Is anyone born evil?

Question

Besides for Stewie from family guy (who btw may just be going through a phase)
Do you think all the evil dictators of the world were born evil or was it learned?

Are some ppl just mentally conditioned to want to be domineering and cruel?
Think about mafiosos who psychologists say the majority have antisocial disorder (which means they don't really have a conscience and are against society)

Answer 1

no one is born evil, they become evil.

Answer 2

Of course a person may be born with a defect like that, no doubt about it, but even good people may turn bad.


http://www.abc.net.au/rn/science/mind

Saturday 28 July 2007Listen Now - 28072007 | Download Audio - 28072007
When Good People Turn Bad - Philip Zimbardo in conversation
In 1971, 23 American college students' lives were changed by the now notorious Stanford Prison Experiment. For the eminent psychologist responsible, Philip Zimbardo, the parallels to the atrocities at Abu Ghraib are palpable. In an exclusive Australian interview, he joins Natasha Mitchell, to reflect on the capacity in all of us to commit evil. It's a case of good apples put in bad barrels. Read Transcript

Answer 3

It doesn't matter if the baby was born evil. The consequences of being wrong (by letting the baby live) are too great to allow the hand of fate to play itself again. You must kill that baby. Unless, of course, you are of the belief that we would not have much of what we have if there had been no WWII. It was responsible for the advance of jet and rocket power, the invention of nuclear medicine, the modernization of the workforce to allow women in many areas previously off-limits to them. So it follows that we owe Adolph Hitler a debt on these points, yes? No easy answers.

Answer 4

The AntiChrist.

I suppose if you can be born things that have to do with the type of person you are, like being born gay, then you can be born evil, too.

Otherwise you aren't born as a type of person but rather become that person.


Let's see the gaylords argue that one.


Additional: Sorry, zanthus, but being born with a penchant for a particular talent doesn't make one subject to that talent. Being born with an artistic flair doesn't make that person an artist, it simply gives them the potential to be an artist.

The question was "Is anyone born evil?", not "Is anyone born with more potential to be evil than others are?".

Answer 5

I do not believe a person is born evil, but I don't think it's the household they grow up in either, there are lots of siblings that one is a very good person and the other is "evil", and seeings they grew up in the same house it cannot be that, but it is something that one becomes and not born that way

Answer 6

Evil is linked to sin, and is actually a theological problem.
Being misanthropic is another question. Some people certainly learn to be spiteful or retaliatory, but others are born with a problem. To illustrate: there are some mentally retarded people who are quite gentle and warm, whilst occasionally some are incessantly hostile (I'm assuming that these people are not, or are at least only negligibly, influenced by learning to be hostile).

Answer 7

Some people are born with a higher propensity, a higher probability of becoming evil, but no one is born evil, and even those with a certain disposition to it are not guaranteed to be evil. We can all be taught and steered correctly.

Answer 8

I don't think anyone is born evil, just as I don't think that anyone is born good. I do think, however, that certain people are born more or less receptive to one way or the other.

Answer 9

No one can be born evil. Evil isn't found in a person's DNA, but in their thoughts and actions. And a person's thoughts and actions don't begin to be influenced until after a person is born.

Answer 10

How a person turns out is alot of times directly associated by how they were raised by their families. Not all the time mind you, but statistically I am correct.....many criminals have had a horrible home life.

Answer 11

The doctrine that little children are born into this life as sinners is a false doctrine of some churches to promote the practice of infant baptism.

Read the words of Jesus Christ concerning infant baptism:

Book Of Mormon: Another witness of Christ
Moroni 8:
7. For immediately after I had learned these things of you I inquired of the Lord concerning the matter. And the word of the Lord came to me by the power of the Holy Ghost, saying:
8. Listen to the words of Christ your Redeemer, your Lord and your God. Behold, I came into the world not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance; the whole need no physician, but they that are sick; wherefore, little children are whole, for they are not capable of committing sin; wherefore the curse of Adam is taken from them in me, that it hath no power over them; ....
9. ... I know that it is a solemn mockery before God that ye should baptize little children.
10. Behold I say unto you this thing ye shall teach -- repentance and baptism unto those who are accountable and capable of committing sin; yea , teach parents that they must repent and be baptized, and humble themselves as little children, and they all shall be saved with their little children.
11. And their little children need no repentance, neither baptism. Behold, baptism is to the fulfilling unto repentance to the fulfilling the commandments unto the remission of sins.
12. But little children are alive in christ, even from the foundation of the world; if not so, God is a partial God, and also a changable God, and a respector of persons; for how many little children have died withour baptism!
13. Wherefore, if little children could not be saved without baptism, these must have gone to an endless hell.
14. Behold, I say unto you, that he that supposeth that little children need baptism is in the gall of bitterness and in the bonds of iniquity, for he hath neither faith, hope, nor charity; wherefore, should he be cut off while in the thought, he must go down to hell.
15. For awful is the wickedness to suppose that God saveth one child because of baptism and that the other must perish because he hath no baptism.
16. Wo be unto them that shall pervert the ways of the Lord after this manner, for they shall perish except they repent. Behold I speak with boldness, having authority from God; and I fear not what man can do; for perfect love casteth out all fear.

There is more on this subject but this should answer your question. Evil is learned. It is taught by evil people and bad examples. And the Lord promises in other scriptures that who ever teaches children to do evil will be held accountable to Him for all their sins.