"Humans are inherently evil"

pgwenthold said:
I always wondered about the song "Amazing Grace." Why is it historically so popular? Do people really relate?

"Amazing grace, how sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me
I once was lost
But now am found
Was blind but now I see"

Do you think you were really a wretch?

This reminds me of the time I went to church with my sister-in-law. The preacher kept going on about how life is awful and miserable, and when you are at the edge of dispair Jesus can save you.

All I could think is, where is this life that is so awful? I look around me at this congregation that is mostly young (35 - 50) with young kids all over the place, they live in big houses in the suburbs, and life is miserable? Man, what is the good life?

Instead of telling people how bad they have it, wouldn't it be better to remind people how fortunate they are, and how good they have things? Of course, it's harder to manipulate them with that.
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While most modern day churches don't discuss this, that was actually a major theme of historical Christianity. The whole business about original sin and all the atrocities in the Bible is really the story about how we "evil" humans get what we truly "deserve".

Imagine living in an age before antibiotics and other modern day advances where most humans didn't make it to adulthood. The original sin theory serves as one possible explanation how "God" could allow all this and still be considered "loving".
 
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Tiktaalik said:
Actually, the author of Amazing Grace (John Newton) was kind of a wretch:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazing_Grace

But humans are just inherently human.
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I.e. we evolved from simpler animals that found that eating each other was easier than generating your own nutrients. Let them specialize it and grow, then you just take their stuff!

Civilization is the taming of this tendency, to allow those who build to be able to prosper without fear of having their stuff taken, which has a...chilling effect on it, to say the least. Proof: "Civilizations" that do not protect property rights develop more slowly, if at all.



So in any case, if God exists, I would humbly invite him to go have sex with Himself, which, as far as I am concerned, is something I'd be fine with Him doing. What kind of retarded insane god, himself not fearing torture or death, threatens you with it if you don't jump through some mighty bizarre hoops like a circus chimp?
 
We also have tainted alien souls inside us that need to be removed at great expense, according to Scientology. Apparently there's something inherently wrong with being born human.

rocketdodger said:
Humans are inherently good.

To eat.

If you are a zombie.

om nom nom nom
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Or a werewolf. ArooooOOOOOoooo!

Or a kitsune, but we only devour souls. Hence atheists.
 
parky76 said:
No, I think like all mammals, humans are inherently aggressive. We have a basic instinct for survival and the continuation of the species. These instincts, have evolved in interesting ways that sometimes become very violent, selfish, prejudiced, and arrogant.
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I think those same instincts can also lead us to be loving, nurturing and altruistic. It's two sides of the same coin.
 
Really, really, dumb statement. It ignores thousands of years of history and at least decades of scientific study. Please forgive my self righteousness but there really is no excuse for such ignorance. We might as well state:
  • The world is flat.
  • The Sun goes around the earth.
Humans are neither inherently good nor evil any more than they are inherently good basket ball players. Here's a hint. No one walks onto a NFL basket ball court a great basket ball player. It takes practice and understanding theory and strategy. Oh, and more practice, lots and lots of practice. In other words, someone can be born with the potential to be a great basket ball player but it depends on both environmental and biological variables (including to a great degree genetic).
  • Some percentage of the populations, inherently, have more potential to be good (given environmental variables).
  • Some percentage of the populations, inherently, have more potential to be evil (given environmental variables).
This (nature and nurture) is the only model that accounts for the Holocaust, Stalins Purges, AND the world wide outreach to the Tsunami victims.

The Science of Good and Evil: Why People Cheat, Gossip, Care, Share, and Follow the Golden Rule.

The Evolution of Morality (Life and Mind: Philosophical Issues in Biology and Psychology)

Moral Minds: How Nature Designed Our Universal Sense of Right and Wrong (Hardcover)
 
The doctrine of Total Depravity is one of the five pillars of Calvinism, and isn't as fun as it at first sounds.

Yes, it is a standard theme of Christianity that humans are born into sin - we are ultimately depraved from our first breath. This is because Adam betrayed God. Jesus was sent to atone for the sin of Adam, so it is only by accepting the sacrifice that Jesus made that we can be redeemed of that sin and share in the Kingdom of Heaven.

Or so I'm told.
 
As you like it

slingblade said:
When I was a young adult, my ex-husband would sometimes accuse me of "acting out of character." I wasn't able then to put my finger on why that felt as wrong as a ton of bricks on my head, but I think I may have a better idea now.

The comment seems to strike me in stone, and makes me sound...artificial. I don't have character, I play one. It limits me, in a very uncomfortable way.

One thing being a human has taught me is that we are all capable of anything. I've noticed when I say that in conversation ("I never thought he was capable of that!" a friend says, and I reply, "Everyone is potentially capable of anything"), I get shocked looks and gasps of surprise. Which I then return.

You don't know that? You haven't, yourself, ever done or said anything unexpected?

We are neither good nor evil, but capable. Best way I know to put it.
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All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms.
And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lined,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slipper'd pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side,
His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.
 
I was going to make a comment in this thread but one of the rules I have learned in life is to never follow Shakespeare. ;)
 
We do whatever makes us feel better. I prefer to be nice to people because there's a bigger chance that they'll be nice to me and listen to me.
I'm not evil because I have no need to be evil.
If I were living in a tougher environment where "you have to kill to survive" (metaphorically speaking), I'd probably not be so nice.
 
quarky said:
We're toxic, too, according to much medical woo. Festering cesspools of toxicity. There's barely enough herbs and treatments to handle our inner filth. If jesus can't get it, maybe a trip to a spa in Sedona will help.
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Well, that's a view that science supports, too. The human body is a very icky thing.

