Is humanity inherently evil? Thread - The Debating Society

My question is is humanity inherently evil?

Don't get me wrong i love being human, but that does not change the fact we are a violent and cruel race. Which lead me to the question are we evil by nature? I know evil is a mater of opinion, i have my own opinions in regards to that however i would like to here some others thoughts on the mater.

Feel free to sight example through out history of our greatest moments or our darkest hours.

Cheers do_i_ob

good and evil are highly subjective and are often almost completly cultural. One cultures evil many not be evil at all in another. an example would be the hebrew bible says to eat pork is a sin (in the same class as rape and other bad things) but on Papua Newguinea the only meat they ate for thousands of years (besides each other) was pork because thats all that could survive in that area. Its not that either was evil they just had different beliefs and morals which they followed.
In the west we have set ideas of good and evil right and wrong moral and immoral and we think this is universal, but beliefs are not universal and to believe they are is called ethnocentrism, ethnocrentrism is the belief in the superiority of one culture or ethnic group, basically its a form of racism.
but lets just say you ment from a narrow westernized view of the world are humans naturally evil?
the answer is no, if we were there would be no civiliztion. civilization requires that peole work together for a common goal and follow rules tto make it streamline and work.
so Because we have that, and as long as we have been around have had that i can say humans are not naturally evil, aggressive territorial, and sometimes abrasive but not evil.

Bible or no, I don't have to have God telling me that humans are inherently evil to recognize that fact for myself. I can see the evil of man-kind in real life (and no not from newspapers or the news because I avoid reading such as it makes me even more depressed about the state of the world and humanity). Even those who are some-what good still have evil desires and even if they don't most of the time, there will be times when they do. Humans aren't perfect and never can be and humanity itself is a chaotic mess and all the troubles on this planet have been created by humans which speaks for itself really. So generally speaking, an individual can be some-what good but humanity itself is evil, it's there nature. Whether you want to put that down to evolution and say it's simply human nature or whether you put it down to the fall of man is up to you but everything says humanity is a plague upon this world and naturally every human seems to be a bastard in one way or another (yep even you and me reader).

I once developed a crazy theory that we are really creations by Satan (which is why Jesus calls a crowd "sons of Satan" once) and that God took pity on us (and also recognized the free-will in us) and tried to lead us to the light and when everything failed due to our stubbornness, he sent Jesus to die for our sins simply due to his love for us. Thus the sacrifice and our acceptance of Jesus would make up spiritually reborn as God's children. Told you it was crazy as it's in disagreement with everything The Bible says and when Jesus was calling a crowd "sons of Satan" once, he meant that due to their actions and ways.

Spiritually we are Satan's children until we accept Jesus and surrender our ways but it doesn't end there, good deeds and a good heart are needed too. Do good deeds and a good heart get you into Heaven without acceptance of Jesus, I don't think so but I don't think it gets you thrown into Hell either. Jesus mentions Sheol and The Book of Enoch goes into Sheol with detail explicitly stating there are three resting places - one I likened to Hell, the other I likened Limbo and the other I likened to Heaven (Abraham's Bosom) - for souls before Judgement Day and why would judgement exist for a soul if everything was already decided based on acceptance?

Pork? Personally I don't care what The Old Testament says on this matter but it really is disgusting so I refrain for eating it anyways and I don't know why some people make a big deal out of The Old Testament banning it from being eaten. Who the hell first looked at a big anyways and thought "mmm, Imma gonna eat that"? *shivers*

Examples of dark moments in history?

Nearly every war (which have been fought for all the wrong reasons).
Crimes committed in society which have just been abominable.
People hurting others for no reason.
Pedophilia cults.
Racism and slavery.
World Wars and the pathetic tyrants behind them.
Countries today which are backwards.

God is a saint for loving humanity because I don't and wouldn't ever be able to. I abide the commandment of loving others but this doesn't mean love in the way some people think. I try to tolerate people, respect them and would help them if the situation called for it but do I trust any humans? Nope. Not even family (especially family for many reasons). The moment you start trusting strangers is the moment you become weak. You need to be tough in this world but you must stand for justice, decency, order, kindness and respect too.

God is evil? Well considering he's able to forgive anyone and love anyone if they repent of their sins and attempt to live life as a good person, no, he's not evil. We can't love and forgive everyone so no human really ever has any right to look up and condemn God when they - like I - have condemned humanity.

