good people do really bad things sometimes?

Does it take away from their goodness? Or is it just a mistake? How many mistakes do we get before we are classified officially bad?


Just wondering

Good questions.... Don't have an answer right now, but curious to see others'.

Everyone makes mistakes no matter how good they may be, just have to learn from them an move on. Try not to make them again.



really good people make really bad mistakes all the time. Even really good cooks burn their dinner once in a while.
What makes you bad is your intent behind it.

all the answers are subjective...what defines good or bad, right or wrong..

We've all done, said, or even thought bad things we regret or are ashamed of. But realizing it, and admitting it is half the battle. We're only humans exercising free will - if we were perfect, we would have earned our wings already and wouldn't have to come back here to learn anything!

I think forgiving yourself in the end is most important~

the experience of doing the bad transforms...sometime it can not be undone and one can not revert back to good,

for example, a once law abiding citizen having to do illegal activity to survive..one time, perhaps he can revert...oftentimes however the power is so seductive that he keeps on doing it..in this case, he can not revert

roko

Why such an off the wall question. Don't you have a life?

Keyword here being "seductive" - he still exercises a choice. And chooses to see it as the only way to survive - thus justifying it as Ok. Easy money, a free ride, snatching a $100 bill that a person has dropped - these are merely temptations, not absolute power. Once he refuses to be tempted, it's undone. Simple actually.

Well, there are wolves in sheep clothing. It would really depend on what it was. There are just somethings a really good person wouldn't do, mistake or not.

If this is a question you are asking becuase of something someone did, I would have to say if you're questioning if they are a good person or not, chances are they probably are not a good person.

But remember that we can only judge actions, not the people themselves and certainly not a persons heart. We can only judge actions and the pattern of actions a person performs.

I like that answer...Intent behind it is the key...

No person is inherently good; all people are inherently evil. Acts of "goodness" are only superficially, speciously "good"--only "good" by human standards--and cannot undo or compensate for the evil each human being has within him.

Oh yeah, real' off-the-wall stuff. Questions about morality always are.

[/extreme sarcasm]

What is your purpose...in this thread? Spend more time thinking critically, less time thoughtlessly criticizing, and you might actually write something worth expending one's mental energy on. I wince at the precious time I've wasted even on this.

But, because I'm so freakin' generous, assimilate this little tidbit:

Your life features uselessly, uncreatively criticizing--sans any semblance of ad hominem-free retort or thoughtful argumentation or even base topical commentary--people whom you deem unworthy of your "intellectual prowess." You, sir, are complete and shameless life fail.

Sure. Mistakes happen. The most common is the thoughtless remark. It is incredibly easy to make a comment which can be completely devastating and very harmful without thinking about it.

We all know of an instance something like this: Someone talks about what a great deal they got on the whatever it is, how the person who sold it to him was such a fool to let such a beautiful heirloom go at such a steep discount. Meanwhile sitting at the next table and overhearing the conversation is the person who owned said priceless treasure who had been forced to sell it under extreme financial duress because of illness, loss of job or other calamity.

To make matters worse, their spouse (who also overhears), did not agree to sell it which means there is going to be extreme anger, verbal abuse later, and physical abuse.

The person bragging about their purchase might have had no intention of causing such pain. They were merely thoughtless but it can have far reaching consequences. That is why I always recommend the book "Words that hurt words that heal choosing words wisely and well" by Joseph Telushkin

http://www.amazon.com/Words-That-Hurt-Heal-Choose/dp/0688163505/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1263798140&sr=8-1

This is a book which will change the way you think and speak.

This is an excellent question. There are two HUGE problems with deciding the outcome:

1. If we consider intent, like Jill said, then it`s impossible for others to know FOR SURE whether we were bad or not.
2. So obviously it is always up to us individuals to decide whether we are bad or good.
3. But we are poor judges of how our own actions and utterances affect others. If we say something with intent, but don`t think it`s harmful to anyone, we make the judgement on ourselves that we did not do anything bad. Because the effect we cause we cannot always know if it`s hurtful or not. And others don`t always let us know.

1. If we don`t consider intent, then there is another problem: anyone can judge us, including ourselves. But nobody is in a position to tell how good or how bad each of our actions or utterances are. We are the poorest judges of characters within our own species. (A dog will always know how another dog will react, same with lions and cockroaches; men can never fully and for certain predict another man`s reaction, or even his very own, for god`s sakes.) So we know in extreme cases if something we or others have done is good or bad, but there are much more to the moral of the picture than meets the eye.
2. So two or more people can judge the one and the same action as good, or bad. Even if we all agree in principles what`s `good` and what`s `bad`. The instances of our actions cannot be decided so easily.
3. So when they are decided, they are subjective decisions, and could be contradictory from person to person.
4. Sometimes nobody can decide if an action was good or bad. Was the dropping of the A-bomb on Hiroshima good or bad? Some of us think bad, because a lot of Japs got burnt up quickly in an instant. Some of us think it was good, because it stopped the bloodshed of the war in one fell swoop, which prevented much more many deaths and suffering than what the bomb caused. Still, Oppenheimer committed suicide, and the people in the plane that dropped the bomb each commited suicide. I think that in their hearts they believed they did wrong.

He who has never made a mistake probably has not learned much.

Jeanniebean:
Though, wise prople are learning from mistakes of others'!!! (while maintaining their wiseness, i.e. goodness!) But the way to the Wisdom is paved with many mistakes everyone is prone to making -- intentionally or not.

Though, a clarification of terms would be necessary:
1. MISTAKE: Unintentional failure of following the rules.

2. Any other action which is based on an intention of causing either good or bad is anything but a mistake -- a crime, a good deed, etc. maybe. But not just a mistake!

3. A Good Person: the one who does not cause an intentional harm to others.
-----Thus, Mistakes do not take away from their goodness!!!

"To err is human."

"Only those don't make any mistakes who don't do anything at all."

"Mistakes are punished, though the punishment very often is not meted out on the person or group of persons who made the mistake."

"It's better to make a mistake and apologize for it later, than to apologize for a mistake and then make it later."

"Sometimes the best-intentioned acts and most loving gestures turn out to be mistakes. Think how Adolph Hitler was conceived."

"Mistakes are made, and people are good."

"People are made**; and mistakes are good."

"Good made a mistake: He made man."

"Make no mistake: Making man-made gods is not a mistake man made."


------------
** By their biological parents.

For some reason, I get quite hot and bothered (and excited) when I read these intellectual purls...


Keep it up, wux! (please)

A bit to broad of a question.

A good person kills someone in self-defense. To me, it wouldn't be a bad thing, it would just be self-defense. However, if someone went out and started slaughtering people for the heck of it, then they're no longer good.

Accidentally killing someone, I think would be bigger then a mistake. I don't personally understand how you can accidentally run someone, adult or child or animal, over with say, a car and backing out of a driveway. It shows a lack of total awareness on your part, which is neglectful. I don't personally know that I would trust you around me if you were so neglectful of your surroundings.

But that's my opinion. (And in no way directed to "you" specifically!) :-)