It's strange how some people turn out to be bad apples, and some go on to be good. I wonder are they like that from the moment they are conceived, or does life change them into the person they are. Basically I'm asking people's opinion on whether they think evil or goodness can be inherent in a person, or do they become good or bad people depending on their upbringing, and experiences in life?
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No such thing...28% Voted for by creason, Amber Silverhair.
There is no such thing as an evil baby, or a good baby for that matter. Children are born natural, which is to say that they only have their instincts on how to survive. Lets say that you observe young children fighting over a candy bar. It may be called selfishness in our society, but in nature the same behavior would be called survival instincts. Good and Evil only has meaning because we assign these labels to certain behaviors. It all depends on parents raising their children and changing instincts according to societies standards.
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Nah28% Voted for by Weydon, DryIce808.
Not really anyway. I guess there seems to be "strong evidence" towards sociopaths or whatever, and I think there's a mix of Nature and Nurture in all of us, but I doubt many people are born full blown evil.
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Ha! Just kidding, I think we are just disagreeing becasue we have different ideas of what evil is. I think it's inperfection and you think it's... well what exactly do you think evil is?
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Can't say for sure actually. A dark and scary part of me would be willing to argue that morality itself is possibly enirely subjective, but I would still defend many of my personal beliefs to the death--which would imply either otherwise or a STRONG inclination for people to stcik up to certain things that mean nothing. Things I would consider pure evil would be along the lines of rapes, child abuse, general abuse, genocide, most racism (I only say most because some people are only mild, ignorant racists that can be reached fairly easily, or are only keeping up appearances for their racist peers), murder (though not killing I guess), slavery, and other extremes.
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Oh. Interesting premise about how imperfection is evil. I suppose in a sense it is, or at least the root of it. But it's also the root of good. It's all choices we make.
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"A dark and scary part of me would be willing to argue that morality itself is possibly entirely subjective" Exactly, I believe that if you don't believe in a God to arbitrarily define good and evil, ALL morality is speculative. Like you said a scary thought. People come up with all kinds of ideas, it isn't immoral if it doesn't hurt anyone, motive is all that matters, results are all that matter, survival is all that matters. Anyway everyone has their own idea, some say just follow your conscience, but the flaw with all these ideas is that they have no authority, none can be proved correct, it's a matter of opinion. You may ask what God changes about this situation and the answer is simply that His idea about morality is absolutely true because He defines Himself as absolute truth. You could correctly point out that God's arguments are circular, but that doesn't really matter because He gets to enforce whatever ideas He wants to enforce, there is no higher standard of morality to call on because God, by definition, is at the top of the food chain. Hope some of that made sense, I'm especially curious what you think about the idea that all morality apart from God is relative.
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"You may ask what God changes about this situation and the answer is simply that His idea about morality is absolutely true because He defines Himself as absolute truth." Lol. No offense, but the only difference I see in the speculative nature in "logical" (or illogical) forms of morality and religious morality, is that yours INSISTS that it's right. It's just as arbitrary. "You could correctly point out that God’s arguments are circular, but that doesn’t really matter because He gets to enforce whatever ideas He wants to enforce, there is no higher standard of morality to call on because God, by definition, is at the top of the food chain." But what does that mean? That he's just a bully? I think it's irresponsible not to question these things, even if you were to forget for a second that man has written and edited the Bible, even if it was directly inspired by God. Does "Good" exist outside of God? If so: What makes it good in the first place? Why is it important to do this "good"? Is it because of fairness? Justice? What? There must be a reason and I think the more we come to understand it to the best of our ability, the more good we can do. If not: Then...what the hell? "Doing 'good' is God's will" is identical to the sentence "Doing God's will is doing God's will." A bit redundant, and a bit of a spoiled baby. Just because He feels like it? He doesn't HAVE a reason behind saying so, it's just something he sort of thought would be amusing? What if he deemed it "Thou shalt kill" or "Thou shalt eat babies". This would also be good? "Good" means NOTHING? Just arbitrary will of someone who is stronger than us? I refuse to believe that, which means that if God is telling us to do things that he deduced are "good", He had REASON behind it. Doing things that involve no reason (such as persecuting people in His name just because of innocent, ritualistic differences) but because you heard from a reliable source that He probably wants that is an insult to God. God has His reasons, and to say otherwise is downplaying his signifigance into nothing but sheer power.
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If you believe in good outside of God then you don’t believe in God. I believe that there is NOTHING above God or outside of God. Our opinions count for nothing because we are His creation and He is infinitely smarter than us. The Bible records God making a promise and He swears by Himself because He is the highest authority, there is nothing above Him to swear by. You say that God must have reasons, I think that God is THE reason. Yeah, you can see Him as a bully, but your missing the point. He’s not a bully in the sense we think of bully, enjoying the pain in others and pushing his/her will without respect for others. God simply is who He is and will not let Himself be changed by us. He gives us free will to choose if we want to agree with Him and accept His blessings. Or reject Him and all the good things He’s made. That’s what Hell is, choosing to reject God and everything He gives you. Love, communication, peace, friends, intimacy are all His creations and if you don’t want Him you can’t have His gifts either, that’s Hell. Anyway, do you see my point, if God is God than there really is no other reference point for morality possible.
