It seems bad when you look for the bad stuff; that is what you normally find on the internet and news. Search for the good news, good stories, good people, and you'll find some light.
I suggest reading Free Will by Sam Harris. It's thought-provoking, to say the least. There is no good or bad gene. People are not born evil or pure. We are, however, born with genetic defects of the mind that cause some to act socio/psychopathic. The rest of us, we are just products of our environments. When you look at the world as a series of events which we have no control over, reactions set in motion by forces which proceeded us, it turns your sense of good and evil, crime and punishment, rehabilitation and retribution on its head. Speaking from personal experience, looking at the world through this perspective has brought me a great amount of peace and clarity. I hope it might do the same for some of you.
people are evil by nature, hence all this religious crap to keep people in line. that's right, you're all sheep.
I think it's the way you frame and approach the world. If you believe everyone is evil, then you will think every interaction with people is them trying to get you. But if you believe that most everyone is good, then life will be a lot more relaxed. A lot more older folks maintain that former view unfortunately.
i would say looking around the animal kingdom or at the first few thousand years of recorded history, modern humans are remarkably kind, compassionate, caring, altruistic, and civilized beings. that doesn't mean that the self-interested motivations that drive us don't sometimes lead to actions we would probably consider "evil" but i'd say we've come a fairly long way.
I believe people are born good. You never see a baby commit an evil act, they learn that. Healthy people are predisposed to do what makes them happy and doing good things makes us feel good. Even medically, laughter and kindness make you feel better in terms of blood pressure and stress, etc. When you do evil you're ultimately hurting yourself.
That's subjective. You'd have to define good and evil, first. My personal opinion is there is a surplus of crazy - not good or evil but crazy. That's not subjective. There are people who just don't operate sanely. Incompetence is the root of all sorrow, I think.
This^. IMO "good" or "evil" is far more complex then the words suggest. In nature, animals are constantly killing each other for survival even amongst species. IMO thousands, maybe even millions of years of evolution make it difficult to ignore primal instincts.
Some people are "good," some are "bad," and some are in-between. In my opinion, the mistake is to lump everyone together in any category.
