That's a completely different issue and not one that I was posting about. I said that humans are predisposed towards evil by nature. From birth. People are mean, careless, thoughtless and rude just by their very nature. Do the turn signal test. Drive in heavy traffic and watch how much easier it is to change lanes if you don't use your turn signal.

Dragoness:



People are as individual as they become, according to that which they perceive.

You also made a great point earlier concerning ego...

Virtually every religion that has ever existed has said that human nature is inherently evil or somehow seperated from the "natural order" and needs to be reconciled with some sort of absolute truth in order to remedy this condition.

Falling short doesn't mean we're evil, necessarily, it just means we don't measure up. I tend to stray off, you know? That's why kids louse up sometimes, too.

And besides, the existence of Bill Gates is proof that mankind is evil!

And besides, the existence of Bill Gates is proof that mankind is evil!

When we can get over our own ego, we are basically good. Religion is not needed to determine right or wrong, humanly, we know what is right and wrong.

I can't believe this club censored my pu$$y cat.
What a bunch of prudes.

JB

I think they call that the id.

But it is true that people have to learn to love one another.

I think the indwelling spirit can overcome outside and even genetic influences sometimes, but then I believe that humans are spiritual beings having a human experience and they may have experiential wisdom from a former life working in their favor.

There are many variables. Humans have great potential for good and evil. I don't think they are born with either really, just like animals can't be called good or evil. They are just running on their programming.

JB

Inherently good, evil, or neither ?

the only absolute rule of human nature is self-preservation

that man needs to feed on the death of others to sustain his own... makes man inherently evil

place in a situation of starvation there are few things that a person would not do to make sure that they or their children have something to eat

i resonate with so many of your perspectives, i had to chime in
and respectfully add that reality, on the planet shows us that the human species is genetically predisposed, and only now that technology has advanced to the level where we can read the human genome, and understand the chemistry and biology, can we begin to assign what good and evil actually are.
in the beginning there were no reasons, there were only causes. nothing had a purpose, nothing had so much as a function, there was no teleology in the world at all, it's simple,there was nothing that had interests, but after millennias there happened to emerge simple replicators. While 'they' had no idea of their interests, WE peering back from our vantage point at their early days and development , we can non-arbitrarily assign them certain interests, the design of our conscious minds, is the result of 3 successive evolutionary processes, piled on top of each other, each one vastly swifter and more powerful than it's predecessor, and in order to understand this ...well

maybe that's another thread
i do feel safe to say that as soon as one gets into the business of self preservation, boundaries become very important

the only absolute rule of human nature is self-preservation

that man needs to feed on the death of others to sustain his own... makes man inherently evil

place in a situation of starvation there are few things that a person would not do to make sure that they or their children have something to eat

Then I guess you think that a lion is "evil" for killing and eating a gazelle.

"Evil" is only defined within religious doctrine. "Sin" is only defined within religious doctrine (and sin amounts to disobedience of the law of their God, whoever they conceive him or her to be.)

Animals don't sin because they don't worship God or have religions.
Therefor, if eating the flesh of other creatures is natural, as a lion does, then it is also natural for a man.

It is the way this world works... unfortunately.

Perhaps the Gods are hard at work attempting to create a world where the lion will lie down with the lamb and humans will live off the energy of the sun and the wind.