Do u believe people are basically good?

[Itchy 0]

I think, as has been said already, that more people are good than bad. Then again, we all have our own viewpoint of what is good and what is bad, based on how we were raised and on our other beliefs.

Religion was mentioned...once upon a time, it was seen as a way to control the people...life is crap, but if you shut up and get on with it, everything will be good in the afterlife. Some churches evolved into very rich organisations, who have had a lot of political power, and enough believers that they can dictate what the society believes is good and what is bad. I'm not going to comment on any specific religions, since I'm slightly biased (yes Avon, I wasn't just making up the fact I'm a minister ).

[Oligo 1]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Bernadotte @ Jan. 14 2003,10:29)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">But it was meant to be complete crap, spoken by the film's main antagonist.  I wouldn't worry that the ideology of Agent Smith has amassed any significant following.

What do you mean by rising above the limitations of nature?  I would say that the vast majority of the planet's population is no longer controlled by natural limitations such as disease and famine.

I disagree.  According to your statement, the countries with the most food should have the highest population growth.  That's just not true.  Germany's population has been shrinking for decades and will probably continue to shrink regardless of what they eat.<span id='postcolor'>

I don't know about following Agent Smith's ideology, but this virus-crap has suddenly surfaced in many ocassions. I'm glad that YOU don't believe it.

The human population on the planet is definitely controlled by such natural limitations as disease and famine. But currently this population is still in the growth phase and only local shortages of food occur. However, as we continue to multiply, a cataclysmic failure in our ability to support this population will occur at some point, regardless of what we eat, beef or plants. Then there will be famine and plaque, globally.

As for Germany, they have adopted the western style of voluntary curfewing of population size. This is a step in the right direction, but of course only a small fraction of humanity has adopted it.

The most alarming thing in human behaviour, however, is our tendency to use whatever means available to push our population support capability and living standards upwards. This causes depletion or resources and permanent harm to the environment. Thus our capacity to support a population will seriously weaken in the future. Combine this to a soaring population and it is easy to see that there will be trouble. Eating solely plants will not solve it, though.

[//relic// 0]

Firstly I don't think there is such a concept of what is ultimately right or wrong. Ideas like you shouldn't steal, you shouldn't murder etc are a human construct designed to allow us to live as a cohesive community, they don't really have any meaning beyond that.

This is, of couse, from an aethiests perspective. Religious people will no doubt disagree because they believe that they're ultimately accountable for their actions, and that the universe is presided over by the relevant god, who is the ultimate judge.

People however are intrinsically neither. I think the basic human does whatever is necessary to ensure survival and reproduction. We're no more than sophisticated animals after all. Along the way we've developed moral and ethical codes to allow us to live in a societies which have been further cemented in law so they're the norm and people come to believe that certain things ARE right or wrong...but it's an artificial mindset...

[theavonlady 2]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (RalphWiggum @ Jan. 13 2003,21:15)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE"></span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (theavonlady @ Jan. 13 2003,17:29)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">One exception: moderators are intrinsically bad. <span id='postcolor'>

/shakes head

why the f!@# did i help her with 1944 Steal the car? <span id='postcolor'>

If moderators were good, they would lock this thread, because this thread has nothing to do with what the moderators themselves have deemed to be a valid off topic subject. Hence the thread is bad. Hence the moderators are, too.

[Guest]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (theavonlady @ Jan. 14 2003,12:17)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">If moderators were good, they would lock this thread, because this thread has nothing to do with what the moderators themselves have deemed to be a valid off topic subject. Hence the thread is bad. Hence the moderators are, too.  <span id='postcolor'>

This thread is most relevant since the moral dilemma of good vs. bad and the existance of such a thing is highly relevant to wars and warmaking

[Bernadotte 0]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (//relic// @ Jan. 14 2003,12:12)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">I think the basic human does whatever is necessary to ensure survival and reproduction.<span id='postcolor'>

Maybe 100,000 years ago, but today, if it were that simple then our prisons would be full of rapists.  

I strongly believe that a need to be judged has evolved within all modern humans.  Otherwise, life would be like an OFP mission without any outros.  In fact, the need is so strong that 80% of the world's population still believe that they are constantly being watched and judged by an unseen omnipresent entity.  The remaining 20% have replaced that unseen judge with realworld entities like parents, friends, bosses and, yes, even game software.

