Are people generally good or evil?

Question

If good evidence please.
If evil evidence please.

Do any religions logically explain either?


Personally, I believe people are generally evil. History shows an increasing tendancy toward violence not less and humans have never invented a weapon that was not used.

Answer 1

We start wars, there's famine, injustice's that are done to humans by humans all over the world, all through our history. I'd say we are evil.

Answer 2

GOOD! Why do you think most movies have the good guys prevailing, its because inside even the meanest men or women get an inherent kick out of freeing Willy.

- theres a spectrum of behaviour of extremely good to extremely bad and everything in between. But that is just behaviour.

- I think a lot of people who do wrong have given into temptation and fallen down, and they don't like it and regret it

- if you smile the world smiles with you- try it

- the conceiving of this question is a state of mind thing. If you're cynical you are going to look at all the inhumanity etc in the world and say its an evil world. If you're positive you're going to look at all the good intentions and accept that there will always be contrasting bad and consider people generally good.

Answer 3

I would like to believe that people are generally good. But with so much violence in the world, it is becoming increasingly difficult to believe. But could it also be that more precedence is given to violent/evil acts than to good deeds? I think our world preaches much more about not doing bad and stresses less on doing good. And as a result the good people & acts in the world are given less recognition. But in the end, all human beings are a mix of both the good and the bad!

Answer 4

Anyone who thinks we are born good should spend time with a child . We start out as whinning self centered individuals. Unles we are taught to get along we will get worse Ever see two year olds play together. We are born with a fallen nature. Being nice is a choice. Stupid is a choice as well. The only weapon unused is love but we didnt invent it./Thanks to Adam we are of a fallen nature.
I always wonder why people blame all the crappy things in life on God. He gave us free will. He is so just that he can not and will not make up our decisions for us. Although when all the you know what hit the fan He gets the blame but when good things happen we take all the blame.

Answer 5

What gets me is how people can say that we are inherently evil, tainted to the core, but turn right around and say they have the ability to look to God for salvation. Sinful man cannot do that, ability to choose God would be good.

This logically explains Calvinism, everybody bad, and this is well supported by scripture. It's not a matter of violence in the world today, it's just who we are.

Answer 6

People are naturally evil we have just been conformed to "do the right thing" I mean really look at the word evil L-I-V-E. Need I say more?
No religions logically explain each other it's just people looking for answers to their own lives.

Answer 7

I would argue that:-

Man is inherently evil (if their is such a thing, it has too many religious connotations, I prefer bad). Bad things feel good, good things do feel good, but the popular expression, 'stolen fruit tastes the sweetest' is not without foundation. Bad things feel better.
We are drawn to the dark side.

Yes we all love free Willy, but the hero is going up against the establishment (doing bad things) to get Justice. We all love it when the good guy gets to act like the bad guy (the last 2 terminator films being a prime example). These dramas let us fantasize about acting bad but without facing the consequences of our actions.

Religions constantly point out how easy it is for us to be bad (the wide straight path) and the difficulties of being good (the narrow winding path). Putting aside the dogmas of individual religions, all most faiths basically do is ask their followers to refrain from crimes, don't lie & cheat and try to be good to others. This would seem quite easy for all of us to do. But ask any religious devotee how hard it is to do that, even amongst their own brethren
And for the rest of us, we all know from personal experience just how hard it is to keep to these simple requirements.

Society shows us time and time again that the bad people win. We try to delude ourselves that honesty and virtue pay, but in reality does it? Cheat at your exam most likely you will pass, most criminals do not get caught (we make a lot of noise about the ones we catch, but look at the clear up rates). Bad guys prosper; crooked politicians win more votes, and so on. It is only in the movies that bad guys get their comeuppance; very rarely in real life does the good guy win.

Jessie James (robber), Billy the Kid (we would call him a serial killer now). Dillinger, Baby face nelson, Al Capone, Bonny and Clyde (Gangsters). These are some of our popular heroes. All bad, why do we romanticize badness, why does the bad guy always get the girl, why is it only the good die young?

Because we as a species favour bad over good, even though we know this badness is destructive towards our fellows, it is still more exciting, more profitable and more rewarding than being good. We shy away from it because we do not want to be a victim of bad actions, or to have to face the consequences of our bad deeds.

Badness or evil is more than just violence, it is about how we treat each other, how we use others, prey upon them, rob, steal cheat, rape and murder, and without any thought for the plight of the victim or the harm we do.

Why are we like this? Maybe it’s because we are predatory animals, we hunt living animals for food, and in times of extreme hardship we will hunt each other for food. You do not emphasize with your lunch.
We praise a good predator for putting meat on the table (bringing home the bacon) we devour or forget the prey.
After all we know the names of the American heroes I mentioned, but how many of you can name even one of their victims?

Answer 8

History points towards people being generally evil... i.e. - The Nazi Party, any given war, etc.

As a Christian, I believe that people have a tendency to be evil because the Bible teaches that humans are depraved and that their natural spirit is inclined towards self-seeking and destructive ways.

Answer 9

All have good and bad, it just depends on what balance of that (or unbalance) a person has in their life.

I think people are generally good. The general population is still larger then the crime rate and prison population. And those that are just "evil" would not even bother to be good... So it's clear, most are generally good.

Answer 10

I believe people are generally self-centered, with a tendency to do selfish things.
I also believe on our own most of us cannot overcome our self-centeredness.
I believe appealing to God is the only way to overcome our self-centeredness.

The branches of Christianity I have had a chance to know have accepted the premise I have stated above, we are born with a predisposition to try to force things to come out our way with no regard for the feelings or the value of others.

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