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What If I’m Just… Good? (And That’s Enough)
Episode 1 • 1st September 2025 • Live Good. Walk Good. • Bianca Welds (from The B Factor)
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What If I’m Just… Good? (And That’s Enough)

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Live Good. Walk Good. - a podcast about living well without religion

What if you don’t need saving? What if you’re already good—just as you are?

In this opening episode, Bianca shares the quiet, radical question that launched her humanist journey: What if I’m just… good?

No divine stamp of approval. No fear of hell. Just a commitment to live with care, integrity, and love.

Together, we explore:

  • Why moral worth shouldn’t be tied to belief
  • How humanism reframes goodness as a choice, not a commandment
  • The internal compass we all carry, and why we can trust it
  • The beauty (and responsibility) of creating ethics without obedience

This is not about being perfect. It’s about being present. About showing up, honestly and humanly, in a complicated world—and choosing goodness anyway.

Episode Overview

This week’s episode was sparked by a question I’ve been asked more than once: If you don’t believe in God, what keeps you from doing bad things?

It’s the kind of question that can sound like a trap, but it’s also a deeply human concern. You’ve likely wrestled with it in verandah debates, in quiet moments of self-reflection, and during some very spirited holiday dinners in Jamaica.

In this episode, we explore how morality can stand on its own legs: rooted not in divine oversight, but in empathy, fairness, and the shared human experience. I’ll share my own journey from inherited beliefs to consciously chosen values, and invite you to reflect on what “goodness” means when it’s yours to define.

🎧 Listen in and explore:

  • This week’s gentle practice invitation
  • A reflective journal prompt to deepen your thinking
  • A warm welcome to this season’s journey into meaning, values, and living well, without religion


Practice Invitation

This week, try noticing moments when you make a choice based on kindness or fairness, without thinking about rules or rewards. Ask yourself: Would I still do this if no one knew?


Journal Prompt

What does “being good” mean to you when you strip away the approval of others?


Episode Resources & Mentions

  • James Baldwin, “Letter from a Region of My Mind”, New Yorker (1962) https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1962/11/17/letter-from-a-region-in-my-mind
  • Carl Sagan, Contact (1985) https://a.co/d/4cBmx7y

Stay Connected


Follow the podcast, leave a review, and share this episode with someone asking big questions about what it means to live a good life. No gods required.

Until next time…

Live good. Walk good.

Transcripts

Speaker:

Welcome to Live Good.

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Walk Good.,

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the podcast about living

well without religion.

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I'm Bianca, your host, inviting you

into honest human conversations about

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ethics, meaning, and joy beyond the pews.

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Whether you've left faith,

are questioning, or just

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curious, you're welcome here.

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I want to remind you, this is not a

podcast where I have all the answers.

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It's a journey, a kind of walking

meditation into what it means to live

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well, to live with values, intention,

and care, and to do it without needing

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a belief in God or gods to justify it.

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So let's get into it.

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Today we're starting with one of the

big questions that brought me here,

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or maybe I should say the question

that gave me permission to be here.

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What if i'm just...

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good?

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Like really, truly good.

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And what if that's enough?

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No church membership, no salvation

plan, no divine stamp of approval.

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Just me doing my best with

love and honesty and care.

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Could that be enough?

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I grew up in church.

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I did all of it: Sunday school,

youth group, choir, confirmation,

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communion, all the things.

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And I was a good kid.

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Well, mostly good: told the truth even

when it got me in trouble, shared my

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lunch if somebody forgot theirs, I stood

up for classmates were being bullied.

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I mean, kind of quietly

'cause I was shy but still.

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But in the middle of all of

that, one of the messages I was

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getting was that it didn't matter.

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That being good wasn't really

possible unless I had God.

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That no one is righteous, not even one.

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That all goodness came from above,

and I was basically sinful by default.

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And I remember thinking as I was

getting older, "But wait, if I'm helping

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people, being kind and showing up for

others, but I don't believe everything

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you say I have to believe, does that

somehow cancel out all the good?"

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That didn't feel right.

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And it still doesn't.

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See, here's the thing.

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Humanism, which I'll go into more

in the next few episodes, is built

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on the idea that we don't need

divine permission to be good.

