For me it depends on the persons POV 'cause sometimes villians for example: they do things that they think is good that the heroes think is bad vice versa.

if there was no standard of being good in the world ... everyone would be naturally evil.
think of the things you do when you're pinned against a wall or in a situation where your ass is on the line ... you restrt to your primal instincts .. and it's never nice. if you had no incentive to be nice at all ... you wouldn't be. it'd go right back to dog eat dog ... survival of the most badass ... that kind of thing

SELF DEFENSE.

I will put forward the Biblical view that, there is not 1 single person on this planet that is good.

"For God hath concluded them all in unbelief, that He might have mercy apon all"

"Why callest thou me good, for there is none good but God alone"

"Our most righteous deeds are as filthy rags"

But I used to think everyone could be nice to a certain degree, untill I met my ex girlfriend, she hurt me really bad, but maybe I deserved it. She scoffs at the concept of "right and wrong", but I read something on her journal tonight which makes me think she is caring after all.

She made me feel more love and care when we were together, than my ex-wife who was a ministers daughter. She clearly isn't good.

The worst sort of people are the hypocrites, they have one standard of conduct for themselves, and a different one for everyone else.

I hate that...

Did anyone know that "The Phantom" who is in the poster behind the blue suited spazmotic dancing, is an old Australian Comic? Go aussie! or am I wrong.

Any way, just because I believe something different to you, you should afford me the same respect towards my opinion, that you demand for your own. I don't doubt the Bible, and its not my thoughts or thinking, I am declaring it as God's

Peace out:)

This is what Pookie thinks:

In my opinion ''good' would be to try to help those who ask and to not determin the needs of another. "Bad" would be quite the opposite, because you violate the free will of others.
I think when the Bible refers to ''there is no good', I think it means that there is no human being on this planet who sn't selfish. (But you still can work your hardest to ''become'' not so much selfish and I think this is possible.)
The Bible said ''Lucifer fell and broke into many pieces'' .. I think that we are, so to speak, these ''pieces'', therefore selfish.. therefore ''not good'' according to the Bible..

(sorry for my crappy english)

Firstly don't bring the bible into this, not everyone is theist.

Secondly humans are not good or evil, we are just animals.
anything considered good that we do has an ulterior motive to it.
even if that motive is feeling good(all to do with brain chemicals and survival of the species).

Think would you really do something `good' if you knew it would make you feel like shi.t on all levels, and give you no physical reward.

Some of you might say you would, some of you might even believe it. But I know what would happen. Well at least I believe I do.

No offence

Naturally none...
Humans pick to be evil or good

I'd say good. I learned about all this stuff in my world history class a few days ago. It was John Locke(I think) who said all people are basically good.

I am going to state my point of view in terms of religion and religious beliefs:
There is a God and a Devil and based on the bible, the Devil is out there to manipulate people and make them go against God (good). So yes I believe there good and evil. Probably even more evil than good.

¿. Everyone can speak up their mind and bring up anything they want. And just because you're a theist doesn't mean you're any smarter. Can I go even more off-topic ? I think the word ''Wannabe'' tells a lot about you.


I think there is a (great) difference between animals and humans. That's why we are not called ''animals'', but ''humans''.
Is a psychopath who lies and manipulate ''good'' or ''bad'' according to you? And what about a man that helps poor people?
According to you, the man and psychopath are the same; they're animals. Does that make sense? If so, how?


How much do you exactly know about ''brain chemicals''?

If we are generalising then personally i would say the Human race is evil.

Actually, humans are animals. Humans are just more intelligent and know right from wrong. I think good and evil is based upon a persons morals and what they believe is right.

"villains" don't always think they're doing good...that's a very childlike (immature) point of view. some don't care and are indifferent, some get a rush from doing stuff deemed "bad," etc.

i tend to believe that nurture determines the outcome of a person over nature, but its still a combination of both.
(the nurture vs. nature theory = how you were raised vs. born a certain way)

Well I could agree to some extent.


Yep, I think that everyone has their own definition of what is good and what is not.

And I agree with missyd; nurture is very important. But I also think DNA plays a role. If the baby's father or mother is a psychopath, I think he could pass on his genes to the kid. This is why I think Christians aren't very smart on the ''abortion should be illegal'' thing. If women who were raped by (maybe) psycho's and killers and get pregnant, the baby could also have some of these ''characteristics'' from his/her father. And if abortion would be illegal...

Did you know that humans are the only species who systematically plan to kill.

Naturally we are prone to our instincts. Our most basic instinct is survival. Place a human in an enviroment with no moral stimuli and it will do whatever is necessary to survive. Good and Evil are ideas predicated upon opinion. The whole arguement is moot I think.