Me? I'm just an ordinary person really trying to live a normal life. Honestly the quicker life is over the better (though I do not wish an unnatural death upon myself, I just think 80-90 years is too long to live in this evil world). I hear all these rumors about 2012 and I don't believe any of them, I am a skeptic of the 2012 doomsday theory and there exists a magnitude of different theories for the end of the world in 2012. Sometimes I often say that I wouldn't be complaining if any of it became real (though I do not know if I am speaking true) because I've realized that the majority of life is a waste of time. And no, I'm not some depressed self-cutting guy, I'm more of a stoic in terms of personality and emotion and try to look at the good even in bad situations.

Adhere by the stoic philosophy and words and life of Christ and life seems much more easier, trust me.

Humans will revert back to survival of the fittest because that's what all animals do under stressful conditions. That's what Evolution says and it is observable amongst humans. Humans are inherently selfish by that definition. However Humans also have the ability to be above that. I'm not selfish, I help others all the time. What's great is that i don't need a God to do it either, I can think for myself.

Yeah this is what I meant, you say you're not selfish but if you received a truck load of money would you give it all away to poor people? What about with your current money. You don't need it all, the £40 you spend on a game could easily be given to someone who really needs it and yet you spend it anyway on something irrelevant to survival and you say you're not selfish, we're all selfish and all flawed. The difference between no religion and religion is that following a religion normally makes one go beyond the line like the desert monks who forsake everything they own and live in a monastery or Buddhist monks who also forsake everything, I've never heard of an "atheist monk" who forsook everything in pursuit of something greater than this realm.

Who cares, if we work to suppress that Evil or prevent it from coming we are all good. It does not matter where it comes from.

well see heres the difference, monks sacrifice because they believe in an afterlife or a reward, we don't so why would we force ourselfs to suffer foolishly for no reason. when we only have alittle time to live why make it suck?
i give money to charity, but they anit getting all of it, i think its stuipid to cause yourself to suffer in hopes od a nonexistent reward.

Who said they suffer for a reward? Buddhist monks don't "suffer" because they believe in a reward. While some may be aiming to reach a higher realm when they pass (which meditating is supposed to help you achieve) others simply give up all they have and meditate because they realize it gives a far better existence where they are at peace with themselves and the world. The same goes for Desert Monks.

Suffering (as Buddhists recognize) is a part of life and one must suffer as one of the steps in life. Suffering not only spiritually strengthens you but it strengthens you mentally and physically too and this overall makes you a better person in terms of will, strength and determination. Not all religious sects who believe suffering must be experienced believe it's part of the steps towards salvation, some go through with suffering simply to make themselves into stronger people.

Fasting - for example - isn't just used to gain forgiveness from God or because there's a religious holiday, some people fast so that they learn to better control their desires. After fasting, when you eat food, you are all the more grateful for it and this teaches you to be more grateful for the food you receive in the future and thus grants you better understanding and wisdom.

And we've been through this afterlife business before, even if everyone was going through suffering because of their belief that they would be rewarded in the afterlife, they wouldn't be wasting their time.

I never got fasting. Everyone always eats TONS of food before they fast, so doesn't it defeat the point?:)

I don't need to forsake everything to help someone you know. Only a sith deal in absolutes. I help by just donating my old clothing and any spare change to the Salvation Army, so don't talk down to me on your high horse about sacrificing your personal wants when you actually no nothing about me.

BTW people like Bill Gates donate tonnes of money to charity and he's Atheist. Even then there are religious people who donate to charity and they don't need to suffer or give up all their possessions to do it.

Which would be better: if we all donated a certain amount of money to charity (depending on their financial need) or if half the population gave away everything to the homeless and went to live in a monastery somewhere? The idea of Charity is to bridge the financial gap/help those who need it, it doesn't mean one person gives up everything to another (the positions are just switched then).

Who are the monks helping anyways? I know i implied above that they give their possessions to someone else, but really they don't do that (or if they have i've never heard of it). They become monks to serve God or elevate themselves within their spiritual belief - that's not really helping anyone.

I never said you had to forsake everything so you are clearly misreading/ignoring what I actually wrote directly to you. The other message was directed to Deer_Hunter. I couldn't care what Bill Gates donates, his company is filthy stinking rich and I couldn't care what Steave Jobs donated either ("I went to Africa and saw starving children there and I thought, why doesn't God help them?" LOL why don't *you* with your money stay there and help them?).

You're missing the point. You spend money on pointless accessories when that money could be better spend on helping people. No I'm not asking for people to give up everything they own (again you've read the wrong message) but giving your old baggy clothes away isn't exactly being generous or selfless which shows you don't really know what selflessness really means.

No nothing about me either.

See this debate has went way off topic, The question is are humans evil? I answered from a board culturally relativistic perspective and said no.
you anwsered from a ethnocentic perspective (which i warned about) and said yes.
Lets stay on topic, and please don't use culturally specific absolutes remember there is more than one faith and culture on this site- and just because you believe your personal beliefs are the correct ones doesnt mean they hold true for everyone.