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We can choose kindness.

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We can act with empathy.

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We can live with integrity.

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Not because we fair hell or hope for

heaven, but because it matters, because it

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makes life better for us, for each other.

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There are people all over the world

doing deeply good things, right here

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at home, feeding their neighbors,

starting community projects,

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standing up to injustice, raising

kind children, and they're not

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all doing it for spiritual points.

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They're doing it because it feels

right, because it aligns with

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their values, because they care.

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So if you've ever wondered, can I

still be a good person if I don't

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believe anymore, or maybe you never

believed at all and you felt like you're

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missing some "moral blueprint" that

everybody else got in church or temple

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or mosque, here's what I'm suggesting.

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You are already capable of goodness.

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It lives in you, not outside of you.

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And you get to define what living

well looks like for you, and that

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gets to change and grow over time.

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No altar call needed.

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I want to stay with that idea for a

bit: this feeling that maybe, just

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maybe, I don't need belief to be good.

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Because that's a radical

idea for a lot of people.

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Especially if, like me, you grew up in a

world where morality was tied very tightly

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to religion, where the rules weren't

just rules, they were commandments.

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Where right and wrong were

not open questions -they were

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handed down from on high.

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So goodness was not

something that you explored.

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It was something that you just obeyed.

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But here's the question that started

to unravel that for me: what if

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morality isn't given, it's created?

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What if it's something that we can shape

together, something we choose, moment

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to moment, in relationship with others?

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Because think about it, long before I

memorized a single Bible verse, I knew

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what it felt like to hurt somebody.

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I knew what it felt like to be hurt.

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I knew how it felt when someone lied to

me or excluded me or showed me kindness.

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Nobody had to quote scripture

for me to feel those things.

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The experience of being human was

already teaching me right from wrong.

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So how did we get convinced

that we couldn't trust that?

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Now, before I get too far, I just

wanna say this really clearly.

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Religion is not the only way that people

arrive at ethics, and it's not always

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the reason that people behave ethically.

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If you look at the world, not just

through scripture, but through history

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and anthropology and psychology,

moral systems have existed in

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every culture, across every time,

with or without formal religion.

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Human beings are wired for empathy.

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We are social animals.

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We survive and thrive because

we form relationships, we build

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communities, we help each other.

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So it makes sense that we would

evolve a kind of internal compass,

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a natural tendency towards

cooperation, fairness, even altruism.

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Now, naturally, we're not perfect at it.

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We also evolved fear

and greed and tribalism

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and vengeance.

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We're messy.

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But here's the key difference.

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In a humanist framework, morality

isn't about following divine rules.

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It's about being aware, really aware

of how our actions affect others.

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It's about making decisions based on

reason, compassion, and consequences,

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not just obedience or fear of punishment.

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So when someone asks me, "But

where do you get your morals from,

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if you don't believe in God?",

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I guess I can say, "From the same

place we all get them:" From living.

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From noticing what causes harm.

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From feeling what brings joy.

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From listening to stories.

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From making mistakes, and learning.

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From being in community with other

flawed, beautiful, complicated humans.

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Morality for me is not about

rules etched in stone, it's

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more like a living practice.

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And it's not just me thinking that way.

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If you look around with clear eyes,

you'll see so many people doing good

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for no other reason than it feels right.

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It's the neighbor who cooks

extra food every Sunday to share

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with an elder on their lane.

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It's the young teenager who's organizing

beach cleanups, not for service hours, but

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because the sea means something to them.

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The person who forgives, not

because a preacher told them to,

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but because they understand what

bitterness does to the body.

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These are not grand gestures.

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They're small human acts of

care, and none of them require

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a Bible verse to be meaningful.

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There are secular humanists,

building schools, feeding families,

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fighting oppression, creating beauty.

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You have people like Nelson Mandela

who grounded his ethics in justice

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and dignity, not religious law.

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Or James Baldwin who said, "if the

concept of God has any use, it is to

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make us larger, freer, and more loving.

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If God can't do that, then

it's time we got rid of him."

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Now when Baldwin said that he's

not dismissing faith outright.

