human nature - inherently good or evil?

[Saltmeister]

If I were interested in consensus I might comment on the rest of your rambles for instance, but they are utterly a nonsense. What use is anyone going to get out of any of it? They are your theories and you consider them useful, it is because you have studied these topics and have attached to your conclusions.

I could say the same about your theories. The difference between my theories and your's is that my theories are not entirely my own. I have added my own "innovations" but they are largely the work of others. I am using other people's research. The concepts I talk about here have a chance of being more "useful" because other people are actually interested in them. The other major difference is that unlike you, my theories are not about "an answer to everything."

In reality, you are discussing the past, something utterly dead, and thus there is no use in me taking on that information. Now consensus is impossible because I declare it all utterly pointless knowledge.

What you talk about on these forums is something that potentially doesn't exist. You talk about higher plane concepts, but there is no way of verifying if any of that stuff is true. To the rest of us it is nonsense. To me, only what exists in the mundane world can be verified as real. Everything else requires faith.

You use words like "dead" and "pointless" to make your own theories seem more important. You blame others when you don't get your point across, but maybe the fault is your own. You consider your cause to be so important that when people don't fall in line with your views, you blame them. Firstly, you're just not convincing and secondly, people have to see things your way and when they don't you say it's their fault. Who is ultimately responsible for that?

You called Jesus "vengeful" for his "outburst," but you aren't any better because you speak disparagingly of people when they don't give you what you want. By your own reasoning, you must be a vengeful person. You are behaving a lot like Jesus.

 

[Etu Malku]

To me, only what exists in the mundane world can be verified as real. Everything else requires faith.

Oh I agree with everything you have stated about Lunitik, but I would like to add My understanding to the above statement.
Not only do we need 'faith' in our objective perceptions, because that is what they are 'perceptions' but we can also admire and use our subjective universe, our imagination, our 'not' mundane Self to enjoy things that would be considered detrimental in the objective universe.

You are behaving a lot like Jesus.

LOL . . . nicely put!

 

[Ahanu]

in your religious/spiritual belief do you think human beings are inherently good or inherently evil? Or neutral? Or does it even matter?

It matters.

War.

That's why it matters.

All human beings, whether living 200,000 years ago or living in 2011, have known war in some form or another.

Our distant cousins (Pan troglodytes) band together to deliberately kill other members of their own species--just like human beings. This behavior is inherited, so this answers the questions St. Augustine once asked:

"Where is evil then, and whence, and how crept it in hither? What is its root, and what its seed?"

At least that is part of the answer. I agree with Saltmeister, who, in post number 35, writes that the labels good and evil are unhelpful, and then says:

"We are whatever our biology, physiology and social environment influence us to become. That is our nature."

There has been a strong focus throughout the thread on the ego; however, I would like to shift the focus on the answer to Augustine's question in another direction, a biological direction. An evolutionary perspective shows us that the idea that the first human beings lived in a state of bliss (as Augustine incorrectly believed) is flat wrong: competition and strife were the norm whenever a human-like intelligence appeared on the scene. Altruism, on an evolutionary scale, is a relatively recent behavior.

Over thousands and thousands of years a growing awareness has formed that violence is decreasing. Evolutionary biologists focus on the progress that has been made and on how it perhaps can continue. While these predispositions are strong, they are not destiny.

Vanessa Woods, when writing about bonobos, says:

"Their physiology, biochemistry, and psychology is set up to avoid violence. The fact that sex is their mechanism to reduce tension is irrelevant. We need to study the hell out of bonobos and use our big fat brains to find our own mechanism so we can live peacefully."

I think understanding the biological side of the violent behavior in human beings will help contribute to a more peacful society . . .

and in eliminating war altogether. This is one of the most important religious beliefs I have.

"Easier said than done," I think. A big canyon separates theory and practice.

It's more than just biological; the social environment is another factor.

 

[luecy7]

What is peace without war?

Peace.

It is utterly meaningless, because they are utterly interrelated.

The absence of one typically implies the other. It is interesting that you claim they are interrelated. It is as if you have declared this a single bit of information, and that the 0 and 1 are interrelated. These are behaviors or activities: not just information, and certainly not defined by a single bit. You do not need to know one to know the other.

What we call freedom certainly is a slavery

Perhaps in your case, since you insist on being free of being involved in relationships.

Ignorance and strength are not related at all

The heart can pump for the muscle, or the heart can pump for the brain. You haven't taken me up on the recommendation to try orienteering as a sport.

Lies become truth if it reaches popular consensus, this is noticeable throughout human history...

I think you truly believe this, and you have said it before, and that is why I included it. A similar example might be, 'a theft is fair game if nobody catches it.' Or: 'Propaganda is news if people will believe it.'

Evil and good are both concepts, but then so is any duality.

Until you put them into practice.

You consider yourself good, and yet you are currently mocking in this post.

You call me mocking because you don't like something? Sorry I didn't give you credit: I was quoting George Orwell, per his fiction, and I was quoting you.

They cannot be separated at all because they depend on each other to know the other.

So you teach that being separate, being solo, is a good thing to do?

