Is Mankind Born Evil....or Good?

by Farkel 119 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

  • gumby
    gumby

    Same question yeru...why.....and......what the heck is it?

    Craig,

    Evil and good are societal/ethical/religious labels attached to us by others, or expected of us to attach to ourselves.

    This another EXCELLENT answer to this threads subject, and deserves a big horrah from myself.

    Much of what is evil is determined by its society and how it percieves evil and good. I am sure there are societies who practice things we would abhor......because their way is a learned way, and perhaps the ONLY way they know.

    I think as for a baby coming out of the womb, and us wondering which way it is pre-dispositioned.....evil or good, in a manner in which most all society would consider normal... is the hard answer.

    Gumby

  • gumby
    gumby
    Of course, as dubs (and in fact, in most Christian faiths) we were taught that man was born inherently evil, and the quest is to overcome that and work towards the good. In otherwords, we were born with Cancer and have to spend our lives finding the "cure." Or else.

    Remember, the discussion in this thread should hopefully be about whether ALL people are born with the tendency to be "not good" or whether ALL people are born with the tendency to be "good." It's the "tendency" to be either good or not good from birth that I'm interested in debating.

    This was farkles concern.

    Gumby

  • Francois
    Francois

    Born good. Evil is not pre-existing; it must be brought into existence by an act of the will of a living, breathing evolutionary being.

    francois

  • Satanus
    Satanus

    My opinions, for what they are worth, would appear to be conflicting.

    One: i don't believe in good and evil, that things or people are good or evil in the biblical sense. So, i fall in w the atheist classification.

    Two: i believe that people are basically good. They would like to improve their environment, improve their relations w others. When they behave destructively, they may still see themselves as ultimately doing good.

    SS

  • gumby
    gumby
    My opinions, for what they are worth, would appear to be conflicting.

    One: i don't believe in good and evil, that things or people are good or evil in the biblical sense. So, i fall in w the atheist classification.

    Your opinions have always meant alot to me SS

    Do you think any child in any society that has ever existed.....would not consider bad......a person who went yelling loudly and killing everyone he could find? Do you think that is evil?

    I think a few have missed the point......including myself in much of this.

    Where it gets technical is at what point of the babies life are we talking. In the womb, coming out of the womb, or right after the babies head clears the chute? Or maybe we should ask at 7 months? The fact is the baby is subjected to it's surrounding inside the womb, by things the mother feels, and what the child is able to recieve on it's own, and it's intake inside the womb.

    I think I've spent myself on this one. I could never sit in a think tank too long.

    Gumby

  • jst2laws
    jst2laws

    Great one Farkel,

    "Is Mankind Born Evil....or Good?" Neither!

    My felling is Mankind is Born. Thats it. Then we grow and establish values, some good, some selfish and thereby hurful.

    A newborn to me is a blank slate which will slowly develope likes, dislikes, standards and values all of which will be influenced by personal experiences, examples set, perhaps even genetics. I do not see humans as Good or Bad but a mixture depending on what perticular values are being examined. A good and loving father may prove to be a rapist or a Hitler. A generally kind and truly caring priest may also be a child molester.

    Society defines good and evil by our aversion to a perticularly hurtful type of conduct. Then we collectively make a judgement that OVERALL this person is Evil, or Good. Weather or not this is proper is another discussion. But what they became is the issue, NOT WHAT THEY WERE BORN.

    Jst2laws

  • jst2laws
    jst2laws

    Hey Craig,

    I just read the comments on page two after posting my comment.

    We are born neither evil nor good. We are simply born.

    Evil and good are societal/ethical/religious labels attached to us by others, or expected of us to attach to ourselves.

    Craig

    There you go.

    Jst2laws

  • Satanus
    Satanus
    Do you think any child in any society that has ever existed.....would not consider bad......a person who went yelling loudly and killing everyone he could find?

    Probably, if it had a concept of bad.

    Do you think that is evil?

    That is a sick person, or a soldier of some type, although soldiers always seek to kill within parameters. I don't like being in the vicinity of loud yelling, or certain kinds of loud music. But, that doesn't make it evil. If there was a person like that coming down the street toward me, i would likely attempt to put him out of his misery. But that doesn't mean that person was evil, just as a monkey that beats on other monkeys isn't evil.

    A person could end up being like that for many reasons: bad brain chemistry, misunderstandings, bad decisions, bad luck, etc. Many of us fantasize at times of doing violence to others, but we don't because of fear of punishment, reflecting on how the other person or persons near to him might suffer as a result, laziness, lack of the ability or oportunity to carry it out, etc. The point is, in our hearts, some of us are like that, at times, but we don't manifest it. Is the action evil, but not the thought? My answer, neither is.

    In cave man days, might was right, and so, a strong person doing the above was not considered evil, whereas, a weaker person doing the same would be dealt w quickly, because he might be considered as having done evil.

    An example may be the cult compound at waco, texas being attacked by federal agents. Children inside may have percieved those men exactly the way you described. Yet, those men were not evil. They were doing a job that they were trained for, and were ordered by people of high authority to do.

    SS

  • Yerusalyim
    Yerusalyim

    "And like a true nature child I was born, born to be...".mild.

    OnaCruise

    Moral relativism is scary because that means that at sometime in the future the Holocaust could be seen as a good thing instead of evil...Sorry...I choose to believe there are absolutes.

  • notperfectyet
    notperfectyet


    I believe people are born good, and because of their environment choose evil, or what others perceive as evil.

    Some people need help moving, and their friends choose not to help.

    Evil or good?

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