Is the Human Species Naturally Good or Naturally Evil?

[ajax]

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2019/12/gar ... ally-evil/

“God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we not ourselves become gods simply to appear worthy of it?”

~ Friedrich Nietzsche – The Joyful Wisdom

Nietzsche declared that God is dead, but he was not joyous about that declaration. Would there ever be enough water to wash the blood off the hands of man? What is left to mankind with no god to worship? Man has killed god, and with this death, man must become his own god. Is this the world we live in today, a land of make believe gods?

A term I hear over and over again, especially from Americans, is that people are basically good, but are they really? The history of the human race is one of lying, cheating, greed, brutality, rape, murder, and war. At times, some have expressed humility, compassion, love, and caring, but the modern age sees less and less of these qualities, and more indifference and aggression. It seems that people have accepted a religion of things, which encompasses only pleasure at the expense of the sanctity of inner peace. It does seem that Nietzsche was very prescient in that the average individual of today considers self-importance as his driving force in life. But man being his own god has apparently been a difficult task to master.

If in the hearts and minds of men lies only self-gratification, what then does the future hold? If man’s belief systems have collapsed, he must seek shelter elsewhere, but at this point, he seems lost. I am not attempting here to explain God, religion, or the deep-seated beliefs of others, as I have little knowledge of these things. I am simply pointing out that the moral basis of our culture and society has disintegrated, and this drive toward ideological answers has led to nothing than more detached agony. This agony is now obvious, and even contagious, and this dangerous disease seems yet to have a cure.

While it seems impossible to discern whether the human animal is moral or immoral by nature, it is staggeringly apparent that he is more often easily swayed toward the dark side. Is this due to simple weakness, or is man just gullible beyond reason? I have long struggled to understand this anomaly, but to no avail. Many strive to be moral and right, but tend to fall into the trap of supporting the other side. This creates a paradox that is difficult to fathom, and one that leads to cynicism by any learned observer.

Man can be a cruel and complicated creature, so to answer the question of motive concerning human aggression would take an eternity. The animals of this planet are much more predictable, and in most cases more forgiving. Hopeful logic would cause one to look toward the animals for clarity.

“Animals don’t behave like men,’ he said. ‘If they have to fight, they fight; and if they have to kill they kill. But they don’t sit down and set their wits to work to devise ways of spoiling other creatures’ lives and hurting them. They have dignity and animality.”
― Richard Adams, Watership Down

Maybe this boils down to the power of reason, but no reason worth possessing should take the road toward the perpetuation of aggression, instead of the road toward harmony and compassion. Those of us that have no desire to harm, and believe in non-aggression, struggle constantly with what seems to be the real nature of man. The current trend of forever war, of post-modernism, of multiculturalism, division, narcissism, envy, and jealousy is the death knell of any civilized society. It is what should be destroyed, not sought by the hordes of confused people that live on this planet.

The idiocy of climate change, unending war, the transgender circus, the false racism scam, the fight toward equal outcomes, and politics at every level will not solve our problems, but will only lead to our demise. At this time in man’s existence, it appears that evil certainly has the upper hand. This dynamic must be corrected if we are to continue living together. The search for truth and peace is the way out, but it is up to each of us as individuals to improve self in order for sanity to take hold collectively.

In order to accomplish this, it is imperative to understand that those who say they want to save us are the same ones who want to rule us. Those who want to rule us are the same ones who want us fighting amongst ourselves. In order to turn this tide, it is time to rid ourselves of all those who claim moral superiority in order to save us. That would eliminate the political class, the leftist liberal do-gooders, the environmental stooges, the neo-con warmongers, the race-baiters, and most of the “healthcare” profiteers. That would be a good start.

[Durzan]

neither. mankind is simultaneously capable of both.

[mahalanobis]

“God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we not ourselves become gods simply to appear worthy of it?”

We're currently trying to re-invent "God" and religion in the form of anti climate change. They'll never admit that it's a religion, but they have their own set of sins, they have a redemption path. They sell catharsis. The biggest red flag about this religion is that it has no hesitation using the state to forcibly coerse others to conform.

“Animals don’t behave like men,’ he said. ‘If they have to fight, they fight; and if they have to kill they kill. But they don’t sit down and set their wits to work to devise ways of spoiling other creatures’ lives and hurting them. They have dignity and animality.”