There is only one real being, the rest are simply expressions of that. In this way, I know myself to be God, yes.

Since you have defined God, your knowledge is of what you have defined. But when God defines God, then will you wish to define yourself to be like God?

 

[luecy7]

Wouldn't it depend on how far into each swing of the Hermetic pendulum you take it?

I think you are talking about social, time period morality here.
If our primitive ancestors didn't rape one another (I don't see there being much consensual sex) then We wouldn't be here now.

This is a tough scenario to wrap one's brain around, but I feel it to be important. Death cannot be truly understood without Life being experienced. Beating someone cannot be fully understood unless one is beaten, etc. Not that any of us wish to take this as far as that of course, but the experience demands this.

Which why my beliefs work in the subjective universe, a place where all of this CAN be experienced without being detrimental to another.

The horror of what you are asking is part of the objective universe, and cannot be experienced without detriment to another.

If I understand you, just like Lunitik, you are saying that in order to evolve a person has to have done hateful things, or that the knowledge has been included in your genes thanks to the brave actions of your ancestors, some of whom obviously did these hateful things. Your statement though was that not doing hatred is not fun.

As you claim that beating someone cannot be fully understood unless someone is beaten, I think Lunitik would agree with you, and I would say this is really false. If a person is beaten, they know what it is like being beaten. To beat someone, they know what it is like beating someone. To an individual these are totally different activities: giving and receiving. A conclusion of your belief is that you must fight someone who fights, and rape a rapist, and murder a murderer, and steal from a theif, in order to teach that hater what hatred is really like. In a twisted way, someone might call that a case of being loving.

 

[A Cup Of Tea]

Some are saying that we need to experience the evil in our world to experience the good in our world. I think it is more that we need to experience the one to experience the other the way we do now. I think people have different views of good and evil because they have had different experiences of one and/or the other.
If we lived in a society where none ever raised their hand to another in a hundred years we would have very different ideas of good and evil, but the concept would still exist.
Good, is what we appreciate and what we want more of, evil is what we do not. This is the nature of good and evil for me in it's simplest form and it will exist as long as there are people to want more and/or less of anything.

 

[Etu Malku]

If I understand you, just like Lunitik, you are saying that in order to evolve a person has to have done hateful things, or that the knowledge has been included in your genes thanks to the brave actions of your ancestors, some of whom obviously did these hateful things. Your statement though was that not doing hatred is not fun.

As you claim that beating someone cannot be fully understood unless someone is beaten, I think Lunitik would agree with you, and I would say this is really false. If a person is beaten, they know what it is like being beaten. To beat someone, they know what it is like beating someone. To an individual these are totally different activities: giving and receiving. A conclusion of your belief is that you must fight someone who fights, and rape a rapist, and murder a murderer, and steal from a theif, in order to teach that hater what hatred is really like. In a twisted way, someone might call that a case of being loving.

No, that is not what I am saying. Let me explain.

Our subjective mind is for just that, to experience the extremes of life. I'm not sure we can experience the polar ends of anything such as; in order to experience life to its extreme one needs to experience death, but then again some people have died and been resuscitated with a new zest for living . . . others of course are vegetables.

Getting back to my babble, in our mind we can experience many things we would not even consider experiencing in the objective universe.

Personally, I have never successfully lucid dreamed, I don't know if I believe others that say they have either, but if this were possible think of the experiences you could create?

 

[Etu Malku]

If I understand you, just like Lunitik, you are saying that in order to evolve a person has to have done hateful things, or that the knowledge has been included in your genes thanks to the brave actions of your ancestors, some of whom obviously did these hateful things. Your statement though was that not doing hatred is not fun.

As you claim that beating someone cannot be fully understood unless someone is beaten, I think Lunitik would agree with you, and I would say this is really false. If a person is beaten, they know what it is like being beaten. To beat someone, they know what it is like beating someone. To an individual these are totally different activities: giving and receiving. A conclusion of your belief is that you must fight someone who fights, and rape a rapist, and murder a murderer, and steal from a theif, in order to teach that hater what hatred is really like. In a twisted way, someone might call that a case of being loving.

Interesting are some of religious beliefs concerning Hell and damnation, in that for instance you were a rapist, your damnation would be an eternity of being raped.
Just a thought, not something I actually would believe.

 

[radarmark]

Unless one is a sociopath, one has a notion (I do not claim to know how primtive this is) of good and bad. The notion may be biological or social, again I do not claim to know. As our children grow we try to foster the notion of good and bad in them. When we reach a certain age, we try to internalize the notion (perhaps so we fit in well). When we think or act we almost reflexively judge thoughts and behaviors in terms of those norms. When we get (as old as me) older we look back to see if all our thoughts and behaviors fit.

What religion does is re-enforce the more non-egocentric definitions of bad and good. Sometimes it is for the sake of the family unit, sometimes the tribal unit, sometimes all of personkind. I believe that the higher the focus, the better the behavior or thought (focusing on the world is better than focusing on the self).

In the end it is what we do to further things like the existence of the world, the existence of humanity in a collective sense, those are the actions, behaviors and thoughts that we can benchmark as "good".