Also,

"I think there is a (great) difference between animals and humans. That's why we are not called ''animals'', but ''humans''. "

This delusions of grandiosity crap makes me sick. We're animals at our core. Look how special we are, you know, systematically eliminating each other and destroying the planet. Clearly we're the most intelligent species. I mean, let's cut down more trees, who needs to breath; right? What separates us from 'animals' is nothing more than a set of characteristics that we've defined as being 'human'. and that our genus happens to be Homo.

I think anyone can be good if they wanted to but it depends on the person. A bad person doesn't necessarily stay a bad person if he/she decides to do a good thing. Under the good vs evil it usually is the stereotypical idea that it is humans vs aliens or superheroes vs villians. That is the general idea there is always something in between, can be good and evil. Me, I like good haha

Humans have the ability to reason and question life. Humans have the intelligence and the ability to instinctively apply the 'trail and improvement' method to create things like mathematics, arts, and machine transportation. Animals do not, and never will.
It is undeniable that humans are completely separate from the animal kingdom and therefore any judgment considering morality should be made without considering animals what-so-ever.

Anyway, I believe that what makes you 'evil' (opposed to everyones small understanding of the word 'good' and what makes people 'good': ) is the persons intention when doing an action. The consequence isn't important as long as your intention is 'good'.

That's all very well. The point I was attempting to make and failed miserably at is that if I stuck you and, say, your best friend in a pit in which you cannot escape and gave you both a knife I wonder just how long it would take before one of you butchered one another for the sake of survival. Deep down we are driven by our primal instincts no different than an animal. As you said there is no mistaking that our intelligence is what separates 'us' from 'them'. Put in a situation where that intelligence is useless and we are no different.

Also, in my opinion, which isn't candy, not much different than all of you, for all our grand intellect we are still disgusting animals. The strong pray on the weak, the privileged - the poor, ect. That is a trait that I certainly believe we are wired from birth with. We're all horrible, vile things deep down. Some of you just havn't realized it yet.

Most people prefer the notion of good over evil obviously. Oh, good is pure, innocent, is right

Evil is tainted, driven by moral decay and suffering and reaps what it sews - wickedness and sin.

Oh right, have you had a history lesson lately? The Israeli- Palestinian conflict for example? Pretty sure both sides believe what they are doing is good and the other evil. Only difference is one sides is throwing rocks and the other fireing sub machine guns. We cling hopelessly to whatever social structure we're introduced to and from that we make our choices. Ignorant, mostly.

What makes us human isn't our aposable thumbs. It's not verbal language, it's not written language or mathmatics, nor is it art. It's the conscious decision we make that we are superior.

You did get it across; I agree.

It's the same for EVERYTHING living.
This is weird to think about but trees in the amazon race for light and do not (and more my point, don't have the ability to) consider other plants or animals.
EVERYTHING living is self-serving at it's core. It's not 'human'-nature it's just nature.

By the way, if I forgot to mention, I'm bouncing between ethnics and anatomy.

Are you being sarcastic? I never meant that we are ''more special'' than animals. We are just different. If we would be so much the same, how come we can not start having a conversation with dolphins?


Maybe.


Maybe, maybe not. Could you stab your own child if you would be in such a situation? Could you really do that, no matter what? I definitely know that I cannot, whether it would be my brother or someone else (out of self-defense: of course). I can't even watch SAW, let alone cutting someone (I think). Or do you think I can't know this because I've never been in such a situation before? Well, I learned from philosophy a certain things about human beings, about how we react to the exterior world, we are basically machines as one of the philosophers say. If you know how your machine works, you can try to control it and stop being a machine and so if you get into a situation like that, you can try to CONTROL yourself thanks to the knowledge you gained about your being.

You know, I do agree with you to some extent. I think people act like switches all the time, especially in a situation like that. But as I said, people can work on themselves, so it doesn't HAVE to be like that.

And animals can't act like this (reading etc.), but I do think that they can learn (un)consciously from things like survival, teamwork etc.


We are all horrible indeed, but you can work on yourself to be better. It takes time, understanding, observing, networking and reading but it's possible.

People can work on themselves yes.
But i do agree with Sake here.
No matter how good the person, the hole theory.... it can change the entire outlook of what your saying.
I mean a stick two nuns in this hole...
They are probably the most calm and timid people on earth, yet if put in this situation with the knife, well the results will be bloody.

Unless they are stubborn enough to think that its a test by 'god' and that he will 'save' them.

LOL are you kidding me?
woww
so we just call all animals 'animal'?
we don't have cats, dogs, gerbils, crocodiles, birds, snakes or horsies?
they're all just animals?
Human is our species, love.
we are just animals, but we're pretending not to be :]

Jean Jaques Rousseau said, everything you do and think is based on your egoism, there is no true selflessness. Relating to this, I think good and evil can't be definated. Might sound a little bit superficial but I agree with Rousseau and that's why I can't decide if there are pure good or evil people.

good/evil is man made. completely man made ideas, therefore neither.