Very very extremely few people sit around thinking of ways to torture add kill others. This quote is stupid actually. But we do sit down and spend a lot of time contemplating how to protect ourselves and our wealth. Then a few rotten apples can come along and manipulate the resulting defensive networks to unjustly slaughter and get gain for themselves.

A more interesting and accurate perspective is: why do we feel the need to create such elaborate defenses (weapons, castles, watch towers, figuratively and literally)? Because we know of the potential for evil in others. Which means we have the same potential inside us.

To answer the original question: the human species is naturally fallen. In the fallen state we are liable to drift toward more and more evil unless we put forth effort to be good. We (the West) are standing on an inheritance of many generations before us that put forth insane amounts of effort to be good, sometimes learning the hard way. It's my opinion that currently, we're gradually selling this inheritance for a "mess of pottage".

The potential for evil in a person is not revealed by expressing how one would like the world to be (puppydogs and rainbows versus destruction). Rather, the true nature of a person is revealed when the food is gone. This is a terrifying prospect indeed.

[nightlight]

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2019/12/gar ... ally-evil/

“God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we not ourselves become gods simply to appear worthy of it?”

~ Friedrich Nietzsche – The Joyful Wisdom

Nietzsche declared that God is dead, but he was not joyous about that declaration. Would there ever be enough water to wash the blood off the hands of man? What is left to mankind with no god to worship? Man has killed god, and with this death, man must become his own god. Is this the world we live in today, a land of make believe gods?

A term I hear over and over again, especially from Americans, is that people are basically good, but are they really? The history of the human race is one of lying, cheating, greed, brutality, rape, murder, and war. At times, some have expressed humility, compassion, love, and caring, but the modern age sees less and less of these qualities, and more indifference and aggression. It seems that people have accepted a religion of things, which encompasses only pleasure at the expense of the sanctity of inner peace. It does seem that Nietzsche was very prescient in that the average individual of today considers self-importance as his driving force in life. But man being his own god has apparently been a difficult task to master.

If in the hearts and minds of men lies only self-gratification, what then does the future hold? If man’s belief systems have collapsed, he must seek shelter elsewhere, but at this point, he seems lost. I am not attempting here to explain God, religion, or the deep-seated beliefs of others, as I have little knowledge of these things. I am simply pointing out that the moral basis of our culture and society has disintegrated, and this drive toward ideological answers has led to nothing than more detached agony. This agony is now obvious, and even contagious, and this dangerous disease seems yet to have a cure.

While it seems impossible to discern whether the human animal is moral or immoral by nature, it is staggeringly apparent that he is more often easily swayed toward the dark side. Is this due to simple weakness, or is man just gullible beyond reason? I have long struggled to understand this anomaly, but to no avail. Many strive to be moral and right, but tend to fall into the trap of supporting the other side. This creates a paradox that is difficult to fathom, and one that leads to cynicism by any learned observer.

Man can be a cruel and complicated creature, so to answer the question of motive concerning human aggression would take an eternity. The animals of this planet are much more predictable, and in most cases more forgiving. Hopeful logic would cause one to look toward the animals for clarity.

“Animals don’t behave like men,’ he said. ‘If they have to fight, they fight; and if they have to kill they kill. But they don’t sit down and set their wits to work to devise ways of spoiling other creatures’ lives and hurting them. They have dignity and animality.”
― Richard Adams, Watership Down

Maybe this boils down to the power of reason, but no reason worth possessing should take the road toward the perpetuation of aggression, instead of the road toward harmony and compassion. Those of us that have no desire to harm, and believe in non-aggression, struggle constantly with what seems to be the real nature of man. The current trend of forever war, of post-modernism, of multiculturalism, division, narcissism, envy, and jealousy is the death knell of any civilized society. It is what should be destroyed, not sought by the hordes of confused people that live on this planet.

The idiocy of climate change, unending war, the transgender circus, the false racism scam, the fight toward equal outcomes, and politics at every level will not solve our problems, but will only lead to our demise. At this time in man’s existence, it appears that evil certainly has the upper hand. This dynamic must be corrected if we are to continue living together. The search for truth and peace is the way out, but it is up to each of us as individuals to improve self in order for sanity to take hold collectively.

