the basics of "good" and "evil" ultimately have evolutionary origins. "good" is what facilitates survival of the species. "evil" is opposite. that's the basics. since we humans have intelligence, different societies pile on their own customizations on top of those basic underpinnings. oh noez! i said evolution! i hereby damn this thread to D&D, never to be seen henceforth!
I guess my definition of "evil" seems to mean when one gives oneself and advantage at the disadvantage of another, or not willing to give the other person an advantage even though there is no disadvantage for yourself.
well, it's really Confucianism that focus on innate good nature. it was further stressed by Mencius. basically, Confucianism & Daoism developed from the same Chinese cosmology. thus they share many similar thoughts. but Daoism does not focus on human nature. Daoism focuses on Non-Action. by that they mean, the less you do and let nature take its course, the better. if the world is left untouched, it would be in harmony, like Yin Yang. any action that humans put in, would alter the balance. if you try to fix it, it would make it worse. it's not just the universe of the world, you can apply that to a human or a country. if the government tries too much, it would make the society unbalanced and not in harmony. if it's up to the Daoists, then just get rid of the government. as for Confucianism. humans are born good. it is the environment or society that makes them evil. every little kid in China knows the 1st few verse in the classic written for kids. "human nature is fundamentally good, though nature is similar but upbringing is different..." so it stresses for following a code of human society that keeps people in check.
I had an interesting discussion on this with a Calvinist once. He had me fairly convinced, but in the end I didn't want to believe it.
1. I dont believe that humans are innately evil. But we have the potential to do things that might be considered evil by some, perhaps not by others. 2. Capitalism rocks. 3. Be careful thinking that way, RKREBORN...you could be one schitzophrenic break away from taking an AK-47 to a mall and "cleansing the evil"
Going by that definition, it does indeed seem that "evil"="selfish" (approximately, at the very least). So my answer would be yes, as I said already. Selfishness is human nature. It's survival instinct. And common religious philosophies are completely at odds with that instinct, and label it "evil." Whether you're religious or not, it's mostly how much you buy into those types of philosophies/ethics systems that determines how much "evil" you see. That's all gross oversimplification, but hopefully I got my point across.
Dude, I don't know if you are unaware of this, but MLK was a wife beater. Don't believe everything u see.
I don't think you can absolutely say humans are 100% selfish by nature. I think you can make an argument that genes, not species, are "selfish." In a seeming paradox, selfish genes lead to altruistic individual behaviors. Though the name of the game of life is for genes to propagate copies of themselves, the critical point is that those copies don't necessarily have to orginate from the individual in question. This may be the basis for altruism and kinship. This is why you can defend your baby nephew or niece with your life. Why? Their genes are not directly inherited from yours, so why? Because the copies are similar enough. This can be extended out to altruistic behavior in the family, extended family, social group, community, and beyond, although I'd say the farther out from the center, the less altruistic behavior you can probably expect. In this way, the genes most likely to survive (and thus the ones that in fact have survived) are those that program their carriers to preserve ALL copies (or similar copies) of themselves, whether those copies originate directly from the individual or not. How do individuals "know" who holds similar genetic copies to themselves? Phenotype, for one. All animals can one way or another recognize kin based on one or more of the five senses. Sincerely, Richard Dawkins Of course, I'm not saying humans are 100% altruistic since that's absurd. I'd say we are a workable mix. Workable since, after all, we are here to talk about it (for now, at least, until the meteor, gamma ray burst, global warming, rise of the machines, or nuclear holocaust wipes us out).
Last time I looked deeply into this subject, depression followed for months *sighs...* Most people are CAPABLE of evil. Its inside us. We're very much capable of doing WAY worse than what we do and experience everyday. So if "evil" means bad things that inflict harm on others physical or non-physical without compassion or care, I would actually say no. If everyone were evil in that way, the world would have only 1/4 of its population with people killing each other off at will. If evil means getting the upperhand on all others all the time, using any means necessary with no sense of morality & ethics, absolutely people are "evil". Some people live life in the crabs in a bucket sense full time, and the world is one big bucket to them.