"I think there is a (great) difference between animals and humans. That's why we are not called ''animals'', but ''humans''.
Is a psychopath who lies and manipulate ''good'' or ''bad'' according to you? And what about a man that helps poor people?
According to you, the man and psychopath are the same; they're animals. Does that make sense? If so, how?"

i have to disagree, humans are animals with the ability to reason, we have given ourslevesthe name human with nonet o contest the decicion that we are not animals. We are animals with higher brain function. simple.

i believe there is no good and evil aswell, just motive, watching the movies obviously gives distorted views or good and evil, its all dramaticised and over acted. even people like hitler, and more recently fritzel would have had motive, they would not have gone into it thinking "mwahahaha now i can just cause people pain for the sake of it!" albeit he was thinking of control, but he was thinking of pleasure as well.

As far as I am concerned there is no good and evil.
I may agree that I dislike murder and such but it happens in the wild as part of life.
Animals steal and murder and all that "bad" stuff but its just labels we put on things.
It is just part of life...
Not that I am right or anything but I feel I am not too far off from the truth. But yet I am often wrong so who knows. Maybe I am just full of sh*t.
Things such as murder may not be just a part of life... With people, they don't often have reason. Animals do...
But that's not entirely true although it is mostly. Some animals have been recorded to murder for no reason.
But I think there is an inherant difference between us and them. We have no natural predators and live life in a luxury that none can even begin to claim. We bend everything possible to our whims. That and no natural selection of breeding has reduced humanity in ways no other species has ever been through.
Some people out there breed that would have never survived under anything but our circumstances.
I think the movie The Matrix had a line in it that best describes us.
We are nothing but a virus.
We consume everything.
We live to destroy.
And mother earth needs to wipe our sorry asses from its beautiful face for her own good.
Not like she will need help with that. We are doing it just fine by ourselves, just wait and see...
But we cannot change what we are just realize we are not Gods gift.
And dear lord if we were...what a f***ed up gift that was...
Beautiful and terrible.

(Not my words. I just agree).

I guess you can view this with different perspectives.

But I'm still of the opinion that we are not the same as animals or inanimate matter. I do think there is personality. Animals have different personalities, like we do. But they can't express themselves like we can, in other words; there IS a DIFFERENCE. Which makes us NOT the same.

Even though dolphins are very intelligent and I think they communicate with each other telepathically, we still will never be able to start a conversation with them about soccer or anything (and I'm not saying that we are the ''smart'' ones. Not at all. I actually think that they have a much better way of communicating.).
This is just how it is.

And through my reading I open the possibility of the existence of souls. That a soul goes through a school. The possibility that if a soul has reincarnated "enough" times in the animal kingdom (and so has learned all the lessons that are to be learned in the animal kingdom, such as teamwork for example) could then be ready for this ''world'', the ''human world''. Because in our world there are different and perhaps a bit more complex lessons to learn.

And so here I drop one of my reasons to why I think we exist at all; learning lessons.

There is always some kind of balance everywhere I think and so I think there is some kind of Good and Evil. But to know the true definitions of both one needs to dig deep. And when one knows both definitions, it comes to a choice; which road will you take.


Or mother Earth will be wiped clean when a comet hits! who knows..

humans are naturally evil, but try to be good.

Magnificent observation. Let's think on this for a moment. Actually, I'll let you think on it, after all, it was your inference.

* The entire premise of good and evil is predicated on ethicality.

* Humans are neither naturally good nor evil. We're naturally instinctive.

* Humans don't strive to be good, we strive towards and cling to what is deemed morally acceptable by our peers.

The entire idea sickens me

A teacher of mine said that the human is contra natura or something like so, she says that we do things against natural insticts, for example: My brother just enters my room and I give him a kick in the power balls, that wasn't because of any instinct, I did it because I wanted. Although we might still have some basical instincts to live.

Also, it depends on your definition of good and evil, I define good as intentionally helping society in every aspect possible, doesn't matters if only you get benefited, unless you intentionally harm someone or you know that it can harm someone. And evil as intentionally harming society, doesn't matters if it beneficts someone.

Doing evil is easier and more attractive than doing good, it would take a perfect person to do all his/her life good. I suppose that's what makes the human look selfish, even when there are people trying not to.

This is just my opinion, I'm not trying to state anything true.

I believe that humans are born being 'good.' Let me explain since most of you know I don't believe in universal morality.

Humans are born with basic instincts... AND another basic blueprint of our anatomy is a conciousness. What does this mean? When our conciousness fills up, it pushes us to do good. We try to do good, even though it is only our definition of good. People do 'bad' things (as in things they think are bad, but they do them regardless), but the overall population does what they think is good. Even if they change their conciousness along the way, they're doing what they think is good. So they are naturally being good, though you can't describe their actions as being good nor evil because that is nonexistent, but you can describe their intentions as being good (or partly good, even if the actions are selfish. But most of what they do is considered by the person as good or okay, even if it's bad by society's values or if their action forces them to change their values).

