Are people good or bad?

[otseng]

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?

[Zzyzx]

.

Jesus Christ was the only righteous man to live and the reason he was righteous was because he was not only man, he was God.

The Bible disagrees:

Noah (Gen 6:9)(Gen 7:1)
Lot (2 Pet 2:8)
Joseph of Arimathea (Lk 23:50)
Abel (Heb 11:4)(Mt 23:35)(1 Jn 3:12)
Joseph (Mt 1:19)
Cornelius (Acts 10:22)
John The Baptist (Mk 6:20)
Zacharias (Lk 1:5-6)
Elisabeth (Lk 1:5-6)
Simeon (Lk 2:25)

Jesus didn't come to make bad people good. He came to make dead people alive.

How has that worked out for the dead people?

[brunumb]

[Replying to post 8 by Overcomer]

When people accept Christ's gift of salvation in faith, he gives them HIS righteousness in exchange for their sins.

How does one donate or receive righteousness?

[otseng]

Lots to respond to, but let me first argue the case that mankind is not inherently good.

We all would like to think that we are good. But, just because we think we're good doesn't mean we really are good. It's like going into a calculus class and thinking we know everything. What reveals if you're good in calculus is not what you think you know, but how well you do on the tests. Likewise, it is the tests of life that reveals our hearts.

Exhibit #1: Rhythm 0

Rhythm 0 (1974) was a six-hour work of performance art by Yugoslav artist Marina Abramović in Studio Morra, Naples.[1] The work involved Abramović standing still while the audience was invited to do to her whatever they wished, using one of 72 objects she had placed on a table. These included a rose, feather, perfume, honey, bread, grapes, wine, scissors, a scalpel, nails, a metal bar, and a gun loaded with one bullet.

Her instructions were placed on the table:

Instructions.
There are 72 objects on the table that one can use on me as desired.
Performance.
I am the object.
During this period I take full responsibility.
Duration: 6 hours (8 pm – 2 am).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhythm_0

At the end of the 6 hour experiment, what do you think happened? A demonstration of the goodness of man? Hardly. In her words:

"What I learned was that ... if you leave it up to the audience, they can kill you ... I felt really violated: they cut up my clothes, stuck rose thorns in my stomach, one person aimed the gun at my head, and another took it away. It created an aggressive atmosphere. After exactly 6 hours, as planned, I stood up and started walking toward the audience. Everyone ran away, to escape an actual confrontation."

[brunumb]

[Replying to otseng]

I don't think humans are inherently good or bad. In our formative years we learn to adopt behaviours that are considered good or bad by the community in which we grow up. Our parents and peers hold the key to how we are likely to behave when we grow up, although it is becoming apparent that there may be genetic factors associated with things like psychopathic behaviour.

We don't need instruction manuals like any of the allegedly holy books. These are largely concerned with what we should do to please a deity and subsequently reap rewards in some promised after-life. Behaving in a way that is considered good because some deity commands it suggests that such people may be motivated by self-interest. This in turn may be connected to our instinct for survival as an organism since eternal bliss is often the inducement. Holy books do not in themselves help produce good people because many of their instructions are no different from basic human decency which people can learn without them.

[AgnosticBoy]

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?

According to the Bible, we are inherently depraved. We know what is good (or can learn, at least), but we still tend to do immoral things.

I believe if we were left out in the wild, left to our instincts, without any restraints from sociocultural conditioning (religion included), it would be more obvious how morally depraved we are.

[Adstar]

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?

Well the question should be put more like this::

Are human beings Perfect or Imperfect..

Jesus made it clear in the Bible.. That only God was good..

So it's either "perfect" or "evil"? If Jesus wasn't prone to hyperbole (for whatever reason), a more accurate way to put it would be "only God is perfect".

Jesus established the Biblical definition of Good and that is Perfection.. We where created Good meaning we where perfect for what we where created to be.. We then took on the knowledge of good and evil and we where not designed to be able to handle the knowledge of good and evil.. So we are evil.. Anything that is imperfect is evil..

God being perfect means His standards are absolute..

Human beings however have a relative standard.. and that standard varies depending on the ""standards of the human being in question"" Some people have very high standards because they are a reflection of their own personal standards.. And some people have more accommodating standards usually because they are not so strict on themselves.. One human will say a score of 60% is a pass and therefore that person is good.. While another has higher standards and a person will need to score 80% to attain the approval of that person..