Things like expoiting children or others who can not nemtally or physically defend themselves, imposing our whims, wishes and fiats on others for our own gratification or "dominating" groups or nature or resources for our own (or the groups) gratification, all of these are benchmarks of "bad".

Eradicating War and Injustice and Ecologically unsound policies... yeah, I take them as things to strive for. My thinking about them, communicating them (like now on this web), publically protesting them (as I will do this Saturday at our local peace protest), buying locally and organically, working for non-traditional candidates, who I vote for, how I choose to spend my money... all of these (if they meet the above criteria) are "good" things.

It is a matter of deep thought, judging if a religious group is or teaches bad or good. Something we can come to a consensus on (even if that consensus is "we do not know"). Likewise the question of this thread "inherently good or evil".

For me (IMHO) we are like quantum events, we have the potential to go either way. Some small percent are inherently good or evil (perhaps). But the vast majority of us are ethical tabla rosas when we are born. Ah, if only we had a cultural norm (like bonobos or certain southeast asian counties) that allowed us to channel frustration and aggression into some non-violent activity.

Pax et amore omnia vincunt.

 

[Etu Malku]

Oddly though, Good & Evil is subjective and are aspects of time period and socio-culture.
One Man's Good is another Man's Evil.

 

[NiceCupOfTea]

Oddly though, Good & Evil is subjective and are aspects of time period and socio-culture.
One Man's Good is another Man's Evil.

true, and i wonder what will be considered evil in a 100 years time that is considered good today ?

 

[radarmark]

I do not know about subjective. More like inter-subjectively objective (see Jaynes' rap on Bayesian theory), that is we can "benchmark" our subjective beliefs with others and come to a Quakerly consensus (it worked with slavery, took too long, but it worked). That is probably the best we can do (you all know how big a skeptic I am), unless we all adopt some written code (Urantia Book and Course in Miracles come to mind).

Pax et amore omnia vincunt

 

[seattlegal]

Ah, if only we had a cultural norm (like bonobos or certain southeast asian counties) that allowed us to channel frustration and aggression into some non-violent activity.

Pax et amore omnia vincunt.

Channeling frustration/aggression into non-violent activity will undermine that non-violent activity. {chit tends to run downhill} It will only provide a temporary solution. It is better to learn how to directly deal with frustration, instead of dispersing it elsewhere, imo.

 

[NiceCupOfTea]

so could we say that human nature is inherently human and that concepts such as good and evil are subjective ?

 

[Etu Malku]

so could we say that human nature is inherently human and that concepts such as good and evil are subjective ?

I like that definition

 

[luecy7]

Interesting are some of religious beliefs concerning Hell and damnation, in that for instance you were a rapist, your damnation would be an eternity of being raped.
Just a thought, not something I actually would believe.

I would say that an eternity of anything is an unwillingness, disinterest, or disbelief in the ability to seek and obtain change. If a rapist were to look and see his error, working to obtain the forgiveness and approval of the victim, or the victim to forgive a rapist, seeking to do good for the perpetrator without sacrificing what the victim knows was evil... then I think the gates of hell are made of paper.

 

[radarmark]

NCOT & Et Malku -- make that 3 for (with the caveat that we can objectively discuss what is right and wrong, like we are doing).

 

[luecy7]

No, that is not what I am saying. Let me explain.

Our subjective mind is for just that, to experience the extremes of life. I'm not sure we can experience the polar ends of anything such as; in order to experience life to its extreme one needs to experience death, but then again some people have died and been resuscitated with a new zest for living . . . others of course are vegetables.

Getting back to my babble, in our mind we can experience many things we would not even consider experiencing in the objective universe.

Personally, I have never successfully lucid dreamed, I don't know if I believe others that say they have either, but if this were possible think of the experiences you could create?

Thank you for clarifying. So then, a simulation, or a contemplative movie, with perhaps no intent to ever carry out the act. Or maybe to re-review prior actions. I find the best simulation or review will be testing it with the golden rule.

I submit though that any subjectivity must be verified with a healthy pursuit of objective experience. A subjective simulation can entrench false fears and false hopes, imagined fabrications with insufficient objective interaction. I am saying that a person must not only subjectively think, but to also objectively try to find and test the theory and values, to learn and see what doing that something is really all about. That is not to remove the necessary thinking, simulation, and open-mind review, but to recognize that doing something good and doing something evil are really interactive actions with an other. If a person took a sledge hammer to their computer, then good and evil are far more subjective, than if the person were to take out another person's computer.

I thought you were heading down the path of saying that this world is subjective, a Matrix style simulation where all things can be tried and tested without consequence, and that it may be necessary and good fun to do so. To each his own. My bucket list does not include seeking to do the things that are viewed as evil or hateful, just for that experience, or alleged... fun.

 

[luecy7]

NCOT & Et Malku -- make that 3 for (with the caveat that we can objectively discuss what is right and wrong, like we are doing).

Sort of an: inter-objectivity. A person just doesn't know until they either ask, or do. As an example: Would you mind... do you think it would be evil... if I took this here sledge hammer to your computer?

 

[radarmark]

You got it, and of course!