[Oligo 1]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Bernadotte @ Jan. 14 2003,13:25)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">I strongly believe that a need to be judged has evolved within all modern humans.  <span id='postcolor'>

A need to be judged, right. There must be something wrong in me, since being judged by others is the most repugnant thing I can think of.

I think humans have evolved a tendency to believe in divine things in order to explain away the basic rules needed to preserve the maximum competitive prowess of the pack (or society). However, now that we (at least some of us) have actually culturally evolved adequately to understand ourselves from a somewhat detached perspective, religious instincts are no longer needed.

[Bernadotte 0]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Oligo @ Jan. 14 2003,13:37)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE"></span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Bernadotte @ Jan. 14 2003,13:25)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">I strongly believe that a need to be judged has evolved within all modern humans.  <span id='postcolor'>

A need to be judged, right. There must be something wrong in me, since being judged by others is the most repugnant thing I can think of.<span id='postcolor'>

I really don't care what you think.  In fact, I seriously doubt if a single member of this forum cares at all about anything you have to say.

Ok... now ask yourself how you feel about what I've just written, which isn't at all true, by the way.  Most people would be troubled by those words, especially if they would come from someone they knew, liked or respected.  It's quite "normal" to care about what others think of you.  Our words and deeds are constantly being judged by others and, to varying degrees, it matters to each of us.

In your opinion, why did humans evolve a need to explain away the basic rules needed to preserve the maximum competitive prowess of the pack (or society)?  Why could these rules not remain unexplained?  And why do 80% of the worlds people still cling to that need?

[Shabadu 0]

I think that by nature we are a selfish race. Usually everything we do is to the betterment or survival or ourselves.

I think it is probably because that is a typical response to hard conditions in nature and a part of evolution for some species. This isn't always true and the only reason we are able to appreciate such things is because we have developed a different kind of conciousness that enables us to look at things on a broader scale.

As opposed to where our next meal is coming from.

[KingBeast 0]

im quite surprised that neutrality hasnt featured much in this discussion Yes there are good people that do the right thing, and there are bad people that do what society deems to be the bad thing, but when you think about it, the vast majority of people are neutral. Either in that they dont do bad things and dont do good things, or in that they do the occasional bad thing and the occasional good thing. I expect most of you can identify with this.

As for our default state? I would say we are born bad. That is, bad as deemed by our great society. As has already been said in so many words, we have to be taught right from wrong when growing up. Children may pull the legs off of daddy long legs' (crane flies i think, for the Americans and others) and watch them suffer. While this seems cruel (well i think so) what exactly is the childs understanding of cruelty or kindness? Its all good fun to them.

So we go back to good and bad being solely defined by society. If the majority of people say one thing is bad because they dont like it, then it is set as the standard.

[bn880 5]

I would probably need a long time to think about this, but right now I can only say: People are simply born to survive, and surviving means doing many "wrong" things. In a way you could say we are forced to be bad in order to live, we live to live, to do bad things.

[STS_SolidSnake 0]

Yes neutrality, (im neutral and i live in a neutral country ),

I think neutral people are the most friendly, my point is , if you mean bad people by "really" bad people, that would go to jail etc.. well you would noticed that they live longer then good people, Why is that so? Does this mean we should all be bad people so we can live longer? no, Neutral is the solution,

I hope you get my point

-Snake

[//relic// 0]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Bernadotte @ Jan. 14 2003,14:21)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE"></span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Oligo @ Jan. 14 2003,13:37)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE"></span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Bernadotte @ Jan. 14 2003,13:25)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">I strongly believe that a need to be judged has evolved within all modern humans.  <span id='postcolor'>

A need to be judged, right. There must be something wrong in me, since being judged by others is the most repugnant thing I can think of.<span id='postcolor'>

I really don't care what you think.  In fact, I seriously doubt if a single member of this forum cares at all about anything you have to say.

Ok... now ask yourself how you feel about what I've just written, which isn't at all true, by the way.  Most people would be troubled by those words, especially if they would come from someone they knew, liked or respected.  It's quite "normal" to care about what others think of you.  Our words and deeds are constantly being judged by others and, to varying degrees, it matters to each of us.