I don't think there is a good or bad. After all, people are animals, so everything what we do, is in a way surviving. Human kind is not good or bad, it's just trying to survive. (I talk about this if I'm an Alien or somthing )

That's not exactly true [your statement about us just surviving]. Survival is defined as trying to stay alive. Most of us have the basic needs in Dr. Maslow's pyramid and, if you want to extend it further, we also aim to get security in a sense (which can still be defined as survival, though it's a stretch). Beyond that, we're not just trying to survive. We're aiming for happiness and getting more. Consider this: is it truly survival when you buy $60 jeans rather than those ripped jeans from the second-hand store (or even exchange jeans with someone else who grew out of them)?

I believe everyone is a mix of good and evil, etc.


What makes our minds human are these:
Generative computation- create a virtually limitless variety of words, concepts and things.
Promiscuous combination of ideas allows the mingling of different areas of knowledge
Mental symbols encode sensory experience, real and imagined
Abstract thoughts permit contemplation of things beyond what we can see, hear, taste, touch or smell

That is why we are able to do so many things animals can't.

[quote name='mortati illuminati' date='Apr. 21, 2009. 07:57 AM' post='1432159']
If we are generalising then personally i would say the Human race is evil.
[/quotWhen you are first born you need a lot of care and a whole lot of effort. If a mother did not love there child they wouldn't bother. So you are born in love and born to give it back. Really its about later in life and how people treat YOU. I think it is in the hands of who is around you to detirmen if you are "good" or "evil". And about killing. Yes if you were in a situation if it was you or a stranger you would pick you. Without a doubt. Thats not evil. The act of murder of a stranger you have no reason to kill is evil. Something in your brain just doesnt connect. Ussaully your not BORN with this

Here you're getting into the issue of universal morality, without which you cannot prove that killing is wrong, and when it is right. If you look above at my posts, I was referring to that humans act in how they think is good (299 out of every 300, anyway... since that last one is a psychopath). Even if they change their morals, they're constantly acting in a way that is in harmony with their conscience and rarely can outside factors make them do something they're extremely against. If the outside factors commonly do it, then they reorganize their morals to think what they're doing is okay because of BLAH, BLAH, BLAH. And they would reorganize their morals the first time, regardless. Unless they're being forced by a machine, even hostages think it's okay because they're force (otherwise they don't do it). So they're constantly trying to be 'good,' whatever that means for them. But you can't say they're good or not depending on your personal moral standards.

lol wow im very surprised that this thread lasted as long as today. usually they just get locked. i like seeing your opinions. thank you all for keeping this thread going

You know what the real questioon is?
"What is the stupidest thread?"

Leave it up to me to judge wether people are good or evil.

All human Americans are evil!

lol ok?

fail

It depends. Some of the worst humans make Freddie Krueger look tame. There is no monster that can match the human monster in just plain evil, and imagination regarding "methods" of dealing with others. Read your history, and for cryin out load I don't mean the pabulum you see on TV. For the true horror fans, nothing beats real history. Throwing people in large cast frying pans (Ivan the Terrible), Death of a thousand cuts (China), taking the kids and wife out for family night entertainment at the Coluseum, to see people eaten alive by wild beasts (Rome)... cannibals cutting off arms and legs, (Hey look at that pretty leg, bet it's tasty) roasting and eating them in front of the (former) owners... can I be a little more graphic? Read about the Red Terror in Russia, after the kind and loving communists took over, and that was BEFORE Stalin... There are MANY ways to torment your fellow man. If you think up a new one, sorry, It's likely to have been done already.

And you were scared by Hollywood. LAME!

Now the GOOD humans, well, they may be boring, but hey, who really wants the sort of excitement the beastly ones provide? The scariest part is... THIS STUFF REALLY HAPPENED.. and guess what? As long as there are people, there will be more of the bad ones.

It's very lonely... in Space...

im confused.

Disregarding everything that's already been discussed in this Thread, I'd like to give my personal opinion on this matter (though I may be repeating stuff already brought forward, their opinion is simply similar to mine).

Basically, there is no "Good" or "Evil", it's simply what we all personally see as "Good" or "Evil", based on our own inturpritation of what we believe is ethical and what isn't.

This is why this debate will forever be playing like a broken record, and cannot be answered.

So I say thank you to whoever created us, the git deserves a pissin' oscar.

MONKEY ARE EVIL THEY FLING POO!!!

people are naturally retarded that is y we go to school to learn right from wrong so we don't end up staying stupid..........although sometimes it doesn't work

I've Heard You are Naturally Retarded O_O;;!!!!