@...Lockett:
@...CathyLong:
You know I have never seen the logic in that point of view…

My experience has been that it is not ones belief in an all seeing deity (or the lack thereof) that makes people a person good or bad.

it seems that it is inherently the nature of each individual, and how they interpret the world around them that determines whether they decide to be good or bad. Their paradignm of the world, whether religious or not, seems to seep into everything, including how they interpret their religious texts (if they are theist) or how they define right and wrong (if they are secular).

Both theists and atheists can be equally cruel or equally kind. Based on what I’ve seen, I think a persons individual belief system is generally just used as a means of rationalizing their actions, regardless of what they are…

If a Godless America would mean a more benevolent America, I might agree with you, but unfortunately, greed, selfishness, cruelty, etc. do not seem to be the sole domain of religion, so I tend to doubt that would be the case…

@...nyokki: I think the “recognizing evil” is the part where people seem to get tripped up. I find that while people, in general, do not want to be considered evil, they do evil things, and tell themselves they are doing good.

And I’m not a pessimist or anything, but from what I’ve seen, I think it’s more accurate to say people don’t want to be thought of as evil. But the vast majority of them aren’t nice either, and the fact that a person may not want to be perceived as evil does not make it so.

The more irritating thing to me is that people do things to others that they would like to see someone do to them and still don’t think they are in the wrong. Socio/Psycho pathological personalities excluded, I don’t get that…

@...nyokki: That is an interesting observation. I’ve noticed that peoples true colors tend to show if they know they can get away with whatever they want with impunity. And if there is one thing the internet has taught me, it is that people will be A$$holes when given anonymity.

This is what leads me to believe that people are basically evil, not good. Evil is the natural state of humanity, kept in check only by the possibility of consequences.

OK, So let me ask you this. Why are you evil? Why do you do evil things, knowing that they are evil?

@...Dreth: No, I disagree. It would be more accurate to say that no individual action is *inherently* wrong or right. However for every action, there is a scenario where it is wrong, and a scenario where it is right.

There is a big difference between the concept of there being a complete absence of right/wrong, and that right and wrong are often highly subjective relative concepts that nonetheless still exist.

My perspective is that just because a concept is a fabricated construct does not mean it cannot have an absolute frame of reference. Most people, if they actually think about it, will be able to tell you what is right and wrong, regardless of their background, culture, creed, belief system, etc.

The fact that it is a construct does not make it any less real nor concrete, and regardless of the paradigm within which it is defined, I have yet to find a definition that did not have elements in common with every single other definition I have run across.

Even people whose belief systems based on hypothetical models that eschew the traditional definitions of good and evil in favor of action and reaction are still painfully able to identify benevolent actions from malevolent ones.

So I don’t believe that these ideas are as entirely relative as people like to argue…

@...Dreth: I am not arguing that there is an instinct that defines right and wrong. Far from it. In fact I think the assumption that right and wrong could possibly be an instinctual knowledge is deeply flawed. I think the very opposite is true, left to our instincts alone, there would, in fact be no such thing as right or wrong.

The only reason that the concept of right and wrong exists is because as humans, we have an ability that no other creature on the planet possesses. The ability to reason.

Right and wrong cannot be coherently determined by emotion, instinct or feelings. It is purely an intellectual construct, and as such, I believe it can only be properly defined by intellectual examination. This ability is common to every human, and is actually what I base my belief of the existence of a universal paradigm within which right and wrong can be defined.

Not that right and wrong has nothing to do with feelings, but rather that intelligent thought *must* be applied to those feelings in order to develop any kind of rational definition for those constructs.

@...nyokki: Oh Miracle of Miracles!! There be paragraphs here! 😛 🙂

But yes, I agree, good points about the effects of abuse. I think that some people who are abused do end up reverting to instinctual responses as a coping mechanism to handle what they see around them, and end up having that response so hard coded into their psyche, that they never learn how to objectively apply reason to any situation.

Another interesting thing I found, I think I read a study about it, is that when people become angry, excessively emotional, or even obsessed with something, their IQ apparently drops several points, as their instinctual brain centers actually override their logical thought process.

I know this phenomenon is common, amygdalya hijacking is a very well recognized phenomenon, especially where great emotion, such as anger, fear or sadness is involved, I just hadn’t realized how much the same mechanism affects ones ability to reason even when people aren’t actually angry.

That might explain peoples narrow mindedness of thought with regards to philosophy, psychology, religion, etc. There are days when I humans could just turn that part of our brains off. But then life really wouldn’t be much fun now would it… 🙂

@...nyokki:
@...Dreth:
LOL yeah, a class might be fun, though I couldn’t help but wonder if Dreth was right about the possibility of it being boring as mud… 🙂

Though I also agree that Chaos does not exist unless order exists… And I’d also add that I think it is variety, and not necessarily chaos, that makes life interesting. Even though variety is often a byproduct of chaos, variety can also be had even in order.

For some reason people always seem to assume the opposite is *always* true…