In your opinion, why did humans evolve a need to explain away the basic rules needed to preserve the maximum competitive prowess of the pack (or society)?  Why could these rules not remain unexplained?  And why do 80% of the worlds people still cling to that need?<span id='postcolor'>

they're religious nutters and they're shitscared that god's gunna open a can of whupass on them if they are bad little humans??

[Tovarish 0]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (//relic// @ Jan. 14 2003,23:11)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">they're religious nutters and they're shitscared that god's gunna open a can of whupass on them if they are bad little humans??<span id='postcolor'>

Man, you have some sort of hostility towards the religious that I just don't understand. Did a priest make you confess on his lap when you were younger or something?

[bn880 5]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Bernadotte @ Jan. 14 2003,07:25)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE"></span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (//relic// @ Jan. 14 2003,12:12)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">I think the basic human does whatever is necessary to ensure survival and reproduction.<span id='postcolor'>

Maybe 100,000 years ago, but today, if it were that simple then our prisons would be full of rapists.

I strongly believe that a need to be judged has evolved within all modern humans. Otherwise, life would be like an OFP mission without any outros. In fact, the need is so strong that 80% of the world's population still believe that they are constantly being watched and judged by an unseen omnipresent entity. The remaining 20% have replaced that unseen judge with realworld entities like parents, friends, bosses and, yes, even game software.<span id='postcolor'>

I agree, and actually, otherwise we would not survive very long. Being judged is the only feedback we have from society (other people) to tell us if we are benefiting people around us (society), not just our selves. We would not have this feeling if we were solitary animals like tigers or bears.

It is key to our survival, to keep something greater than ourselves in mind.

What kind of a place would it be if everyone took the "I fart in your general direction" path to others. Like you said, OFP with no cutscenes, and sticks and stones as well.

We are above that currently, at this: "I fart in the general direction of <country name>", so there is one more step to take, and have a consideration for all nations. Isn't the UN trying that...

[Bart.Jan 0]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Oligo @ Jan. 14 2003,08:58)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE"></span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Bart.Jan @ Jan. 13 2003,19:54)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">On the other side "civilized" society can be considered as evil because it accepts virus behaviour - people lives at cost of dying nature (rainforests, global warming, sometimes almost poison water and air) and it's acceptable for society.<span id='postcolor'>

I hate it what effect the Matrix (the movie) has had on popular culture thinking, since some "truths" proclaimed in that movie are completely false. The most unfortunate such "truth" is the infamous "All animals except humans develop a balance with their environment. But humans multiply until they destroy everything. There is only one other group of organisms that behaves like that: viruses." -quote. This statement is complete crap.<span id='postcolor'>

I didn't mean to blindly repeat some film quote. I could write :

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">

On the other side "civilized" society can be considered as evil - because people lives at cost of dying nature (rainforests, global warming, sometimes almost poison water and air) and it's acceptable for society.

<span id='postcolor'>

Or

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">

On the other side "civilized" society can be considered as evil - because society rules accepts destroying of our living environment.

<span id='postcolor'>

I think it's the similar idea as you wrote after me:

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">

The most alarming thing in human behaviour, however, is our tendency to use whatever means available to push our population support capability and living standards upwards. This causes depletion or resources and permanent harm to the environment.

<span id='postcolor'>

I think there is a stability in whole nature (I think it's called "nature life cycle" - I learned about it on grammar school yars ago) and inteligent human behaviour is ruining that stability. There are some local nature disasters - forest fires, volcano eruptions etc. But that are only LOCAL disasters - same species lives in other areas and when disaster area became suitable for living it moves back. The same thing can be when some species eats all its avaible food in its area. That species localy dissaper, but after time same species moves back from other areas and there is stability again. It's peramnent disaster, and species die out, only when some of these disasters happen on small isolated island that is only living area for that species.

But humans are destroying its environment permanently and the Earth can be considered as small isolated island because there is no way for humans how to move to another area with suitable living conditions. Disasters made by humans are big and on many areas. If there are many local disasters it shoud mean permanent damage. Many species died out because human behaviour. I don't know about case in which one animal species permanently killed all individuals of another species or damaged living environment of another species so badly that the all indivudals of that species dyed out.

Similar stability is in every living body. Try to harm your body stability with big dose of medicines (medicines are good, right ? - do not try this ! ). When efect of this medicines destroys, for example, your kidneys you'll die. And only because you destroyed small part of your body stability your own body products kill you.

