I have always been a very inquistive, curious person. My parents encouraged me and my dad in particular never hesitated to answer my "Why...?" questions. My mom is a non-practicing catholic - she used to play the organ for a church - but still believes in God. My dad basically refuses to go to any church that requires him to check his brain at the door.
I've been to many churches but always have the same questions. Can they prove the Bible is the word of God? How do they know Jesus is the son of God and that he performed the miracles attributed to him? How can they prove that God exists in the first place? I've never found the answers to those questions, but saying God doesn't exist would be intellectually dishonest. There is no more evidence that he does than doesn't. As Carl Sagan said, absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence.
I once asked a minister those questions and said I had never encountered any evidence in spite of my searching. He tried to offer evidence (all of which was purely anecdotal) but he also asked, "How can you be moral without God?" My answer was a single word: "Respect."
I don't think he could ever quite understand it - his world view required that there be a God in order for all of his actions to have some higher purpose. He needed the promise of an afterlife in Heaven to give his life on Earth meaning. In order to achieve that, he needed to do good things here on Earth and he needed to avoid the temptation to sin. Thus he found his morality. It's a fairly simple concept, but it is based entirely on a basic supposition that can never be proven. I look at that person and I must ask how can someone possibly live their entire life for something that in all likelyhood doesn't even exist?
To me, there is something somehow cheap about that approach to the question. It's alost as if they need the lie to keep them inline because they aren't able to be good for its own sake instead of having to be good out of fear of eternal damnation. Thus, religion has always struck me as something of a crutch. A useful tool, for sure, but to me it makes the good works of those people seem almost false at times, as if they're only doing the right thing because they think they have to.
It is a far more selfless and meaningful act, in my opinion, to do good work simply because you believe that is what should be done. I respect the right of people to be who they are because I find them fascinating and I am continually inspired by the small ways that they add to the world. I feel I must find ways to empower them and encourage them to do the same.
The way I ask the question of whether a person is a good person or not is simple. "Did they leave this world better than they found it?" I believe that the only way society can progress is if we all contribute a little to make it so. My dad said something when I was a kid which I have never forgotten. He said, "When you borrow something, always return it in better shape than you found it."
Our time on this Earth is surely borrowed time. Everything we do affects those who will come after us. I am borrowing this world during my time here and am obligated to hand it off to the next generation in better condition than I found it. I therefor have no choice in my mind but to constantly strive to make the people around me a little freer, a little safer, a little more productive, a little happier.
That basic worldview drive so much of what I do. That's what made me a Democrat. That's why I donate my time and ability to positive causes. That's why I do everything I can to encourage the unique talents and gifts that thse around me have to offer the world. If we asked ourselves in everything that we do, "How will this affect those that will follow me?," can you imagine how the world would change. That could be Heaven to me, right here on Earth - just imagine it!
At the end of my life, I don't want to worry about whether I'll go to Heaven or Hell. I want to look back over all I've done and say, "Yes, the world was better off for me having been here. I left it better than I found it." If there is a God in Heaven, what better way could there possibly be to live your life in his eye than to do good symply because you can? And if there is no God, how could you possibly give meaning to your life any other way? That is why I am here.