I don't know what you're talking about because we're still on-topic as selfishness and selflessness relates to evil and good. Selfish being related to bad which is related to evil and selflessness relating to good. I mentioned Buddhists and Christian monks in my argument so where on earth are you getting "personal beliefs" from? We answered and now we're debating....which is kinda what this forum is for ya know?

Oh and the afterlife holds true for pretty much nearly every religion and as we've been through before, it also has evidence.

Edited by: KnightofEquulei

The problem is it is becomeing a either religious right or wrong arguement. Thats personal and really has nothing to do with good and evil on the whole.

remember evil is a very broad term, you many claim that monks following religious beliefs are doing good- but some would argue that anything that follows a religious system is in fact evil.
just because you believe something is right or wrong because of your religious beliefs doent mean its universal, so if you want to dicuss selfishness and selflessness focus not on the religious aspects but on how it actually works.

Well since we all follow a religious system (a set of teachings) then we're all evil if we go by that logic (which actually I've never ever heard of). No discussion needed.

The question of humanity inherently being evil is just as much a theological question as it is a moral and philosophical one.

Edited by: KnightofEquulei

case in point, i don't believe humans are naturally evil, I think we may be self centered selfish but not evil.
To tell me I am wrong because your god says so (which i don't believe exists) is to me absurd but culturally is ethnocentic and on all levels wrong.
if you were to explain your reasons without using ethnocentic concepts (religionious absolutism) and could show them without claiming divine rightness than it would be correct.
as it stands you are trying to force us to disprove your god to make are points (which is impossible because we cannot disprove an imaginary entity) and that is not a good arguemnet and it actually nullifys anything that you claim because it is built on a culturally narrow perspective and cannot be claimed as uniersal because it isnt.
this is what i was trying to explain.

it can stay here as long as we stay away from cultural and religous absolutism. If you can say your belief is one of many and we all avoid claiming rightness because of religous beliefs than it fits here pretty well.
I will be back in a while, need to do laundry
cheers.

I never said we were evil because God says so (please quote where I said that). I even said "Bible or no, I don't have to have God telling me that humans are inherently evil to recognize that fact for myself" which pretty much debunks your claim, I then go on to say that throughout history and today we can observe the majority of humans leaning towards evil and if you want to argue what evil really is then we enter into another debate.

However again as I explained, this subject is just as much a theological one as it is a moral and philosophical one and this forum isn't just for theists vs atheists so please keep that in mind because as you said "remember there is more than one faith and culture on this site" and thus my theological argument I put forth later in my initial topic would be addressing fellow believers or those who have interest in debating about this subject on theology's side of things.

My original comment doesn't force you to attempt to try and disprove God (something you can't do without presenting valid evidence for your theories such as spontaneous generation and atheistic creatio ex nihilo), in fact my original comment doesn't even force you to reply at all.

Again this subject is just as much a theological one as it is a moral and philosophical one.

(BTW I think you misunderstand what ethnocentric means. It means "Belief in the superiority of one's own ethnic group." according to the freedictionary. Meanwhile religious absolution doesn't even come into this debate because we aren't debating over what religion is right or wrong. I'm simply giving my opinion on the subject and answered from a personal and theological viewpoint which later descended into a philosophy debate about selfishness which is bad and a problem humans suffer from often leading to evil deeds.)

Edited by: KnightofEquulei

ethnocentrism can also refer to culture (which encompasses religion)
"Ethnocentrism is judging another culture solely by the values and standards of one's own culture" thats a def from wikipeadia, and its almost identical to the ones in my textbooks.
you are right i should have been more specific on what i was trying to say.
it did go off for a while, but i can see some of your points.

How about we try this, lets re-ask the question and then re-evaluated it, ok?
is is humanity inherently evil?

My answer,
I would say no based on my defintion of evil- evil in my book is behavior that hurts those around you, anti-social behavior if you will. Humans instinctively normally try to fit in with those around them and work together with there group to achieve goals.
An evil person continuously hurts others with no after or thought remorse for there own gain, often because they gain some sort of perverse pleasure from the act. Examples of these acts would be rape, murder, extreme child or spousal abuse, violent crime, some forms of robbery and theft and anyother of what we would call sociopathic behaviors. People who commit above stated acts are not normal, they are in some way damaged because a normal person would not commit such acts and recieve pleasure from it.
That is evil, most people arent evil because they do not fall into that catagory.
Humans as a species have to work togther to survive- without others normal humans being barely survive at all, we are social animals we need others- so being "evil" doesnt make an evolutionary sense for normal humans, kind of like flippers wouldnt make sense on land.

there is my answer, now whos next?