Once again God is PERFECT therefore His standard of Good is 100% perfection.. It matters not if one person scores 10% and the next person scores 90% Both fail Gods standard and Both are rejected .. it does not matter if you are 10% evil or 90% evil Both are failure marks to a perfect God and both humans cannot exist in Gods perfect eternal existence... Because they are not Perfect.....

By Jesus hyperbolic standard, there are a lot of evil people running around out there, and not very many perfect gods.

Everyone is Evil by the standards of Jesus and you should expect that to be the case if His standards is Perfection... You're not dealing with another human being.. You're dealing with God..

If a child throws a tantrum on occasion, do you tell that child he or she is "evil"? Do you raise the child to believe they are evil? What good parent would do that?

A Child should be Told the Truth.. Once they understand themselves then they can use that information to check themselves.. So yeah a child should be made to understand that they are not perfect and that they should struggle to maintain the highest level they can do.. Telling brat kids they are perfect only encourages them to go hyperbolic feral brat mode.. Which in the end will get them bashed or killed when they meet someone who will not tolerate a smart mouthed brat..

And our Heavenly Father is far better than any human parent, so it stands to reason that He is far more wise, compassionate and understanding than any human parent.

Wow i agree.. And that's why He came to this world and died for evil brats like you and me.. So we can be ""saved"" from the judgement a perfect God would be compelled to deliver... Because a perfect God Cannot tolerate imperfection.. He cannot turn a corrupt blind eye to evil.. It MUST be judged..

[brunumb]

[Replying to post 16 by Adstar]

Anything that is imperfect is evil..

That is nothing but rhetoric. Imperfection has nothing to do with being profoundly immoral or wicked. If that is what Christianity teaches then I am grateful for having consigned it to the bin of ancient superstition.

[1213]

...
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?

Good questions. I think to answer this, it should be defined what is good and right and why. In Biblical point of view, for example lying is bad. How many people lie? By my experience probably most people lie.

If no one would have said, don’t lie, would people think that lying is wrong? Did you know lying is wrong before anyone told it to you? How did you know that?

[Menotu]

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?

Initially, I think people are born decent, but bad behaviors develop in many which causes me to see much of the human race as terrible.

Do we need a manual? No, we need common sense, compassion and for some, inspiration.

[Divine Insight]

Lots to respond to, but let me first argue the case that mankind is not inherently good.

You can argue that case until you are blue in the face. I see no reason to buy it.

Are there nasty people in the world? Absolutely, but it doesn't follow from this that everyone is inherently bad. In fact, this is precisely what we should expect in a purely secular world. Why would you expect anyone to be perfect in a secular world?

The problem with Christianity is that the religion demands that no human is worthy of God on their own. That's a seriously disgusting accusation right there.

Moreover, even if this was this case, who could possibly be blamed for that other than the creator himself?

Christian theology has no choice but try to blame all the imperfections of the world onto humans. But that ideology can't even be made to work in this day and age because we now know that the world was far from perfect long before humans ever showed up on the planet.

What about all the animals that preyed on each other for millions of years before humans showed up? What are we doing to do? Blame that behavior on the animals? That's ridiculous. There would be no one who could be blamed bit the creator of those animals.

When it comes to the God of Biblical mythology, not only am I as good as that God, but I'm actually far better. How could I possibly be better than a supposedly perfect God? That would be impossible. So the only rational conclusion we can take away is that the God described by Hebrew mythology was never anything more than a myth. That's the only conclusion that makes any sense.

The idea that I deserve to be cast into a state of everlasting punishment for not being perfect makes no sense at all.

The God of the Bible is far from perfect himself. Necessarily so. By the Bible's own criteria for righteousness the Biblical God himself deserves to be cast into his own hell.

It's simply a mythology that makes no sense, and cannot be made to make sense no matter how many ridiculous apologies are offered up for it.

If mankind is inherently evil, then no one can be blamed for that other than the creator of mankind. God himself would be the one to blame here. Not the imperfect humans that he had created.

You can't create an imperfect human and then blame them for being imperfect. That makes no sense at all. Yet this is exactly what Christian theology requires.

And the free will excuse fails miserably. All that excuse does is ignore the fact that this world was imperfect long before humans ever showed up. Moreover, free will cannot be the source of evil unless a Christian wants to claim two things:

1. God has no free will.
2. Christians will no longer have any free will when they are taken up into heaven.

You can hardly blame free will for being the source of evil and simultaneously proclaim that it's a good thing that must be preserved at all cost. That's a self-contradictory theology right there.

So there's no excuse for any human to be evil if humans were created by a perfect omnipotent benevolent God.

Therefore we must live in a secular reality. That's the only conclusion that makes any sense.