reply
- Feature
- Like
Instinctively good. Though having read Scott M Peck's "People of the Lie" I do wonder
reply
- Feature
- Like
I think some humans are instinctely good and some are instinctively evil. I can only hope to see the evil coming and many times I do but sometimes I don't until it is too late.
reply
- Feature
- Like
There are some people who are evil and operate with an evil nature. I think that there are very different norms and for many different reasons. There are also people who do good most of their lives. I don't think it can be as simple as being left to your own devices would you do good or evil. It depends on many different variables invluding the genes from which you came.
reply
- Feature
- Like
Both---because I feel we need evil to identify good and good to ID evil. Since I was created both good and evil---higher nature and lower nature then it is who I am and I have no choice but to be who I am. But I do get to feel the consequences of both and one usually makes me feel better than the other. Guess which is which. Smiles!!
reply
- Feature
- Like
I do not know if I would use the word instictively but I do think that we humans have the capacity for both good and evil.
reply
I have no idea what newborns do other than to sleep/cry/eat. Now watching a group of toddlers in day care for example, you'll see some aggression/confrontation/giving-in. Good or evil is something that every human trends toward when dealing with situations or opportunities. And it can change slightly or drastically.
- Feature
- Like
I have no idea what newborns do other than to sleep/cry/eat. Now watching a group of toddlers in day care for example, you'll see some aggression/confrontation/giving-in. Good or evil is something that every human trends toward when dealing with situations or opportunities. And it can change slightly or drastically.
St. Augustine is an example of a man who turned from if not evil, bad behavior to eventual sainthood. Adolf Hitler after being non violent teenager, was rejected by the art school and we all know how that worked.
Shades of gray, constantly moving sometimes overlapping is how I see.
reply
- Feature
- Like
I think we are instinctively evil, given a lawless society we would do anything to achieve our own goals if one ignored natural law.
reply
- Feature
- Like
I think that insomuch that our instincts point towards a very basal understanding of survival they are often interpreted as evil, but are fundamentally neutral
reply
Obviously I agree with the "humans are human" stance, it's the conclusion I came to on my own and it's what kept me from asking this question for so long. But then I thought, why not dig a little deeper, engage in some hypotheticals? Sure, we won't be able to psychologically dissect all of humankind, and we won't find an answer that encompasses everyone, but we could still discuss what might happen no rules longer applied. Right?
- Feature
- Like
Obviously I agree with the "humans are human" stance, it's the conclusion I came to on my own and it's what kept me from asking this question for so long. But then I thought, why not dig a little deeper, engage in some hypotheticals? Sure, we won't be able to psychologically dissect all of humankind, and we won't find an answer that encompasses everyone, but we could still discuss what might happen no rules longer applied. Right?
If civilization as we know it ended (or, in a less extreme hypothetical, Lord of the Flies or Lost, if you so prefer), would we still (some might add "pretend to" here) act civilized? Would we still try and uphold the law? Would it even be possible, if the only people left to judge were the people who were wronged in the first place?
Is our natural instinct to do good, or is that something we're taught? And can we be un-taught? The Stanford prison experiments would suggest so, but how realiable is that as proof?
Can we even agree on an acceptable definition for "good" and "evil" so we can discuss this, or do we first need to define that? What's your definition of good and evil? Is it something that can be defined, atleast tentatively?
I feel like people on this site often just want to give a quick easy answer and leave it at that, and while I completely understand and share that impulse, I'd like to keep digging. The reason I come here is because my own internal debate has reached a road block and I want to get around it, because there's *always* a way around it. I don't think there is an end of the road of questions, but if it is I'd like to find it and the only way to do that is to keep going.
reply
I agree with @zamfir 's statement-thingy: "Good" and "Evil" are black and white terms for something that is not clearly black and white.
- Feature
- Like
I agree with @zamfir 's statement-thingy: "Good" and "Evil" are black and white terms for something that is not clearly black and white.
In a world where the truth is not really the truth, but what we've made it out to be (I.e. "the grass is green" and "gravity keeps up glued to the ground." It's not really the pure truth, just the truth scientists an other "important" people made it out to be. What if we had decided to call the color green "phone". The grass would then be "phone", not green). My point is, through all that pointless rambling, that like @zamfir said, "good" and "evil" are very black and white terms.
reply
Personally I see a lot of wisdom in the Biblical account -- regardless of whether one wants to take it as history or allegory. We were created not just good but "very good" (Gen 1:31). Evil came as a result of choice to not do what was good (obey God re. the tree). And once introduced it became an over-riding factor (the "easy" lower road).
- Feature
- Like
Personally I see a lot of wisdom in the Biblical account -- regardless of whether one wants to take it as history or allegory. We were created not just good but "very good" (Gen 1:31). Evil came as a result of choice to not do what was good (obey God re. the tree). And once introduced it became an over-riding factor (the "easy" lower road).
So much so, that left to our own devices and put under stress (or perhaps even in the absence of stress!) we tend to lapse into not that which is "beneficial for all" but merely what is beneficial for us and the rest can take a flying leap.
So I see that we are both -- created "very good" but with an over-riding factor of evil, the result of choosing what was best for us over all other factors. And the spiritual path of Christ is about removing the over-ride of evil and replacing it with the original good nature.
reply
Since I have to answer the question, I would say a majority of humans are good (not relying purely on the species' collective instinct.
- Feature
- Like
Since I have to answer the question, I would say a majority of humans are good (not relying purely on the species' collective instinct.
The evil ones just get most of the press.
reply
Humans are morally neutral, but instinctively opportunistic. We also have moral instincts as well. Three year old children, shown a puppet show where one puppet is climbing a ladder, and another puppet is below helping the other puppet up. Then another scene is enacted where a puppet is at the top of the ladder watching the other puppet climb up. These babies instinctively react to the "helping" puppet.
- Feature
- Like