Glad we sorted that out. Though I still don't see how I was judging another culture by the values of my own (England) or by my religion. Though I guess you're referring to what I said regarding the fall of man. Well I've said my opinion, from a theological viewpoint, yes, I think humanity is evil, also from an observational viewpoint, yes again.

"Examples of these acts would be rape, murder, extreme child or spousal abuse, violent crime, some forms of robbery and theft and anyother of what we would call sociopathic behaviors. People who commit above stated acts are not normal, they are in some way damaged because a normal person would not commit such acts and recieve pleasure from it. That is evil, most people arent evil because they do not fall into that category."

You make a good point although greed, selfishness, corruption and lying can also be considered evil especially when performed in excessive amount. Though in other cases the aspects I mentioned above are simply bad and not evil. No human is perfect, all humans are flawed and while you may find a few examples of humans who happen to be paragons of virtue, I think humanity as a whole happens to be evil or at least bad or leaning towards such. When you consider crime-rates and how many people perform evil acts (some not even being unlawful) you can either conclude that all those humans are "damaged" or that evil deeds aren't spurred by the individuals being mentally damaged but rather because of the nature of that person.

Animals are born to kill for survival, likewise humans are born with some morally wrong ideals.

killing for survival isnt evil, "morals" are only the product of human society. basically they are unofficial rule that help us to live together better- the majority are very basic fairness, control of rampant killing etc.
but we must re-evaluate flawed, as animals we arent flawed, we are exactly as we should be- only a small minority caus trouble the rest try to work togther to help themselves, but because helping the group helps them they help the group. Thats why we hve governence and comernce. all humans are as you said inherintly selfish- but not because we are evil but because we are programmed to try and pass on our genes.
You need to read about the Price Equation (the mathamatic law dicovered by george price) It is a mathamatic law that when applied to altruism shows that any altruistic act no matter how selfless it seems is infact selfish and nothing more than a genetically preprogramed response to try and increase reproductive suggess. even if the person involved is never planning on reproducing.
Price himself became a christain and spent his whole life trying to disprove his own work, in an attempt to prove that humans could be selfless but he failed. he gave everything away, dedicated his life to helping others and trying to disprove himself.
Eventually homeless, after giving all to try and prove that human beings could be selfless and be more like the god he worked so hard to prove he ended his own life suicide he had nothing left to give and had failed, and in what is both truely ironic and at the same time almost unimaginably cruel because of his suicide his memorial service wasnt held in a church (which he had worked so very hard to help) and he was buried in an unmarked grave.
He did live in England so you may have heard of him, I find it amazing how many people havent.

here are sum interesting articles i found when i searched the question of if we are evil on creation.com i really have to do my science now, which is why im not writing more then a few sentences. Creation.com

there is nothing there, O and creation.com isnt what i or really anybody would call a reliable source. I am sure that even ecceslia will back me up on this, its completely baised just like if i were to use www.atheistsnolikeychristains.com (not a real site) that would be completly biased and not a good source.

On a ranking of bad sources for reliable info it would go as follows
1. Wikipeadia
2. Urbandictionary
3. Darthipedia (Lol its a funny site)
4.The ramblings of a schizophrenic off there meds
5. looking at tea leaves
6. talking to cats
7.staring at hog manure
8. a Beetles song played backwards
9. Kim Kardashians twitter account
10. Anything said by Sarah Palin
11. KKK official fan page
12. and lastly Conservapiedia Creation.com anything that rushlimbaugh says

I would suggest trying all the things on this list before using creation.com, even other bible websites. follow ecceslias example he doesnt use creation.com
and we atheist really don't like it. but for the sake of the debate please use other sources.

True. I'm not against visiting Christian sites to gain a perceptive but they are bias just like an atheist site is bias (and this should be expected because both are promoting their view) or any other site made stating that their belief is true. If you ever must use a biased site, it's best to check to see if it has sources and if those sources are accurate. I use sites which are non-bias and simply speaking about the subject at hand but sometimes it's hard to come across a non-bias site. Google "The Dark Ages" for example and you'll find atheist sites saying it was religion causing the problems and you'll find Christian sites saying The Church was actually the only dim light during the time, meanwhile the actually history sites (if you can find them among the atheist and Christian sites) say it was the fall of Rome that caused The Dark Ages.

Oh and when I said animals kill for survival, I didn't mean it was evil, killing for survival isn't evil.

Humanity is inherently evil in the same way squirrels are inherently evil for making their home in my shed.

OMG!!! Your right Winston, squirrels are evil!

so they must be punished, lets flood the earth and kill everything so that they will learn they arent suppose to be in your shed.