Be good for goodness sake

The British Humanist Association is placing ads on Washington, DC buses this season that ask, "Why believe in a god? Just be good for goodness sake." My answer to that question, posed in that particular form, is that it is actually easier to believe in God than to work out how to be good for goodness sake. To accomplish the command there first requires that we identify and objectify "Good." Many have tried, including Plato and other philosophers, and none have ultimately succeeded in determining what is "good." Good requires more knowledge of reality than any of us possess. I have experienced many things in my life that I perceived as good that later I found to be something else.

What is good for me may not be good for someone else. When I was in consulting, I thought it was good when my firm got a contract, but when someone else got a contract we were bidding on, I didn't think it was good that they got the contract. I suspect they felt the same about my good. To be good is even harder and to do it for the sake of some principle of goodness that we can't really define is even harder, I have no reason to commit to something as ethereal as "Goodness."

No, what I need is what I have, not an ethereal god who is out there compelling me to be good, but God the Father Almighty, creator of heaven and earth, of all that is, seen and unseen, who has all the information necessary to know good and evil and who has, in the form of Jesus of Nazareth, come and enfleshed for us what is truly "good" and who died for us and for our salvation, and who has also given us His Spirit to dwell within us to lead us into truth which is goodness. Why believe in a god, because being good for goodness sake is too hard for even philosophers.