"See: any native goodness we demonstrate only highlights how broken our nature really is."

Yeeeeaaaah. It sounds like when some Christians respond to a convincing argument against the existence of God with, "That only reaffirms my faith." The fact that people do spontaneous good things highlights how bad people are?!? Bullsh... do your kids read this, Scott?

The fact that altruism is a cross cultural phenomena that occurs whether the individual is religious or not is definitive proof that humans are not 'totally depraved'.

"Here's what that has to do with you: you should be more worried about whether you have a savior than whether you are doing any good."

I'm not sure that I'm reading correctly, but is he saying one should worry about one's own eternal arse more than helping others? That seems, well, selfish. If God sees fit to eternally punish someone based not on how they treat people, but on what they happen to be holding in their heads then 'He' is not worthy of worship. Separation from such a being would be a pleasure.

No, I think my oldest reads at a much higher level. ;-)

What he's saying is that since human beings do good at some level is proof that they have an internal moral compass. So given that, when judged by God, we really don't have a way of begging off. Lewis made a similar argument regarding morality which you don't buy. So he isn't so much saying that altruism = depravity, but rather altruism = morality != ignorance.

people show that they know better and therefore really don’t have any excuses when it comes time to judge whether they were willing law-breakers or merely ignorant foils trapped by a system they never understood.

Make sense?

Regarding that last bit, he didn't say that we aren't to worry about doing good. That would certainly run contrary to the Christian message. We just shouldn't rely on that good to elevate us in God's sight. I think generally people are a lot more interested in how they're being treated and in how their treating people can make them look good than they are in treating people well. So I'm personally grateful that God isn't grading my performance based on how great of a guy I am. Now of course there is plenty of reason to believe that if you treat others perfectly well and are completely selfless then you'd get an A. I don't know anyone like that and this is a pass/fail kind of deal. Maybe that makes sense of it?

That goes a long way to helping me understand what was meant. Thanks.

I did get the 'we are without excuse' point, but it seems like the author was saying more than that. The part that I quoted in my first comment seems to suggest this. Perhaps I'm just reading too much into it.

"I think generally people are a lot more interested in how they're being treated and in how their treating people can make them look good than they are in treating people well."

I suppose it depends on whether God grades on a curve :P. I know, I know. The Christian belief is that God uses Perfection as the standard. No curve for you! That's what make Jesus necessary, in your view: Perfect sacrifice in place of imperfect. But, hypothetically, if a human achieved near-perfectness and was still denied salvation whereas depraved (even by human standards) Christian gets it seems inappropriate.

I also have an issue with God creating imperfect beings and holding them up to the standard of perfection, but that's a different topic.