The surface of our skins and our clothes are crawling with germs and bacteria at any given moment because of the enviornment around us. Our mouths alone are cesspools of germs, to say nothing of the rest of our digestive systems, our excretory system or our immune system.

Of course, things like mucus and saliva are something both good and bad and nothing that needs to be "corrected". Or can be fixed at all.
 
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m_huber said:
All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players...
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I'm familiar with his metaphor, thanks. :)

I don't feel I live as a posed metaphor, however.

I've been an amateur and professional (paid actual money, yes) actress for most of my life. I know what it means to act. I begin by memorizing a script, and then I sketch out my blocking, locate my props, and proceed to follow the script I've memorized, word-for-word, without deviation untill the curtain falls.

This is not at all how I live. There is no script, no rehearsal, no blocking planned in advance. It's only those who expect, somehow, that we all have scripts we follow all our lives who are surprised when my actions do not follow their scripts. As I'm trying to point out, nothing I am cabable of doing can ever be out of character for me to do. It may be unexpected, but that's only because those doing the expecting are limited in their imaginations.
 
Do you want to be rich and powerful? Why not do what every huckster does, create a problem out of thin air (lets say inherent evil), offer a solution (lets call it oh, religion) and convince the masses that you are the only salvation. Sit back (or rant and rave on a stage) and let the money and power roll in. It's perfect. No product to produce, no service to provide, no proof to offer, perfect! You claim supernatural abilities like a direct line to god that puts you on a higher level, or if you get caught being naughty, then you claim you are only human and god forgives you. Sweet!

Seriously, I can see this happening, why can't "believers"?
 
And then add to this the ultimate conspriacy theory: The people who say they are not evil are merely exhibiting their "depravity", demonstrating the point that all of us are evil.
 
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jimmygun said:
Do you want to be rich and powerful? Why not do what every huckster does, create a problem out of thin air (lets say inherent evil), offer a solution (lets call it oh, religion) and convince the masses that you are the only salvation. Sit back (or rant and rave on a stage) and let the money and power roll in. It's perfect. No product to produce, no service to provide, no proof to offer, no taxes to pay, perfect! You claim supernatural abilities like a direct line to god that puts you on a higher level, or if you get caught being naughty, then you claim you are only human and god forgives you. Sweet!

Seriously, I can see this happening, why can't "believers"?
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Slightly edited for correctness.
 
"Humans are good, is my stance. We have, like many other species, an instinctive urge to do good to one another and to punish evildoers. The majority of us aren't rapists, murderers, war mongers or 'evil' in other ways, and those who are nearly always end up this way as a result of illnesses, defects (such as in the case of psychopaths) or a bad upbringing or environment 'corrupting' them. At the risk of sounding too Scandinavian here ("aww, the poor wife-beater, he must have had a terrible childhood":rolleyes:), it's no coincidence that most serious criminals have a history of poverty, neglect, abuse, etc.

If humans are inherently evil, how come certain countries such as Iceland can have ridiculously mild laws and a lack of religion and still have very low crime rates?"

I'd say we have an instinctive, and possibly evolutionary, urge to deceive one another for our own ends. Intense social competition leads to deception as a strategy for achieving social and reproductive success, and is pretty much the foundation of religion and politics.

As for most serious criminals having a history of "poverty, neglect, abuse, etc.", which crimes are "serious"? And how far does "etc" go? All criminals have some history of something unpleasant happening at some point in their lives, how far do we dig to find it in order to affirm our faith in all "normal" people?

Finally, surely "ridiculously mild laws" by their very nature lead to low crime rates? If a country decided to abolish all laws, the crime rate would be zero.
 
Fatfreddy said:
Finally, surely "ridiculously mild laws" by their very nature lead to low crime rates? If a country decided to abolish all laws, the crime rate would be zero.
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Only to the extent that some act can be defined as a "crime" by the fact that it breaks a law. No law, no crime.

There would certainly be people doing things that we would consider illegal, or at the very least immoral.
 
"Sin" in some ways can be inherited, and it doesn't need to be religious.
Take something like arguing/shouting/fighting, if that happens within a family unit, there's a chance that the kids end up doing that too. Not because they have physically inherited it, but because humans learn from example, and this maybe their only or a huge part of their exposure to human behaviour.
Other things (that in some ways can only be said to be a sin in religious terms) are things like an abnormally high sex drive, which can be inherited (I remember one Christian firmly believing that he'd had an affair because of this condition that his father also had).

There is also the belief that morals come from God, those set of Morals are there in the 10 commandments for example. It's in this way also that many believe that without God, you have no morals and are therefore, no good.

If anyone was to look upon their life and see how immoral they've been (hey, no-ones perfect), they'd have some regrets right? Now that's normal, but whilst your in that regret stage, if someone offers you a way to be "saved" and to "wipe the slate clean". It's really appealing.

Morals, in my opinion are based on, I do to you, what I would like from you and I say this in a non-biblical sense. And if we see someone being treated badly, we know we wouldn't like that happen to us or someone dear to us and so we have a majority sense of what these morals are.
We mess up, for example... you say something that offends someone and don't realise it because you have no idea why they would be offended, prior to blurting out the offensive term... does that mean you're evil? No.
 
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