Is man inherently good or evil?

Answer 1

+
I must admit there are times when questions like this particular one gives me pause, or even shock. Although man is good; there is evil within. The trick is to use proper stimuli from the time of birth until an age that could attempt ugliness to appear. It is the inner goodness that keeps evil at bay.

Answer 2

Putting aside the issue of free will for a minute, man is inherently good or evil depending on the source that you consult.

Tsun Tse explained the basis of Taoist theology by teaching that man is inherently bad, but he can do good things by perfectly duplicating the behavior of his ancestors. Hence, ancestor worship, filial piety, and the Taoist symbol forever turning from black (evil) to white (good).

St. Augustine also thought that man is born inherently evil because of original sin. However, he can acquire grace and find his way to heaven by following the teaching of the Church.

St. Thomas Acquinas believed that man is inherently good by the grace of God but is tempted toward evil by the devil.

Jean Jacques Rousseau believed in the "Nobel Savage," a peaceful, benign creature who was only aware of good. The miseries of the world, however, could easily corrupt him.

And, there are dozens (probably hundreds) of more examples. Take your choice.

Answer 3

Man (men and women) are inherently evil, thus eating the apple in the garden of eden, despite gods warnings. This is why it is harder to do the right thing and so easy to lie.

Answer 4

Both. A man could do something nice for a person and turn around in a moment of madness and shoot somebody as quick as you please!
For example: Andrea Yates! She was probably a great mother up to the time she killed her kids.

Answer 5

I would say man is good but is influenced to evil.

Answer 6

Neither. Man is MADE good or evil.

Answer 7

Unquestionably man is good!
His only evil intent is in his consistant attempt to destroy himself.

Answer 8

No.
It is all done by choice.
Even for those who live day by day on automatic pilot.

Answer 9

it depends on the man and how he/she was raised.

Answer 10

humans are inherently good and bad - like god - 'i create good and i create evil' [disaster/trouble] - isaiah 45,7

obviously whatever created the universe is bad as well as good, because bad and good exist

if you believe in one creator, you have to believe god created satan and all badness

what is good and bad?

there is an idea that people choose to be good or bad - this seems to be nonsense which no one will believe with a little thought: do we really imagine a person, with no personality bias one way or the other, says: now let's see, shall i be good or bad?

i dont think we do

there are reasons, causes why we choose the way we do - we choose something because we think it is good for us - and there are reasons why we are right or wrong about thinking our choice is good

in a sense, everyone is good, because everyone chooses what they think is good - all the evil is in being wrong

the whole thing of free will is a crock - to make us to blame, so the church can make us afraid of hell, and make people in their power and under their thumb

what makes sense to me is that everyone pursues happiness and the good - but people's thinking machine is 'a very inefficient organ', as somerset maugham says

hitler thought communism and jews were trying to destroy germany - so he tried to destroy communism and jews, to save germany - he was being a patriot - most of us think he was dead wrong - his thinking was not objective, cool, rational, fairminded, careful

so all his evil was in being wrong

which should make us stop and think that if we are wrong, we can do evil too, while we think we are doing good -

most people just race into an opinion without thinking that all of evil is being wrong

hitler thought it was a good happiness strategy to plunder europe - plunder europe, get rich, be happy - wrong - europe was not doormaty about it - it is surprising that anyone can think anyone is going to be a doormat about injury and theft

we can be wrong very easily because our brains are small and the world is big - plus we are loaded and handicapped with pride, ego, vanity, denial, putting our head in the sand, etc

the way to be most often right is to always be open to the possibility one is wrong - be always questioning one's hypotheses and assumptions, and not allowing pride to say: to hell with being right, it's my opinion and therefore i love it and am loyal to it

to be blindly loyal to one's opinions is to betray truth - and happiness depends totally on truth - so to be blindly loyal to one's opinions is to betray one's happiness, which is one's everything

ego/pride/vanity is the enemy - but most people are protective of 'their' ego, as if the ego was them

if we were more aware, we would be shocked and lock up as mad a person who said: my country, right or wrong - to not care whether one is right or not! - to not care whether one has got reality or unreality! - to not care whether one has hope of happiness or not!

for there is no hope of happiness with unreality

'the correct opinion, wherever it originates' is sanity

our brains are only 1% rational - the rest is instincts, bias, prejudice, irrationality

we have to strive against our enormous handicaps if we hope to be happy - we have to start working really hard to train our minds to be sane, to have good sense, to examine all our thoughts for instinctive and mad elements

our brains are adapted to caveman existence - and we have to deal with all the artifical culture we have made - for which we need to build a lot of mental muscle

so we are bad and good - all our badness is in jumping in with whatever our brain thinks without checking it carefully against reality - leaping to assume we know more than we know

eg, every time a person says israelis, arabs, americans, etc, we are assuming an awful lot we dont know - we havent done any surveys of opinion, we havent made a study of israelis, arabs, americans, lesbians, homosexuals, mexicans, etc

we havent read any surveys attempting to determine the national character, if any, of arabs, israelis, americans, etc

we should say: an unknown percentage of americans are like this or that, have chosen to do such and such, agree with such and such action

the more often we say israelis, arabs, as if israelis, arabs, muslims, etc were homogenous, all the same, as if they get in a big huddle and decide things, as if they all have something in common, the more wrong we are -

and as we see from hitler, this can lead to being evil, although pursuing happiness and the good

in fact, if we all sat down and tried to know anything properly before we jumped up and did things, we would all be studying and no one would be doing anything wrong - because we really know very little, if anything

wisdom is knowing what you know and not knowing what you dont know

ego and pride is jumping to pretend to know something, to enhance ourselves - taking up views like medals - look at me! look how strongly i believe this! arent i great!

no, you are not great, if you are wrong, or if you are merely accidentally right, without study, meditation, cogitation, reflection, mental digestion

if you are wrong, and think you are right, you could do as evil as hitler

the only person who has a right to say: israelis this or arabs that, is the person who has certain knowledge about every israeli, every arab - ie, nobody

some people assume that every muslim believes everything in the quran - as if every christian believes everything in the bible!

every large group contains every variety of humanity