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">

I also doubt that polluting the environment is somehow "evil" in the absolute sense of the word. After all, even "innocent" animals do it all the time. However, polluting is of course quite detrimental for our survival.

<span id='postcolor'>

In my definition of good-evil these animals are good. Nothing can be "innocent" or "neutral" in my definition, maybe some artifical things but I doubt.

Can you give me some example of animal that pollutes enviroment ? As far as I know all animal feces and even their dead bodies are living enviroment or food for another species - bacterias, insects, and carrion-eaters. All these species are food for another species. No part of animal pollute enviroment.

When I wrote

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">

I think, generally, good is everithing that leads to survival of species.

<span id='postcolor'>

I expect some knowledge about nature itself. Survival of species means live and let live. It's not reason for killing every single tiger in the area when some tiger killed and ate 20 people. It's reason to kill that one human-killer tiger. That tiger doesn't kill for fun but mostly for food or for area defending. When there are no tiggers and no other big predators, all big herbivorous animal become multiply and they can eat all herbs in the area. That means their disaster but also disaster for other small herbivorous animals and for small predators that hunt them. This disaster is not permanent when there are other nearby areas other animals can came from but it's permanent when there are no such areas or there is some artifical barrier in the way like concrete higway.

When there are no plants and there is desert nearby that area can became desert permanetly.

Another big disaster is simply bring animal to enviroment where are no its natural enemies. It became in Australia with rabbits and, I thing, with carps and on many small isolated islands that were plundered by rats.

And I do not agree with vegetarians too. Human is omnivorous animal not herbivorous animal.

[brgnorway 0]

Hmmmm....where to start?

I think many of us are too focused on functionalistic behavior explanations like "humans are animals that seeks their own survival" or that IT (whatever that is) is in our genes.

Concepts like "good and evil" are just that - concepts. And concepts are as someone here stated abstract ideas and ultimately relativistic and unevenly distributed among different populations in society(ies). There are no universal standards to be found anywhere on good and evil because these concepts are culturaly constructed.

I'd also like to say that the idea of "a modern" society has developed ethics and morale that are superior to so called simpler societies are false. Many hunter and gatherers have a far more developed social institutions compared to "us" modern society. That is one of the reasons the social sciences have abolished the idea of evolusionism because it is often used synonymous with progress. Change is a better word because it isn't linked with the concept of quality.

Good and evil cannot be anything other than relativistic. However, I like the Kantian idea of categorical imperative: do to others what you wish others to do to yourself.

good and God is not the same.

[Oligo 1]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Bernadotte @ Jan. 14 2003,14:21)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">I really don't care what you think.  In fact, I seriously doubt if a single member of this forum cares at all about anything you have to say.

Ok... now ask yourself how you feel about what I've just written, which isn't at all true, by the way.  Most people would be troubled by those words, especially if they would come from someone they knew, liked or respected.  It's quite "normal" to care about what others think of you.  Our words and deeds are constantly being judged by others and, to varying degrees, it matters to each of us.

In your opinion, why did humans evolve a need to explain away the basic rules needed to preserve the maximum competitive prowess of the pack (or society)?  Why could these rules not remain unexplained?  And why do 80% of the worlds people still cling to that need?<span id='postcolor'>

Honestly, when I read the first sentence you wrote, I thought: "Now that's quite a rude thing to say. Luckily I don't give a fuck what he thinks." So maybe I did care a bit, but quickly dismissed that caring? I must have experienced some intense trauma to develop that kind of defence mechanism.

Anyways, you're most likely correct when you say that "normal" people care a lot about what other people think of them. Maybe it's because it is important to keep others thinking happy thoughts of you, if you want to keep your status and place in the hierarchy of the pack?

First of all, the religious instinct has even been mapped to the human brain: Certain areas light up when a person experiences a religious feeling, be it from meditation in Buddhism or a pious prayer in christianity. Therefore it is not important how or who you worship as long as you worship. We are clearly talking about a basic instinct, hardwired to a human brain.

Everybody knows that humans are a very curious people, you need only to observe children asking their endless questions: why, where, how? People would eventually ask: Why cannot we kill each other just like that? I don't think "In order to maximize the survival fitness of our pack in respect to others" is a comprehencible answer to a prehistoric human. Thus it is easier to reason it: "Because gods told us to." And since humans also have a hardwired instinct to obey authority, it works out just fine.

