Inherently Good or Evil?

yea... i think people are inherently "good" and become "evil" or gain "evil" tendencies once they grow older and begin learning about the world around them. i sorta think that even "evil" people are inherently "good" but somewhere down the line have obtained a twisted outlook on life and so they do bad things. also chemical imbalances are bound to play a part in many situations. a person may not be able to help themselves and yet still have the desire to be "good" ya know?

"I am Akba-Atatdia"

Let me answer your question with another question. There are Three sailors(Bailey, Daniel,and Robert) on a ship and the ship wrecked. One sailor Bailey also a doctor estimated that they could survive out at sea for 25 days without food, as long as they rationed there remaining water. On the 23rd day ALL of the sailors decided to draw straws to see which one should be killed and eaten, since they felt there was going to be anyway of them being rescued any time soon. THEY ALL AGREED TO THE DRAWING OF THE STRAWS. Daniel was drew the shortest straw he decided no to consent to his own death. Bailey and Robert decided to kill him any way and eat him. TWO DAYS LATER BAILEY AND ROBERT WERE RESCUED. SO IS THE HUMAN MIND INHERENTLY EVIL OR INSTINCTUALLY EVIL .

"Dare the mind with original ideas"

"INHERENTLY EVIL OR INSTINCTUALLY "

Those words mean basically the same thing so I do not understand your differentiation?

My question is how can someone who is inherently good do something evil? I think the confusion comes in because people misunderstand what evil is. Evil is not a thing - like goodness is - evil is the corruption or lack of a thing - namely goodness. If humans are capable of evil -as we all know we are - then we must be intrinsically or inherently evil - it must be a basic aspect of our nature.

Another way to examine this is by thinking of goodness as a perfectly straight line and evil as any point below that line. The human line would be a wave going up and down - even if it reached that line (which I doubt it ever truly does) it would not be perfectly straight but consisting generally below it.

[  Edited by Xris at   ]