Why is being religious a reason to do good? Shouldn't a person do good because they are human and want to help fellow humans? Good should not be done in the "name" of anything, rather it should be done because it is helpful.

"With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion." - Steven Weinberg

I think being a good person has little to do with religion.  You are good or you aren't.  There are good people who aren't religious.  There are bad people who are religious.  People do bad things in the name of religion, but not all bad things are done for religion. Someone can do good things just because they need to be done.

It depends on how one percieves good and evil. To a radical Muslim walking into a crowded marketplace and performing a suicide bombing would be considered good. To a radical Christian picketing the funerals of dead soldiers is considered good. To me, the removal of all religions so that we can finally make uninhibited scientific progress is good.

 Of course if you are simply referring to good things as donating to charity, feeding the homeless, helping a lost child find his mother, etc. then religion shouldn't come into play. The Christian often wants to say that atheists have no morals because he gets his morality from the Bible and the 10 Commandments. I say that if that person would be willing to go out and murder, rape, pillage, lie, etc. if the Bible didn't exist then it's a damn good thing it DOES exist. Anyone who needs a magical sky daddy or an ancient text to guide them towards being kind to their fellow man needs mental help. Plain and simple.

1: What things? I made an effort to think of something good that was only done because of religion, and I came up blank.

2: Even assuming there are good things done, this is still easy to deflate. If someone goes and shoots someone else in the head; and then donates 5 million to a charity, saves a kid from a fire, and helps an old lady crossing the street with her groceries, are you really going to ignore the fact that this person killed someone?

I agree that needing a religion to tell you not to kill people is bad.  Personally, I don't need God for that particular lesson.  I don't kill the guy that cuts me off because it is wrong - not to mention messy : P- not because God says it is a sin.  I think people who say they are good people strictly because God will punish them if they aren't are sad and weak.  Of course, I also think God is a lot more forgiving then the fire and brimstone people seem to think.  I try to be a good person because it is what I want to do.  Why piss all over other people's lives for no reason... ?  That's just not cool. 

Isn't our legal system based in such a way as to discourage "bad" people from doing "bad" things and rewarding "good" people with doing "good things" (tax code. ).

Anycase...

Tis possible.  Would definitely be a strange thing.

With regards to morality (whether religious based or secularly based) I do not believe that it is, necessarily, naturally existent--

A common phrase is:

"I do good because it is good."

Yet.. (Tod I believe was the one that explained this to me-- although I make be expanding liberally) that morality is, possibly, always "taught".

Whether your parents or "society" as a whole socializes you to say "do X because God wants you" or "do X because thats just what you should do"-- the internalization, and maturation, of the morality is still dependent upon the individual in later life.

For instance, as difficult as it is for an individual to seperate from his birthrighted religion.. so, I would contend, is it difficult to discard any sort of social conditioning (whether based upon religion or secularism) which internalizes "good feelings" for doing "good things".

For instance:

"Ring a bell, bring out food, create salivation."

"Ring a bell, bring out food, create salivation."

"Ring a bell, bring out food, create salivation."

"Ring a bell, create salivation."

Now.. just switch every "ring a bell" with "do something [good]"-- everything "bring out food" with "some sort of positive affirmation"-- and every "create salivation" with "create good feeling".

We are all pavlov's dogs. :P  I'm hopped up on an energy drink.. I'm definitely writing to much without much point at the moment.

Yet, to give an example:

Whether or not I was brought up a religious household does not change the fact that now I get "good feelings" from doing "good things".

(The secular counterpart of a religious person who doesn't do bad things because of "God punishment" and does good things for "God rewards" is a person who doesn't do bad things because of "legal punishment" and does good things for "tax breaks".)  

Or the admiration of others. I would not be so quick to presume that an atheist does good things just because they are good. Perhaps many, perhaps the majority, yet this is something not easily judged..

Who would say:

I do good things because people will like me better.

Yet.. it's a plausible motive.

 Do you not know what Anonymous means?

I'm going to respond different than most other people here.  I'm perfectly happy to accept that many people endeavor to do good things that at least they believe it is from their religious conviction such motivation springs.  And, I don't really think its my place to say they are wrong.  If they do genuinely good things, and they think it is based on God, who am I to say otherwise?

That said, many believers do things that they consider good, but are actually quite bad.  For example, lots of people support that jackass Bush because he's "a good Christian".  On the other hand, there are Christians that hate Bush, and find him not "a good Christian" at all.  Unfortunatly, there's a lot more of the former, at least among "fundamentalists" than of the later.

So, in my view, if you do good, and you say it is because of God, then great, more power to you.  If you do bad, I don't give a shit if it was because of God or not, its still bad.

That's not true. What if you don't give a shit about the admiration of others?

It's hard to extricate the secular elements of society from the religious, in America at least, so this isn't a straightforward question. Some theists would begin with the assumption that all people are inherently flawed, and that it's some sort of supernatural influence that guides them away from their baser instincts. But, because the existence of supernatural things like “god” hasn't been substantiated, and there are many who argue it doesn't need to be, I start with the justified premise that all actions undertaken by humans are within human capacity and don't require a supernatural agent for explanation. There are virtues practiced by some religions that I find value in (I've been very impressed and surprised by what selflessness and intelligence I've seen in the Mormons -- arguably one of the stupider-sounding religions), but to attribute moral values solely to the influence of a religious ideas (the ones people choose to recognize anyway) -- rather than society, culture or biological imperative -- hasn't been justified. In many cases, it's been contradicted by the actions of still other believers, weakening the correlation. But the way the argument of the believers works is by robbing humanity of all its virtues, giving them wholesale to an invisible third party, and claiming only for ourselves what's harmful, selfish, compulsive: a premise that's been refuted in biology, both in humans and in chimpanzees.

Unless you believe humans are utterly worthless save for their capacity to kowtow to a dissociated personality fragment or ethnically incorrect depiction of a mythical figure, human capacity for good and bad is innate.