In order to accomplish this, it is imperative to understand that those who say they want to save us are the same ones who want to rule us. Those who want to rule us are the same ones who want us fighting amongst ourselves. In order to turn this tide, it is time to rid ourselves of all those who claim moral superiority in order to save us. That would eliminate the political class, the leftist liberal do-gooders, the environmental stooges, the neo-con warmongers, the race-baiters, and most of the “healthcare” profiteers. That would be a good start.

The natural man is enemy to God....the inner man is God.
Couple that with the power of Satan and you get the current condition of man.

So ...yes and no. We are a paradox, as dude pointed out.

Without Satan...there would be no murder.

It's impossible the understand our condition without understanding the forces that surround us.


What the guy said about animals is not true....Lions can be very malicious,same with chimps etc. Follow these animals(via YouTube) and you'll see there brutality goes beyond the necessary. Christ Atonment covers animals for a reason.

“Animals don’t behave like men,’ he said. ‘If they have to fight, they fight; and if they have to kill they kill. But they don’t sit down and set their wits to work to devise ways of spoiling other creatures’ lives and hurting them. They have dignity and animality.” [/color][/b]
― Richard Adams, Watership Down
-------

God isn't dead....man is dead to God

[Rose Garden]

What if there is no real good or bad?

[David13]

It all depends on the choice that each individual makes.
dc

[MMbelieve]

I think we’re all born good and decent but our human condition and state we live in requires us to be challenged and tempted in ways we have to learn how to overcome or not yield to. We have to learn what it actually means to be “good”.
This tells me we’re potentially both but desire to be good.

[PickleRick]

We certainly have both potentials. The natural man is selfish, if nothing else, and that lends itself towards evil. Ayn Rand makes a good argument that certain types of selfishness are good, and I'm not sure I disagree with her - but selfishness as The Rule would lead to hell.

But selflessness definitely has to be learned. We are born selfish.

[marc]

If God is good and the natural man is an enemy to God unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit and puts off the natural man and becomes a saint through the atonement of God, becoming as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord sees fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father, then man is naturally evil.

[mahalanobis]

If God is good and the natural man is an enemy to God unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit and puts off the natural man and becomes a saint through the atonement of God, becoming as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord sees fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father, then man is naturally evil.

And Christ said "if you, being evil, know how to give good gifts..."

He basically called us all evil. He says it in the Book of Mormon too, which makes it harder to dismiss as a translation mishap or a cultural colloquialism.

[MMbelieve]

What if there is no real good or bad?

There is.

[larsenb]

I see the current movement of Neoconservatism as a political movement that sees humanity as inherently evil or prone to leaning toward bad ends. They see themselves as being in the forefront of instituting global control that directs humanity toward good ends. . . . as seen from their point-of view.

The apostle of this movement was Prof. Rankin of Oxford, who gained a lot of adherents in the later 19th Century, including Cecil Rhodes, father of the Round Table Groups, of which our CFR is one. His goal was to promulgate/project the best of what he saw of the British Empire onto the rest of the world.

With this outlook they could be regarded as being Hobbesian, in that humanity requires top-down control and direction from an elite group . . . rather like the idea of Plato.

Unfortunately, they dove-tail very nicely with other stripes of 'globalists'.

[Trucker]

The natural man is an enemy to God

[larsenb]

The natural man is an enemy to God

But men are given "the light of Christ" and also have largely good instincts (perhaps as a result of the Light of Christ, or what might be called natural law) to act very well towards each other, marry, raise families in a good way, and form myriad good, loving and supportive relationships.

[Aprhys]

Having spent my entire adult life employed by .mil I have been in a few war zones and have seen good done upon people who want nothing more than to see you dead. I have talked with men who 30 minutes earlier were shooting at me and found that we werent that much different. Each fighting for a cause we believed in against someone we held no animosity towards. I have sat on my fat American butt and eaten food given to me by someone who barely has enough to eat themselves. Yes, there is evil in this world. We hear about it because its sensational and out of the ordinary. We rarely hear of the hundreds of lives saved by complete strangers unless someone catches video of it. We never see videos of someone giving a stranger their last dollar or stopping on the side of a snowy road to fix a tire. Mankind is good and kind. Its only when we let the world turn us cynical and bitter that our hearts change.

[Rose Garden]

What if there is no real good or bad?

There is.

What is there's not and good and bad are just made up ideas by people?

