it can help, but I argue that it's not necessary, and indeed opens you to unconditional tolerance of our fellow man, as there are no supposed sins pertaining to the faith of others, sexuality etc.

I'm an antitheist, but I have a strict set of values, have volunteered for many causes traditionally considered the domain of the religious, and generally try to live life where I don't hurt anybody. I reckon that's a lot better than many hypocritical religous people.

It depends on your definition of a 'good person'. As con states you need religion (I'll extend this to a 'world view') in order to define what a good person is. You need to decide which attributes constitute 'good' and 'bad'. While there are often overarching features throughout human cultures, for example, people who kill recklessly and to promote their own interests are seen as bad, but there are differences. Also, you need a world view which promotes an objective view of morality: we need a view point which says that 'all people who do this are good' and 'all people who do that are bad'. Subjective morality, if taken to its furthest logical extent, concludes that there is no morality. The world view generally also needs to give a purpose for the morality. This could be 'religion' saying that it is ordained by God, or it could be an ideology like Marxism which says that behaviour which promotes social and economic equality liberates individuals.

Word religion is now a days used as one connected with Spirituality and God. People blindly follow a,b,c religion and come under certain brand or group and separate themselves mostly from others.

In reality religion is a guide or path indicator to train us to move forward to walk on path of spirituality.

This means religion is NOT FOR MASS. It is for individuals and each one adopts religious advises to suit his or her mental and spiritual maturity.

This means each individual has to first fine tune the advises, adopt slowly but with understanding and then put in PRACTICE. This process is certainly making each person in to a good person, worthy of praise.

So we need religion as suggested in last para above.

Not necessary !

for living a good life you need to be nice.. Religion teaches good this sometimes but it always depends on individual how to react on it, I have seen people standing in a church and talking about sexy dress of a girls in front... not fair.. to say but..yes !

behave good to be good person !

See Science and Atheists. Science has not realised even in 100 years. Generally atheists don't realise and those who realise are too late.

Ready made knowledge from religion comes far more easily. May be you need to reject many things but many things are useful.

Nobody needs a religion but instead needs a way of life. And that way of life should be led by the One that created it all...God! A certain percentage of humanity is inherently good, born with a sense of honesty, integrity. But the rest of us need guidance hence God sent prophets to remind us that we are flawed and in order to have a successful way of life we need to be aware of these flaws and correct them. It is too bad though that a lot of these tenets have been turned into 'religions' and have led people astray! Example: How many wars throughout history have been in the name of a religion?

You just need human values as cherished all over the world to be a good person.

No, u do not, U can be a good person without being a believer . Yet shutting ones eyes , ears and mind in refusal to even see, hear or process the truth in refusal to accept it accept is bad person quality. in other ways such person is arrogant, selfish, stubborn, dishonest, arrogant, prejudice and hubris ... so a good person would rid him\herself from so many evils