Debate thread: Are people born good or evil

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water

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Oct 29, 2004
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In this thread I'd like to discuss whether or not people are born good or evil, or if they're life experiences force them to be one or the other.

My stance sides heavily on being born that way, but I'm willing to believe that experience does play a small part.

As I've gone throughout my life I've met some people that just seemed to be scum no matter how you cut it. They only looked out for themselves, they hurt people for no reason at all or simply because it served some menial purpose in their mind, they beat their kids, sucked at their jobs, and were overly aggressive to anyone they came across.

These are just the people I've met in my 27 years here. This doesn't factor in people like Hitler who their entire life was based around the pain of others.

What do you think?
 
People looking out for themselves and hurting others is a part of human nature as its a part of survival. Good is taught by decent parents at a very early age. If someone was born and turns out pretty evil very very early on it kind of shows that their home life wasn't all that great.
 
theacoustician said:
People in general are a bunch of assholes.
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I agree, but look at people like Richard Simmons. The guy does nothing but be nice to people and try to help others who have problems, and because of the way he acts he constantly tormented, but it doesn't phase him in the slightest.
 
Well if you figure people are like dogs, many breeders will breed a certain temperment into a dog...

However, this negates the fact that newborns tend to be quite impressionable and many early experiences can influence one's actions down the line.

So we're back to the nature vs. nurture debate, which has sound arguments on either side. I tend to lean toward nurture myself. I believe a person is the sum of his experience.
 
I think there are different levels of good and bad. I think that the most extreme of good and evil are nature.
I think that most levels in between are based more on nuture.

For example:
I believe that most sociopaths are just born that way. No matter what "good" they are taught...they are still messed up in the head. There is no behavior modification that will work with them.

Then I believe that people who are born with Downs Syndrome or other types of mental disabilities...these people are just happy and nice. They see good in everything. They gain joy from so much and want people around them to have that joy. This is something that cannot be taught.

*waits for someone to not read what I say, but bash me for my grammar or spelling.*
 
I don't believe good and evil are universal constants. The definition of both can change over time because they're nothing more than constructs of the human mind. Something is evil only because we have decided it is. But in trying to answer your question...genetics can play an important role in someone's personality but then again one's environment can have a significant impact on how that person will turn out later in life.

There was a little girl born to parents that didn't want her, they basically kept her chained to a potty chair in the basement for the first decade of her life. When she was rescued and put into the care of psychologists they tried to normalize her but couldn't. As an adult she may flip out and mutilate someone but this girl's childhood was so messed up that I don't think anything in her genes could overcome it. In that case she may do things we see as evil but she simply doesn't know the difference between the two.

As for Hitler I don't know if he was kicking puppies when he was a toddler...but he was a vegetarian so I'm gonna go with born evil.
 
Usually in order to talk about something you have to define it.

Cause like now I can say:

We can assume that for you to class an abitrary affect to a person you would have to observe or know in some way that they did/are doing/will do something that in your opinion can be called "evil".

Now since you didnt provide a definition of "evil": an act that isnt "good" can be defined in two ways. Both these acts will be malicious, something hurtful or that causes some sort of harm. Just because something is malicious does not mean it is evil though. Evil is something more disembodied, more elemental. In short you can say that evil is a bad thing. You cannot say that bad things are evil though.

I cant answer your question until you get back on that :p

*spins*
 
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According to Calvin and Hobbes~

Calvin: Do you think babies are born sinful, that they come into the world as sinners?
Hobbes: No, I think they're just quick studies.
Calvin: Whenever you discuss certain things with animals, you get insulted.
 
shawndavid said:
Nurture. There's one culture still in existence in the bush of New Guniea, I believe, that doesn't even have a word for war.
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But that could also be caused by genetics. A fairly closed culture with a small breeding pool would tend to share the same docile genes creating a passive society.
 
FlamingGlory said:
We meet again.

I should have expected you to start dragging down the IQ of the entire forum soon.

En guard!
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Crying%20Girl.jpg
 
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