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He's testing it, he's asking

"does your belief system make you

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more human, more compassionate?"

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And if not, if it shrinks you, shames you,

cages you, maybe it's time to lay it down.

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That question: what makes us

larger, freer, more loving?

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is what this podcast is really about.

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Not proving or disproving God.

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But choosing to live in a way that

reflects care integrity and joy.

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Even scientists like Carl Sagan,

who looked out into the vastness

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of the universe and still landed

on love, he wrote, " For small

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creatures such as we, the vastness

is bearable only through love.

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Not through judgment.

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Not through fear.

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Love.

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Now, when Sagan says "the

vastness is bearable only through

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love," he's not talking about

romantic love or sentimentality.

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He was talking about that deep grounding

truth that in a universe without

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divine guarantees, we are what we have.

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And that makes love, not

judgment, not dogma, the most

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sacred force we can choose.

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We don't need belief to

live meaningful lives.

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We need each other.

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That's the heart of humanism and

that's the heart of this podcast.

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But here's the thing I struggled with for

a long time, and maybe you have as well.

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Religious morality often begins

with the idea that we're broken,

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that we're sinful by default.

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That goodness has to be given to

us through divine forgiveness,

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through submission, through rules

that come from somewhere else.

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And I get it.

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I understand that for a lot of

people, that belief system brings

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structure or comfort or clarity,

but it also can create deep shame.

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It can train us to mistrust our instincts,

to see ourselves as inherently unworthy.

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And I asked myself, what would it mean

to build a moral life on the assumption

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that we're already capable of good?

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We're not perfect.

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We're not enlightened.

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Just capable.

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That we're not fallen

creatures, but rising ones.

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And to me, that feels so much more honest,

more empowering, and honestly more loving.

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Because if I can choose goodness

freely, without reward, without fear,

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then that goodness is real.

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It's mine.

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So my morality changes as I grow.

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It deepens as I understand more.

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It's something I revisit, I wrestle with

and I try to embody, not because I am

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afraid of hell, but because I care about

the world that I'm helping to shape.

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I know that this might be a little

uncomfortable for some people, because

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when there is no divine blueprint, it

means we have to take responsibility.

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We have to think for ourselves.

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We have to be accountable to each other.

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Not some all seeing judge,

but to the people who are

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actually affected by what we do.

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And that's the beauty of it.

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It's scarier in some ways, but

it's also a lot more honest.

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It's more human.

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So when I ask the question, what if

I am just good and that's enough?,

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I'm not saying I always get it right.

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I'm saying I try.

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I care.

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I reflect.

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And I believe that's

where goodness begins.

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Not in dogma, not in doctrine,

but in intention and relationship.

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You don't have to be perfect.

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You don't have to be saved.

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You just have to show up with

care, with humility, with heart.

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I know I've shared a lot here, but

before we close, I want to offer

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a gentle practice for the week.

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No pressure.

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Just an invitation to play with this

idea in your real everyday life.

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Practice being good...

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just because.

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Not to get praised.

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Not to be seen.

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Not to earn anything.

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Do something kind, something

generous, something quietly loving.

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And notice how it feels when

it's not tied to guilt or

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reward, or what would Jesus do?

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Just, what would you do?

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And if journaling is part of your process,

or if you're open to trying it, here's a

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reflection you might sit with this week.

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When was the last time I did something

truly good and felt proud of it without

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needing anyone else to validate it?

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You don't have to write an essay.

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A few honest lines in a notebook,

a voice note to yourself, even

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just a quiet pause to reflect.

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Whatever helps you notice.

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We're so used to thinking we need to prove

our worth, to justify our goodness, to

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earn love or forgiveness or belonging.

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But maybe the first step on this

humanist path, this Live Good.

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Walk Good.

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journey is accepting that we

already have what we need to begin.

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You don't need saving.

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You just need a willingness to live

with care, with honesty, with courage,

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and maybe, just maybe, that's enough.

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If this episode sparked something for

you, hit follow and leave a review.

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It helps others find the show.

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And don't forget to share it with

one friend who's ready to talk

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about the work of being human.

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Until next time...

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Live Good.

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Walk Good.

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