However, I don't know whether this is the ultimate reason for why we have a religious intinct or just an additional benefit. As you understand, these kind of things are very hard to explain and still harder to prove experimentally.

Of course 80% of people cling to religiousness, because instincts are very hard to shake off.

[Oligo 1]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (KingBeast @ Jan. 14 2003,21:06)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">As for our default state? I would say we are born bad. That is, bad as deemed by our great society. As has already been said in so many words, we have to be taught right from wrong when growing up. Children may pull the legs off of daddy long legs' (crane flies i think, for the Americans and others)  and watch them suffer. While this seems cruel (well i think so) what exactly is the childs understanding of cruelty or kindness? Its all good fun to them.<span id='postcolor'>

Or maybe children are inherently curious and just want to see what happens when you pull the legs off of an insect? Maybe they don't associate it with cruelty yet, but I don't think they're "bad" because of it. Remember, we adults kill e.g. flies just like that, only because they piss us off and that's not considered cruel or "bad".

[Oligo 1]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Bart.Jan @ Jan. 15 2003,00:54)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">I think there is a stability in whole nature (I think it's called "nature life cycle" - I learned about it on grammar school yars ago) and inteligent human behaviour is ruining that stability. There are some local nature disasters - forest fires, volcano eruptions etc. But that are only LOCAL disasters - same species lives in other areas and when disaster area became suitable for living it moves back. The same thing can be when some species eats all its avaible food in its area. That species localy dissaper, but after time same species moves back from other areas and there is stability again. It's peramnent disaster, and species die out, only when some of these disasters happen on small isolated island that is only living area for that species.

But humans are destroying its environment permanently and the Earth can be considered as small isolated island because there is no way for humans how to move to another area with suitable living conditions. Disasters made by humans are big and on many areas. If there are many local disasters it shoud mean permanent damage. Many species died out because human behaviour. I don't know about case in which one animal species permanently killed all individuals of another species or damaged living environment of another species so badly that the all indivudals of that species dyed out.

Similar stability is in every living body. Try to harm your body stability with big dose of medicines (medicines are good, right ? - do not try this ! ). When efect of this medicines destroys, for example, your kidneys you'll die. And only because you destroyed small part of your body stability your own body products kill you.

In my definition of good-evil these animals are good. Nothing can be "innocent" or "neutral" in my definition, maybe some artifical things but I doubt.

Can you give me some example of animal that pollutes enviroment ? As far as I know all animal feces and even their dead bodies are living enviroment or food for another species - bacterias, insects, and carrion-eaters. All these species are food for another species. No part of animal pollute enviroment.<span id='postcolor'>

The natural "stability" is really just an equilibrium in great flux. Every now and then, there are global catastrophes (Ellies or ELEs or Extinction Level Events), which kill of most species on earth. Examples of ellies are ice-ages, big asteroid/comet impacts and some say even the polarity flips of Earth's magnetic field.

Then there are the ocassional animals which evolve sufficiently to cause global catastrophic effects. Humans of course belong to this category, but there have been others in the past. Let me give an example: Long ago all life was just single-celled and energy was harvested with oxidation reactions of soluble inorganic ions and anaerobic fermentation reactions. To these organisms, oxygen was poison. Actually, oxygen in great enough amounts is dangerous to all life, because of massive firestorms it causes. Eventually some species evolved, which could photosynthesize. This was a great method of survival: Harvest energy directly from the light of the sun. The drawback was that photosynthesis produced oxygen. Photosynthesizing organisms multiplied and finally managed to poison Earth's atmosphere with oxygen. There were mass extinctions and gigantic fires raged across the globe. Luckily some organisms evolved the ability to utilize oxygen for energy production, restoring balance to the world. Thus plants as they emerged, nearly destroyed the world.

Extinction of singular species is still more common throughout the history, even without human intervention. It is how nature culls unfit experiments.

Currently there are other global polluters in the world in addition to humans. Cows and other such herbivores are one example, since their digestion process produces methane, which is a greenhouse gas. In fact, most of the methane in the atmosphere is the result of cows farting.