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"I believe that there is NOTHING above God or outside of God." Including evil. "Our opinions count for nothing because we are His creation and He is infinitely smarter than us" Our actions count for nothing too compared to His infinite power to just do whatever He really wants and what He already knows will happen. "Yeah, you can see Him as a bully, but your missing the point. He’s not a bully in the sense we think of bully, enjoying the pain in others and pushing his/her will without respect for others." Your basing this on reference that bullies as we know them are "not good" because of their sadism, but this "good" is defined by God in the first place. It's far too arbitrary. If God so deemed it, HE could be "good" because he boiled 100 people alive every five days, and those that were compassionate and strived to help others were "not good". "He gives us free will to choose if we want to agree with Him and accept His blessings. Or reject Him and all the good things He’s made. That’s what Hell is, choosing to reject God and everything He gives you. Love, communication, peace, friends, intimacy are all His creations and if you don’t want Him you can’t have His gifts either, that’s Hell." Just like a bully. You have the freedom to not obey the bully, but then he'll just beat you worse. You have all the free will in the world, but if it goes against what God wants, you're screwed. "Anyway, do you see my point, if God is God than there really is no other reference point for morality possible." Of course there is. Plenty of civilizations have existed before our God came around with His rules that had successful forms of morality and justice, just as they do today.
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"our God"????? MY God didn't "come around" MY God isn't a theological or philosophical idea, MY God doesn't sound one bit like the god you believe in. "Just like a bully. You have the freedom to not obey the bully, but then he’ll just beat you worse. You have all the free will in the world, but if it goes against what God wants, you’re screwed." Yes!! You go against God you are "screwed," just like a kid going agaisnt his parents, first there's time out, then dessert goes, then comes a spanking then if the kid keeps it up until he's grown up he gets kicked out of the house without support or friendship from his parents. Not because they don't want to give it, but because he rejects it! God's like that, you continue to reject Him and His gifts you will be sending yourself to Hell. "'Anyway, do you see my point, if God is God than there really is no other reference point for morality possible.' Of course there is. Plenty of civilizations have existed before our God came around with His rules that had successful forms of morality and justice, just as they do today." If you think God is a human idea, or whatever yea, plenty of different ways to measure morality, if you think God is GOD then no, nothing exsists outside of God.
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"MY God didn’t “come around” MY God isn’t a theological or philosophical idea, MY God doesn’t sound one bit like the god you believe in." I mean in established, recorded history. The furthest back we can trace, aside from the "first men" who supposedly lived to be 1000's of years old, would be around Moses' time. A little earlier. People believed in other gods before that. Regardless I personally believe IN God, not just a concept but as my personal belief. Our God, however we interpret him, stems from the Judeo-Christian origin. "Yes!! You go against God you are “screwed,” just like a kid going agaisnt his parents, first there’s time out, then dessert goes, then comes a spanking then if the kid keeps it up until he’s grown up he gets kicked out of the house without support or friendship from his parents. Not because they don’t want to give it, but because he rejects it! God’s like that, you continue to reject Him and His gifts you will be sending yourself to Hell." You're acting as if parents also equate good. What if your parents beat you? What if thyey tell you if you don't eat that baby, you're going to get kicked out soon enough? This has nothing to do with the universal nature of morality and everything to do with epople forcing their beliefs on you otherwise YOU get punished. Adhering to things you don't think are morally correct but onyl something that will protect yourself is not "good" but selfish. "If you think God is a human idea, or whatever yea, plenty of different ways to measure morality, if you think God is GOD then no, nothing exsists outside of God." How can people who don't believe ib God, or our God, come up with similar moralities that we won't have much trifle with? There has to be a basis outside of God. Morality is not God flipping a coin.
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Weydon you are making some really good points here. I think the argument stemmed from the idea that a child could be born "evil." I honestly do not believe in "good and evil." The world is more complicated than this and requires much more understanding than these black and white concepts. No one is ever truly "evil" for the sake of being evil. No one is ever born thinking, "I think I want to be hated." It is ridiculous to think this way. People steal because they need money. They do not steal because they are "evil." When people do things that would normally be viewed as immoral, one has to step back and attempt to avoid labeling them "evil." There is always a reason. If there is not a reason then most likely they are psychologically disturbed. That is by no means "evil."
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wow but you all seem to be missing just one thing. good and evil are defined by one another... what is good is not evil and evil is not good. every good or bad act has in one way shape or form the reverse in it somewhere. if you do good somewhere in that act there is bad, and if you do bad there is somewhere something good. inother words eveything is gray, this thing of good and evil, white and black, is not looking at the big picture it is sort of closed minded. although "if God is God than there really is no other reference point for morality possible.” so in the end we can all agree in one thing.
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define "evil"Voted for by praise-reborn.
How do you mean evil? Evil nature? Sinful nature? Pre-disposition to bad acts, psychopathy, ect.?
I believe we're born with a sinful nature, but a child being purposly evil or sinful before he is at an age of understanding I doubt.
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no, but....Voted for by NeferMaatNetjer.
a kitten sure can ! LOL
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YeahVoted for by Makessenseright.
We all are evil from birth. Some are more evil than others, but nobody's perfect. So if you grade on a scale, yeah people can be born good or evil, but if you grade acurately I think everyone is evil from birth.
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October 26, 2006
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Can a child be evil from birth
I do agree. I also feel like when we look at a child we tend to look for the bad, evil starts within, but we tend to believe that all people are evil. We need to look at the inner core , 1) How much damages has been done before the child is born? Drugs, abuse. 2) How much pain has this child been put thur,.Please register or login to comment! It's totally free