Are people good or bad?

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otseng
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Are people good or bad?

Post #1

Post by otseng »

brunumb wrote: Even if the Bible did not exist, the notion that it is good to love others would still be there. I find it hard to get my head around the need for some sort of instructional manual to tell us how to be good people.
For debate:
Are people good or bad?
Are we inherently good or morally depraved?
Do we need an instruction manual to tell us how to be good people?

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Post #61

Post by otseng »

Bust Nak wrote: Of course everyone can do the most evil and vile things. That doesn't mean much without an argument for if sufficiently tested, anyone would do the most evil and vile things.
Thank God not everyone would do the most evil things, but pushed to the extreme, they could do it.

One night, my wife and I were having one of the most serious fights of our marriage. And though I did not actually commit heinous evil, I saw within my own heart I could've easily committed it. It is this kind of capability of evil within our hearts that categorize us as evil. If I was pushed even further that night, it cannot be ruled out that I would've actually committed grievous evil.

Another illustration. The movie Revenge portrays a sweet, gentle, loving mother that has been pushed beyond her limit. She then becomes a serial ax murderer. And through the movie, most of us would cheer her on.
How many, is many? Would do say it's most?
I'm not arguing for any particular situation, but rather presenting various different kinds of tests that people face, one of them being sexual harassment temptation. I'll present more tests later.

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Post #62

Post by Danmark »

otseng wrote:
Elijah John wrote: Or their internal sense of right and wrong. People do this all the time.
Yes, most people can pass the easy tests. But, under harder tests, it becomes difficult, if not impossible, to trust only on one's abilities and innate sense of morality.
Civil disobedience. Internal sense of right and wrong. Passive or active resistance.
The Nuremberg prosecution did not appeal to civil disobedience or an internal compass. They did not say to the perpetrators, "You should've exercised civil disobedience. You should've had an internal sense of right and wrong. You should've resisted." Even they had to appeal to a higher power (which they had to invent).
Your reference to Nuremberg important. But the lessons from it are complex and unresolved. But I agree, both at Nuremberg and in other forums, there is frequently an appeal to some higher value or principle [not 'power'] Jurists speak of 'fundamental fairness' or acts that "shock the conscience," 'due process. It may be like pornography in that we can't define it, but we know it when we see it.

But I suggest that whatever it is, it's the same thing De Waal's chimps demonstrated.

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Re: Are people good or bad?

Post #63

Post by Purple Knight »

Danmark wrote:This 'fairness' impulse is far short of a reflex or instinct. Virtually all of us feel a pull toward it while we feel a strong pull toward short term self interest.
I've come to see my fairness impulse as extremely evil, and something to be tortured out of me by any means necessary.

Most of the time, I've learned that fairness - treating people equally, wanting to live by the same rules as others - is in direct conflict with the idea of good.

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Post #64

Post by otseng »

Zzyzx wrote: Would arrogance also apply to those who think or claim that they are more moral than normal, regular people because they worship in certain ways --and who claim to follow a superior ethical code (even when their actions indicate non-compliance)?
I believe we are all equally depraved. Nobody is more moral than another and there is no one who is better than another. No Christian is better than any non-Christian. No priest is better than any prisoner. No master is better than any slave. No saint is better than any sinner. There is nobody that can claim to be good. As Jesus said, "Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone." Mark 10:18

Rather than this being viewed as bad news, ironically, it is good news. The problem is when people start viewing themselves as somehow better than another. This opens the door for the mistreatment of others. However, if we believe that we are all equally weak, then it would instill in us humility, understanding and compassion.

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Post #65

Post by otseng »

Danmark wrote: Your reference to Nuremberg important. But the lessons from it are complex and unresolved. But I agree, both at Nuremberg and in other forums, there is frequently an appeal to some higher value or principle [not 'power'] Jurists speak of 'fundamental fairness' or acts that "shock the conscience," 'due process. It may be like pornography in that we can't define it, but we know it when we see it.

But I suggest that whatever it is, it's the same thing De Waal's chimps demonstrated.
I don't see the difference between your example of De Waal's chimps and an internal compass. They both would originate internally and from an innate sense of morality.