[ajax]

The natural man is an enemy to God

But men are given "the light of Christ" and also have largely good instincts (perhaps as a result of the Light of Christ, or what might be called natural law) to act very well towards each other, marry, raise families in a good way, and form myriad good, loving and supportive relationships.

And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.

[ajax]

I see the current movement of Neoconservatism as a political movement that sees humanity as inherently evil or prone to leaning toward bad ends. They see themselves as being in the forefront of instituting global control that directs humanity toward good ends. . . . as seen from their point-of view.

The apostle of this movement was Prof. Rankin of Oxford, who gained a lot of adherents in the later 19th Century, including Cecil Rhodes, father of the Round Table Groups, of which our CFR is one. His goal was to promulgate/project the best of what he saw of the British Empire onto the rest of the world.

With this outlook they could be regarded as being Hobbesian, in that humanity requires top-down control and direction from an elite group . . . rather like the idea of Plato.

Unfortunately, they dove-tail very nicely with other stripes of 'globalists'.

Yes, and puritanism, which seeks to make man in their image, by force if necessary. For some people, with not clear foundation, seeing people as inherently evil makes it easy to eradicate them.

[Thinker]

Having spent my entire adult life employed by .mil I have been in a few war zones and have seen good done upon people who want nothing more than to see you dead. I have talked with men who 30 minutes earlier were shooting at me and found that we werent that much different. Each fighting for a cause we believed in against someone we held no animosity towards. I have sat on my fat American butt and eaten food given to me by someone who barely has enough to eat themselves. Yes, there is evil in this world. We hear about it because its sensational and out of the ordinary. We rarely hear of the hundreds of lives saved by complete strangers unless someone catches video of it. We never see videos of someone giving a stranger their last dollar or stopping on the side of a snowy road to fix a tire. Mankind is good and kind. Its only when we let the world turn us cynical and bitter that our hearts change.

Encouraging! Thanks for sharing this!
We are programmed to spot poison/bad, which tends to get more attention than good, even when good far outweighs the bad.

[Thinker]

What if there is no real good or bad?

There is.

What is there's not and good and bad are just made up ideas by people?

This is a good point. People define good and bad depending on their own cultural, religious, economic and value base. When asked to give examples of good and bad, a lds Utahn may say “going to the temple is good, speaking badly of church leaders is bad.” Whereas a Palestinian may say “the temple wall is bad because it causes so much fighting, and freedom of speech is good because we’ve been hurt when it is denied.”

What is good or bad is subjectively determined. Generally, there must be some laws that are agreed on as protecting society from bad like “don’t kill, don’t steal” etc. Yet even those are often seen differently during times of war or self-defense.

As mentioned, we are conditional, vulnerable creatures. We’re not all tested in the same ways, nor to the same degrees. Yet since we are all human becomings, “in each of us is a bit of all of us” so we’re warned not to be too quick to judge. A child who believes he’s bad may act bad or exhaust himself trying to prove he’s good. A child who believes he can do no wrong may confidently do some good but also refuse to be corrected and grow up crooked. I believe the reality is we each are a messy mix of good and bad - and both are good to acknowledge.

[hedgehog]

Born evil or learned evil has been the dividing line in Christianity and the west for many Millennia. Even our modern left=right politics are still an expression of are people only bad *because reasons which can be changed.* Or reasons aside, do all have free agency and some people choose evil early and often. The doctrinal insights we have is the real reason most traditional Mormons lean to the right on a gut level.

[larsenb]

I see the current movement of Neoconservatism as a political movement that sees humanity as inherently evil or prone to leaning toward bad ends. They see themselves as being in the forefront of instituting global control that directs humanity toward good ends. . . . as seen from their point-of view.

The apostle of this movement was Prof. Rankin of Oxford, who gained a lot of adherents in the later 19th Century, including Cecil Rhodes, father of the Round Table Groups, of which our CFR is one. His goal was to promulgate/project the best of what he saw of the British Empire onto the rest of the world.

With this outlook they could be regarded as being Hobbesian, in that humanity requires top-down control and direction from an elite group . . . rather like the idea of Plato.

Unfortunately, they dove-tail very nicely with other stripes of 'globalists'.

Yes, and puritanism, which seeks to make man in their image, by force if necessary. For some people, with not clear foundation, seeing people as inherently evil makes it easy to eradicate them.

Or at least to force them to change in some way, with emphasis on force.