Do you think people are good? (page 3)

Elsewhere

I think humans are very kind and good... until they become afraid. For some reason fear brings out the worst in humans.

True North

At the very least I'd say that most people are good some of the time and some people are good most of the time.

Being good is also often compartmentalized. People are good to people in one compartment but not so good to people in another. For instance, there was a book that came out awhile back titled The Greatest Generation about the American generation that came of age during the Great Depression and WWII. No doubt about it, they really did show some great, good qualities. However, the majority of them were certainly not good to dark-skinned Americans, for instance. The founders of this country were likewise good in many ways, but most of them shared this same failing to an even greater degree. And going to the opposite extreme of overall goodness, it seems that Hitler could be quite "good" towards a pet dog (German Shepherd of course) or to some golden-haired child who caught his eye in a crowd but was anything but good towards those he viewed as sub-Aryans.

maxwell

I think people are mostly good as long as it doesn't require them to give up some of their own expected freedom or way of life. Whatever they feel entitled to. When I think of what happened to the Jews, American slavery, Jim Crow, it is hard for me to understand how the majority of people some areas would turn a blind eye to or even condone such evil. Still on the whole I think people want their fellow man to be happy. Perhaps that is why we in the early days of the US, we got twisted reasoning saying blacks were less than men or really were more happy as slaves. Some really wanted to believe that they were good and couldn't stomach the idea that they were making a fellowman suffer or treating him unjustly.

As I said above, I think it is conditioned on whether it impedes ones own expected freedom or even desires. So we have government and laws to in some ways prevent ourselves from pursuing our own desires and freedom to the point that they limit someone else's freedom. If you remove law enforcement, you find out what some "good" people are capable of.

codeblue

I think that people "can" be good. I try to give everyone the benefit of the doubt...after all, who of us can say we are "perfect?" We all have a bad day from time to time.

I must say that the WTBS painted "non-believers" as less than good, so when I was a very active JW, I tried to have as little to do with them besides field service. I felt that way until I moved to a new locality and found out the non believers were MORE hospitable and LOVING to me than the congregations of JW's.

Now that was a well learned lesson!

Codeblue

A Paduan

All my life I tried to see the goodness in people, giving the benefit of the doubt always.

Then we met some jws - so here I am, figuring what makes someone like that tick, and interacting with other victims.

Things have changed - now I expect that people can be as@&*!s like I had never imagined - if you're neat, short haired, no beard or just have that 'look', you're on the sh*!list until I find out who you are.

I might grow out of that, oneday, I hope - get back to where we left off.

Navigator

All people are God's children created in and remaining in perfection. It is just that some express themselves as a**holes. I recall a remark that Ernest Holmes, the founder of Religious Science, made when he had been berated by a fundamental Baptist as a tool of satan and a thoroughly evil person. "Madam, what could there possibly be in you that you could recognize that in me?"

zen nudist

Gen 2:17

But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.

The issue of Good and Evil is the foundation of the entire bible story and few even question why it is such an important issue as to condemn the entire human race over....what is good and what is evil and who decides?

Pro 14:12 There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof [are] the ways of death.

why should the way that seems right to a man lead to death?

to understand this one must come to realize that buried within all of us is an ideal world image, built up over time by enculturation, exposure to mythology and experiences and we unconsciously compare every experience we have to it and come up with our view of what is good and what is bad, it is our measuring rod.

JW literature is full of the phrase "bible trained conscience" which actually means the ideal standard that JWs have sought to program into its members. JW literature also has numerous references to our hero the perfect Jehovah's Witness, which they hold up as doing this and teaching that and always attending all his meetings and caring for all of his obligations and satisfying his wife in bed and on and on.... no one to my knowledge has ever met Brother perfect but he is always found in the pages of the WatchTower.

but is brother perfect really perfect? he is the watchtower society's ideal, but is he human? most of the time he is little more than the perfect mechanical drone worker ant...not a dynamic living human being.

The Bible presents God as the only one with the absolute authority, right and ability to determine good and evil for all... but on what basis? Should we trust a being who had no one to learn from, who had no teacher, no experiences, nothing but his own ideas which we have no means of assessing? Would the arbitrary ideals of a god be any better than that of a creature?

Some say, God alone can do it because God is all knowing, or potentially so [according to JWs]--- but what does this mean?

that God knows every moment from beginning to end and knowingly compares our lives to a fantasy alterantive which has nothing to do with reality? that is not the sort of god I would want in charge as that smacks of insanity not divine wisdom.

when we say someone is Good or evil we generally refer to how he treats others... and our hopes or fears about how he likely would treat us. by this score most people have those whom they treat well and others they treat as dirt or worse. We all have family which we "love" but often realize that "love" means we are stuck with them like them or not, while others we are NOT stuck with and can tell them to go to hell if they treat us like our own family does. Then there are those we admire and treat well because we either hope it will rub off on us or make others think better of us if we associate with them...these we will often treat much better than family because of our hope that they can do great things for us....then of course there are those we fall in love with because of something quirky within us that we have no understanding [for the most part] and usually little control over... we want to help and benefit them even if it harms us... [evolution explains this better than any other theory in my opinion].

but in reality, there is no good nor evil as a property of anyone or anything.... all good and evil judgements are just that, judgements and there is always some standard ideal lurking about which is not real at all but accepted usually without question because it was brainwashed into us.

quarks seem random...enough of them together make atoms and molecules which in large enough groups seem to have a patterned coherency which gives the impression of order and cause and effect...all of them operating on what appear to be very stable rules which do not seem to vary from one place in the universe to any other except by other rules, such as differences in speeds and masses etc...there is no hint of unfairness nor cheating going on in any physics we have ever measured...so where can it come from in our lives? the obvious answer is that our lives cannot be unfair nor flawed, they are just how the dice fall, how the cards are dealt... there is no winning hand for every round of play in a real world with real elements following real rules....you can bitch and moan about how you think the world is cheating you, but the fact is that the hand you were dealt was just as fair as the hand dealt to the guy with millions of dollars who just struck oil.... you wins some, you loses some.... accept it and you will not be sad, angry or depressed.

Do you think people are good?

Elsewhere

True North

maxwell

codeblue

A Paduan

Navigator

zen nudist

blondie

DanTheMan

franklin J

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