In the Nuremberg trials, the prosecution did not argue that the Nazis should've followed an internal compass. They had to appeal to some higher external authority (which I equate with power) than the German government. In this case, it was international criminal law.

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Post #66

Post by Mithrae »

otseng wrote:
Mithrae wrote: Meaning that if the bible says to kill witches, homosexuals and adulteresses, or to slaughter and drive all worshipers of 'false' gods from the promised land, or a person hears God telling them to kill their own children, in theory no humanist principles and no other recourse is available to save the victims.
Perhaps so if only the Old Testament laws was referenced. However, as Christians, we are to obey the Law of Christ. Jesus never killed any witches, homosexuals, or adulteresses, so he didn't set that example for us.
I would argue that deferral of responsibility to bronze and iron age texts and diffusion of responsibility throughout the church are among the primary reasons for the many Christian atrocities throughout history.
Go ahead and present your case in a separate thread.
Moses and his Yahweh did clearly set those examples for how a 'holy nation' should operate, and Christians throughout the centuries have sought to apply their understanding of God's law in sometimes horrific ways. That you have reached a radically different interpretation of the bible simply demonstrates the fallacy of your claim that such an appeal to divine law has any merit.
The reality (regardless of whether or not there is a god) is that no-one is responsible for your moral framework but you.
I agree each one is responsible for their own actions. But, each one is also easily swayed to commit evil. Again, those who committed the atrocities (whether in an actual concentration camp or in an experimental lab) are regular, normal people.
And those burning witches and torturing heretics were regular, normal Christians.
Those who choose to build their moral framework on nothing but the selected musings of primitive minds seem to be making a rather unwise decision, to say the least; and those who then insist that these quite limited opinions they have constructed are the very opinions of God himself are being incredibly arrogant.
I would argue those who believe they are somehow smarter or better than those who commit evil are the ones who are arrogant. It is the normal, regular people that can commit evil. If someone thinks they are better than normal, regular people, that by definition would be arrogance.
Some people are smarter than others. Are you trying to deny this provable fact? Likewise some people do have more reasonable, equitable and widely-beneficial moral systems than others. You're not really going to try arguing that Hitler's moral framework held the same merit as Gandhi's, are you?

There's an infinite difference between saying "I am taller/faster/smarter..." or "My moral system is 'better' than some others'" and saying "My moral system is the moral system of God himself." The former may well be incorrect and/or arrogant, in some cases, but the latter is always wrong and always arrogant. So why on earth should we encourage anyone to strive to think along those lines?

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Post #67

Post by otseng »

Exhibit 5: Sex trafficking

"Sex trafficking is human trafficking for the purpose of sexual exploitation, including sexual slavery. A victim is forced, in one of a variety of ways, into a situation of dependency on their trafficker(s) and then used by said trafficker(s) to give sexual services to customers."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_trafficking

"Sex trafficking is a modern-day form of slavery in which a commercial sex act is induced by force, fraud, or coercion, or in which the person induced to perform such an act is under the age of 18 years."
https://www.acf.hhs.gov/sites/default/f ... icking.pdf
they are rented out for sex for as little as 15 minutes at a time, dozens of times a day. Sometimes they are sold outright to other traffickers and sex rings, victims and experts say. These sex slaves earn no money, there is nothing voluntary about what they do and if they try to escape they are often beaten and sometimes killed.

Mexican officials see sex trafficking as a U.S. problem. If there wasn't such a large demand, then people -- trafficking victims and migrants alike -- wouldn't be going up there.
https://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/25/maga ... -door.html
The average age of induction into sex trafficking is 13, although Cassandra Ma — whose organization Reclaim 13’s name stems from that age — said she’d encountered victims as young as 9 years old.
https://www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/ ... story.html
Human trafficking is a business with supply and demand: The supply is the victims, and the demand is the customers.

But who are the customers?

When it comes to youth, it’s a myth that the creepy pervert living under the bridge is buying our youth for sex. “John� is employed and living next door to you.
https://theconversation.com/these-are-t ... -us-121866
This project began with a question: Who buys a 15-year-old child for sex?

The answer: Many otherwise ordinary men. They could be your co-worker, doctor, pastor or spouse.

