Do you need religion to do good deeds?

A person has a natural sense of right and wrong. If you hurt someone you feel bad about it because you caused them harm. Not because there's a god telling you that it's wrong or that you'll be punished. It's a natural emotion and you are sympathizing.

atheists still have morals. it's not just legal or not legal. there is also moral and not moral. are you really saying the only reason you don't murder someone is because your deity and the law says not to? or is it because you beleive it is not a moral or right thing to do? if your God and the law are the only thing that would stop you, then could you really say you are a nice person?

i think moral or sense of right and wrong exist because we live among religious people and human legal system. If from the first time a baby were born they were raise in a jungle by a tiger (sorry for the example that doesn't make sense ) do you think they would still have the same moral with us? too bad english is not my main language, i'm trying to express something but i didn't know how to express it in english so i just write it.... I think there's 3 level of things that we do: 1. On personal level there's "things we want to do" and "things we don't want to do". 2. On Human Legal system level there's "things that legal" and "things that illegal" to do. 3. On relation with higher being/ religious level there are things that catagorize as good deeds and bad deeds. if someone doesn't want to rob bank, then on personal level robing bank is something that he won't do. On personal level we cannot said that robing a bank is a bad deeds because in order for something to be a bad deed we need an agreement with other human being. A cat usually eat their babies who is sick and the mother think they would not survive. So if a human raised among cats then when someday he/she eat their own babies who is sick, can we say that he/she has doing something bad? If a human raised by abusive parents and the parent contain them in a closed environment separated from the world. Then when the kid grow up and have kids, if he/she abuse his/her kids on a personal level we cannot say that this person have done a bad deeds because that's how the parents teach them.

Yeah. This happens with my parents. I tend to waste hours on helping my mom cooking, cleaning, emotionally and what treatment do I get in return? A mother who does not care a thing about the deeds her daughter does for her due to her atheism. My mom does care of course and I don't care that much about acknowledgment as long as she's ok but it does hurt that to her the perfect daughter would be one who believes. I don't and never will.

EXACTLY. This is what I meant to say. It's the believers that only do good deeds because God or whoever they believe in is watching them that make me mad. This turn out to be the worst people if they somehow stop believing at one point in their lives. I know a really religious person who is "super nice" in peoples eyes but to me this person's just a faker. I can tell. When mommy isn't watching he/she is a completely different person, very rude, very hating, etc. I could care less about others good or bad deeds as it's all a matter of moral opinion but it's the fact they CALL themselves religious and completely ignore opinions contrary to theirs that irritates me. I admit I am not perfect and yes I do commit a lot of errors daily but at least I accept them. Some religious do not want to admit it as they are perfect and by just a prayer they consider themselves forgiven but who am I to talk maybe most really do feel guilty but as we are human we keep committing the same errors again and again. This takes us back to personal development unrelated to religion just as you specified, answering to ourselves. I understand people can be forgiven but it does sound a bit cheap. In a way religion does de-motivates believers to explore their inner selves, errors, etc. to become a better them in the future. It demotivates curiosity, understanding, questioning and this is where religion seems cheap, brainwashy and like a hypocrite. While many religious do honestly want to be good persons it's the base of their own beliefs that don't allow them but once again this is all based on every persons moral values. What may be bad for me may be good for another. So many controversies...