[Guest]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Oligo @ Jan. 15 2003,08:48)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">In fact, most of the methane in the atmosphere is the result of cows farting.<span id='postcolor'>

I think I now have a new fact that I can enter in my "top 100 tings I really didn't need to know" list

[theavonlady 2]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (denoir @ Jan. 15 2003,10:00)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE"></span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Oligo @ Jan. 15 2003,08:48)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">In fact, most of the methane in the atmosphere is the result of cows farting.<span id='postcolor'><span id='postcolor'>

Then it should've been called the atmoosphere.

[Nagual 0]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Oligo @ Jan. 14 2003,21:37)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">A need to be judged, right. There must be something wrong in me, since being judged by others is the most repugnant thing I can think of.<span id='postcolor'>

No, there's nothing wrong with you, it can be extremely healthy to think that way.

The need to seek assurance from the others, to be judged by them, is a primary source of unhappiness in the world. I prefer something called "the impeccable action". Being impeccable in your actions means using your current and available energy level in the best way possible. The only person who can possbily tell you if you are acting impeccably is you, only the indivdual can honestly know if their actions are right or wrong (whatever right or wrong means) . In some eastern cultures this is called "the right action".

And to be impeccable in everything you do (as totally hard as it is in practice, take a very long time to accomplish), does not imply perfection. As an old saying goes "Perfection is a waste of time and energy, impeccability implies using your energy level in the best way possible".

Seeking the judgment of others is not a biological imperative, but it is an aspect of social conditioning that keeps people bound / hard wired to the thougths, predjudices and belief systems of those around them.

As far as the orginal question of this topic, well, that is absolutley controlled by how you have been taught to percieve the world, as in, your worldview is what makes something good or bad. More precisley, your worldview will filter the raw electrical data our brain recieves and interpret that data into something you can re-cognize, whether you assemble something good or bad from that data is really up to you.

[Bernadotte 0]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Oligo @ Jan. 15 2003,08:21)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">First of all, the religious instinct has even been mapped to the human brain<span id='postcolor'>

This introduces the second element in our social evolution that has been hardwired into most humans.

The first was the need to be judged/observed - the need to be more than a tree growing tall just to fall silently and unnoticed in a vast forrest.  The second is the need within each individual that others also have the first need.  In other words, first came god and second came religion and the spiritual comfort of conformity.

Now I've done it.  I've gone and mentioned the "R" word.  Denoir should lock this thread while he still can.

[Sam Samson 0]

clarification:

I'll have to say that I believe a person is born innocent, which qualifies as good in the context of my worldview.

but every person arrives at the age of accountability sooner or later, usually around age 9 to 12, and invariably does something evil, knowing full well, that the act is bad.

in that moment something dies in that person. it is sort of like a personal fall.

subsequently an inner development downward - a moral deterioration - sets in, unbeknownst to the person - he might actually think he's merely coming of age and losing his naiveté. truth is: the person is becoming bad.

the world suddenly looks colder than it used to.

the person knows what is good, but doesn't have the desire or the energy to do it; he or she actually finds him- or herself frequently doing wrong things, totally unable to stop himself - but doesn't want to own up to his or her helplessness in the matter, of course. so that person starts to make excuses and finds scapegoats for his shortcomings, rather than taking responsibility, which would be a step towards personal liberty.

all those conflicting thoughts coming from the conscience of such a person - affirmations of good, rejections of those affirmations, consciousness of guilt, desire for innocence, denials of guilt, excuses , etc - weave a tangled web, in which somebody can get so caught up, that in his striving for moral equilibrium - innocence, actually - a person in the end works himself into such absurd notions as "good is bad" and vice versa, or that good is altogether relative.

(indeed helped by the "social conditioning" many of us constantly refer to.)

how do you get back out of that - doubtlessly subliminal - self-weaved choke-hold your thoughts have on your perception of the real truth?

I see that many suffer from inner ailments, sublime and slick as soap; there are repressed angers, nebulous feelings of bondage, but folks have no clue as to how to get rid of them.

MY answer is easy: accept God as a reality, and acknowledge that you're not perfect - I mean, just say it! accept that you need a guideline for your life. then accept that God's Word - by that I mean the bible - is true, and use it as your guide.

the effect, in my experience, is... liberating.

by the way: the first words the devil said in the bible are: "has God really said...?" (Genesis 3, 1.)

he questioned God's Word.

what are you doing?