“They’re in all walks of life,� a 17-year-old survivor from the Midwest, trafficked when she was 15, said about the more than 150 men who purchased her in a month. “Some could be upstanding people in the community. It was mostly people in their 40s, living in the suburbs, who were coming to get the stuff they were missing.�
https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/ ... 073459001/
In a room full of sex buyers, enrolled in a court-ordered program in Seattle, I asked: “Do you ever think about the life stories of the girls and women you purchased?�

The men appeared uncertain about how to answer. Then a former once-a-week buyer, arrested for attempting to purchase sex from a police officer posing as a 15-year-old girl, said, “I don’t want to know how the sausage is made.�

A piece of meat. A commodity to be consumed.

Not a child. Not a life.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/ ... 073459001/

Much of the discussion on sex trafficking is on addressing the supply. But the root of the problem is demand, which there is very little discussion about. Why do people not want to talk about this? Because it is the normal, ordinary people who are buying children for sex. They come from all walks of life and from every segment of society.

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Post #68

Post by Mithrae »

otseng wrote:
This project began with a question: Who buys a 15-year-old child for sex?

The answer: Many otherwise ordinary men. They could be your co-worker, doctor, pastor or spouse.

“They’re in all walks of life,�
https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/ ... 073459001/


They come from all walks of life and from every segment of society.
Which of course suggests that turning to the bible and Jesus does little or nothing to solve the issues you're raising. Indeed those who are most devoted to the bible and its god may perhaps be worst group for child sex offenses, statistically speaking; they've certainly received a lot of publicity not only for their frequency of offenses but also for their habit of covering them up and protecting one another in an effort to preserve the false impression that their faith has effective results! Obviously yet another problem with the appeal to supposedly-divine morality... and so far we're not seeing any benefits.

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Post #69

Post by Danmark »

otseng wrote:
Danmark wrote: Your reference to Nuremberg important. But the lessons from it are complex and unresolved. But I agree, both at Nuremberg and in other forums, there is frequently an appeal to some higher value or principle [not 'power'] Jurists speak of 'fundamental fairness' or acts that "shock the conscience," 'due process. It may be like pornography in that we can't define it, but we know it when we see it.

But I suggest that whatever it is, it's the same thing De Waal's chimps demonstrated.
I don't see the difference between your example of De Waal's chimps and an internal compass. They both would originate internally and from an innate sense of morality.

In the Nuremberg trials, the prosecution did not argue that the Nazis should've followed an internal compass. They had to appeal to some higher external authority (which I equate with power) than the German government. In this case, it was international criminal law.
I see no need to invoke the word 'power.' It connotes a sense that this 'good' comes from a being. Is that why you use it?

If there is a genetic component to this sense of 'good' or 'fairness,' then we can understand that societies that had this gene were more likely to survive because of cooperation and relative lake of internal strife.

If there is no genetic component, then the values of cooperation, fairness, reciprocity have simply been universally adopted by cultures that survived and it is still taught because it is good for the group.

In any event, I see no need to claim it must come from an external source, whether one anthropomorphizes that source as a 'power' or not.

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Post #70

Post by Danmark »

otseng wrote:
Much of the discussion on sex trafficking is on addressing the supply. But the root of the problem is demand, which there is very little discussion about. Why do people not want to talk about this? Because it is the normal, ordinary people who are buying children for sex. They come from all walks of life and from every segment of society.
There will always be outliers who break the rules because their own needs are more important, or they think they can 'get away with it.'

But there is another aspect, tribalism. There are men who recognize that we are all in the same tribe, the tribe of humanity; that we are citizens of the world and should apply our moral codes to all since all are in the tribe.

But this is fairly rare as we see from our current public discourse which seems more centered around nationalism, and whether one is liberal or conservative.

It's the same in the animal kingdom. The norms apply within each tribe or societal unit. They do not apply, generally cross species, or cross tribal boundaries. So the question comes back to a central one that Jesus asked,
"Who is your neighbor?"

If everyone is my neighbor I will not participate in sex trafficking even if I want to or want to profit from it. As I say, there will always be outliers, sociopaths, who belong to a tribe of one.

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