Are we good or bad?

Question

Here's my little informal poll:

Do you think we (human beings) are basically good people who do some bad things, or are we bad people who do good things? Explain your answer if you wish.

Serious responses only please.

Answer 1

We are bad people with a gracious God.

A man, by himself, isn’t good. Jesus said that only God is good. The only "goodness," or righteousness, that a man has comes from Christ (2 Corinthians 5:21; Philippians 3:9). The Bible tells us that, without Christ, man is corrupt and filthy; "there is none that does good, no, not one" (Psalm 14:3).

We can know whether we are good or bad by looking at whether or not we've kept the 10 Commandments. Ever told a lie? Ever steal anything? Ever look with lust? Jesus calls lust "adultery of the heart" (see Matthew 5). If you've done these things, then by your own admission, you're a lying, thieving, adulterer at heart. We can see our need for a savior by looking into the spiritual nature of God's Law. I hope to see you in heaven one day!

Answer 2

Both. Some are bad people who just happen to do a good thing every now and then. Look at Hitler, he killed millions of people... a terrible thing. Yet, the Germans saw him as a liberator of their country when he took office. I would say he was a bad person who happened to do some good for his people before deciding to kill off so many others. While, others are basically good people who do bad things from time to time. (Look at all the people here on this message board.)

Answer 3

I don't believe that anyone thinks that they do bad things, given their perception of the world. We can all justify just about everything that we do, if only to ourselves.

Good and bad are not absolutes, they are simply perceptions. They are tools of measurement that we use as we live in a world of relativity. They are moral judgments by which we use to live our lives by.

Everyone thinks that they are "good" in their perception at the time, because they can justify their actions. "Well, I had a horrible childhood, so it's okay if I hurt someone else because my parents should have made sure my life was better." "It's okay if I rob these people, they have insurance, they are rich, and it's not fair that I am poor." Or something along those lines.

Answer 4

We are not "good" people. No one is good. We have a faulty view of what good really is.

We are people that sin. We know the good we should do and we don't follow or obey our own rules, let alone God's rules.

Not only that...we change the rules depending on who is doing the rule breaking. Usually we are easy on ourselves and hard on other people. We lie, cheat, and steal and somehow view it as OKAY when we do it and then judge our neighbor harshly.

Can people do good things? Sure. We all usually feed and cloth our children...give them gifts and things like that.

We can do good things but often we have impure motives. For example...we don't steal because we fear getting caught. What that really shows is that we really aren't good inside...but we fear the consequences.

or... We give something but inside want men to applaud our giving. We may try to seem humble .... but inside, we are really only giving because we want the applause of men.

There are very few things that humans can do that really come from pure motives.

We are not good people....we need Jesus.

Answer 5

Well, let's look at what our own conscience tells us. Even by reasoning that something is good or bad tells us that we have something that tells us somthing. If something can be better or worse, what are we using to determine that? There has to be a rule by which we are judging that. An absolute good, if you will. Once we realize that, you can't help but measure your life up to it and see that we come up short of that standard, miserably short. Even when we do good things, often times our own selfish motivations are intertwined with them. Did I really do that to help my neighbor out or did i do that so that I could get them to like me, say thankyou to me, do something nice for me in the future, etc? We can see this acting out against an absolute good all the way from birth. One of the very first responses that a child learns is "NO!" So if we are born acting against this absoute rule of good then whoever instilled that whithin us must be pretty upset with us. And that brings fear to us.
But that is not the end of the story, we do know Him and He has shown himself in the work and person of Jesus Christ. He has shown us that He loved us so much that He would send His one and only Son to earth and pay the price for all of those sins that we have committed. He lived the life according to the perfect will of God in our place all the way to the cross. So you see, we are born into sin, constantly acting against God's perfect Law. Through Him and only Him, we have been made righteous. In Him, we have been made "good" or righteous in the sight of God. Now in Christ, we have good works. They aren't ours, but rather they are all His. Ephesians 2:8-10. We still carry with us sins. But God being a merciful God, has paid for all of those sins so that we may share eternity with Him. I know this was a long way to answer your question, but I needed to explain all of that first. God's peace to you and I hope that this helped.
if you want any clarification or have questions, please email me at [e-mail]

Answer 6

Hi, I firmly believe people are good people who do bad things. Nobody intentionally wants to be bad, the reason why people do bad things is for attention- feeling rebellious, or in a moment of anger- take revenge. However, to prove people are good people, most of the time when someone does a bad thing they regret it afterwords and try to not put themselves in the same situation so they won't come to do that bad thing again.

Answer 7

We are born innocent. Most of us learn right from wrong. We choose to do 'bad' things. The more bad things we do the worse off we become.

So think we are born good but depending on what you do throughout your life time determines if you are 'good' or 'bad'. However, what is 'good' and what is 'bad'?

There are obvious things that are good such as doing volunteer work, donating money, being ethical and so on.

And there are obvious bad things like murder, theft and so on.

Good question... I shall return to read more answers!

Answer 8

From a Christian Faith pov... all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. All have an inherited nature to sin. all have their own self interests at heart... if it is in the self interest of an individual to join in some societal set of rules for conduct...then they will.... and then by those rules that individual is good...so long as he follows the rules...

for those of the Christian Faith we have a different set of rules than most of the rest of mankind. And we must follow those befor the rules of man. This dose not make the Christian better that any other man... just insures that when we leave this mess of a world we will spent eternity in a better place. Paise God.

Answer 9

Man is inherently evil. We are born evil and we remain evil until something else takes the place of our evil nature.

Do we teach our children to lie, cheat and steal or do we teach them NOT to lie, cheat and steal? Obviously, we try to teach them to replace their lying, cheating, thieving natures with honesty and honor.

Do we teach children to hit their friends and siblings or NOT to hit others? Obviously again, we try to teach them that violence is wrong.

Why is teaching our children to be good necessary unless they are naturally evil?

We are basically evil from our birth, hopefully taught to separate right from wrong by our parents.

The major cause of unrest and decadence in this country is because a vast percentage of parents in our society have abdicated their roles as parents to the public education system which teaches that everything is relevant and that there are no absolutes, such as right and wrong.

Can "bad" people do "good" things? Of course, but that "good" act does not transform their nature.

Answer 10

Define 'good' and 'bad', ie: what could be 'good' for a nation, would not always be 'good' for an individual say, dying in a war started by a leader to counter what he/she considers to be 'bad'.

It also comes down to ones definition of 'Human'. We are biologically, only animals. (some seem to believe otherwise)
Good and Bad are just social constraints, in that respect.