#after spouting off some awful knee jerk response that was hammered into my head as a child

[sweetasteriaa]

MOYERS: If God is dead, everything is permitted. That’s what scares them.

ASIMOV: Well, on the contrary. They assume that human beings have no feeling about what is right and wrong. Is the only reason you are virtuous because that’s your ticket to heaven? Is the only reason you don’t beat your children to death, because you don’t want to go to hell? It seems to me that it’s insulting to human beings to imply that only a system of rewards and punishments can keep you a decent human being. Isn’t it conceivable a person wants to be a decent human being because that way he feels better? Because that way the world is better?

I would like to think — I don’t believe that I’m ever going to heaven or hell. I think that when I die there will be nothingness. That’s what I firmly believe. That does not mean that I have the impulse to go out and rob and steal and rape and everything else, because I don’t fear punishment. For one thing, I fear worldly punishment. And for a second thing, I fear the punishment of my own conscience. I have a conscience. It doesn’t depend on religion. And I think it’s so with other people, too.

Besides, even in societies in which religion is very powerful, there’s no shortage of crime and sin and misery and terrible things happening, despite heaven and hell.

#this is put so beautifully #ive been doing a lot of reassessment lately #of long held beliefs and morals and what have you #after spouting off some awful knee jerk response that was hammered into my head as a child #by various adults in my life #and i was so disgusted with myself #this has been going on for years now #and religion has been a bigger part of it than i thought it would be #my family was not overly religious #but my friends were #and somwtimes theyre more influential than family #and this concept of only beihg good for a reward has really rubbed me the wrong way #and i could never really articulate it this well #so thanks there #isaac asimov