Poll

Are people born - or made - evil?

Born evil
1 (5.3%)
Made evil
6 (31.6%)
Possibly both
12 (63.2%)
Don't know
0 (0%)

Total Members Voted: 16

Author Topic: Are people born - or made - evil?  (Read 5189 times)

Anastasia

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Re: Are people born - or made - evil?
« Reply #15 on: February 25, 2006, 10:33:14 AM »
How about this?  Most people are not all good or all evil, but those we call evil are able to compartmentalize their thinking.  For instance, they can be "good" friends and family members and evil businesspeople or vice versa.  I should think most people we consider evil are made this way.

Sela

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Re: Are people born - or made - evil?
« Reply #16 on: February 25, 2006, 01:21:16 PM »
I've been thinking about this one for a long time.

I agree that environment plays a huge role in how we develop as individuals.  I also think that our genetic make up, must also play a major role in that development (and that it must be possible for there to be genetic disorder.....making a person prone to poor behaviour......just as people can be prone to alcoholism or heart disease or cancer or mental illness).  It has so far not been possible to idenify exactly which genetic markers are responsible for such disorder, but I'm not giving up the idea that that could be something science will eventually be able to identify.

Whether or not genetics will always strongly over ride environment......is debatable.  I think the most likely result is that even if a person is, for example, prone to evil behaviour due to some genetic flaw, their final behaviour pattern might be much better, or less evil, if they are raised with love and compassion, in a positive environment, or with good influences readily available.  In the alternate scenario, it seems quite possible to me, that if someone is generally genetically inclined to behave well, but they are continuously subjected to a negative, uncompassionate, unloving environment, and if there are no good influences readily available to them.....well.....their behaviour might very well end up not being very good at all.

Then again, take that same person, and subject them to a "bad" environment, and because of their inclination to behave well due to their genetic makeup, they could turn out ok regardless.  Or, the one with a genetic tendancy toward evil behaviour, placed in the most positive environment, might still come out "bad".

This, imo, is because there are so many variables, so many intricate differences in individuals, and so much that will never be recorded (because a person's entire life, every event, everyone involved, all reactions, etc would have to be studied and then their genetics disected and examined.....practically impossible).

Born or made?  Will we ever really be able to tell?  Some things, I think, are just beyond our comprehension.

Sela

PSYC1S

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Re: Are people born - or made - evil?
« Reply #17 on: February 27, 2006, 02:25:55 PM »

HMMM FIRST OFF
CAN I JUST REPLY IN A SURVEY POLL THING...
TESTING 1 2 3
but first in skimming this topic
i dont think i saw any consideration of reincarnation and such...
as to evil
i think in some regards we are all sinners
which has some aspect of evil
but above and beyond that i think
the question is more in terms of
what i call being addicted to evil
that one cannot in a sense rest until one
has gotten over on another.....

but i think all who enter into an incarnation are given
a kind of shellac of innocence which if adults around that child
nurture can bring better out its chances for overcoming its own past life addiction to evil
if it had developed one
even lacking that
most addcition to evil can be repented of
but in some cases the soul is so addicted
to break it of its addiction death and reincarnation
is what might better work
with a stint in hell
as i think hell is not eternal
but a kind of reform school for the evilly addictec

moonlight52

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Re: Are people born - or made - evil?
« Reply #18 on: March 01, 2006, 05:59:14 AM »
hey the question of evil sez there is its other side which is love. if one goes beyond good and evil which alot of really nasty people do
they make a choice to commit or do wrong .there are others that understand beyond good and evil and see there in the long very long run there  is no evil. love always is stronger monsters come and go love is eternal .people are not born evil .take 2 kids same family nasty family kids are kicked around one kid decides im no good i want to die then kills himself the other goes out thinks hes the greatest thing ever wants to hurt everyone he sees. problem with thinkiing in  terms of good and evil  its some thing to blame. when will our planet pull up our collective socks and not hurt each other we have been doing this for ever time to stop one day when we really grow up .the world will not need goverments when we realize our own DIVINITY and be have ourselves. we are a long way from there .what kind of fire has to be lit to get the human race to stop hurting each other .i do not know where this came from but it was a good question          moonlight

Sela

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Re: Are people born - or made - evil?
« Reply #19 on: March 03, 2006, 11:06:21 AM »
From:  http://www.saddleback.cc.ca.us/AP/hs/humanServices/syllabi/HS-120.html
(scroll almost halfway down to "BEHAVIOR FROM MOLLUSKS TO MOPPETS, JEAN PIAGET: 1896-1980")


Re:  Jean Piaget's observations/conclusions:

"Unlike Freud, Piaget had no taste for grand theories or empire building. Nor did he have any zest for the cut and thrust of academic infighting. He was, in fact, a rather reserved, quiet personality, a familiar, fatherly figure trudging or bicycling along the streets of Geneva, wearing his blue beret and smoking a meerschaum pipe, eyes ablaze as he picked his way through his latest intellectual problem. He was not much interested in fame, polemics or small talk.

Though he could be remote and cold with adults, he had a remarkable empathy with children. For nearly 60 years he studied them as closely as he once studied mollusks, ferreting out their notions of time, space, numbers and ethics as he sprawled on the ground shooting marbles and playing other games with them. Out of these observations came his challenge to prevailing wisdom about child development. One of his conclusions: "Children not only reasoned differently from adults, but also they had quite different world views, literally different philosophies."

Piaget found that toddlers think like primitive people. The very young believe that the moon follows them when they go for a walk, that dreams come in through the window at night, and that all moving things, including ocean waves fluttering flags, are obviously alive. The young child's notion of justice is also primitive, taking into account only the damage done not the intentions of the offender. For example, a child who breaks three teacups while helping Mother clear the table considers himself more culpable than a child who smashes one teacup in a fit of rage. The clash between the child's objective morality and the parent's subjective one, according to Piaget, is at the heart of much parent-child conflict.

Despite his contributions to both fields, Piaget did not consider himself a psychologist or educator, but a "genetic epistemologies" - a biologist-philosopher asking the question: How does the human organism learn? His answer: partly by nature, partly by nurture. By that, Piaget meant that the child is somehow programmed to master logical thought in predictable developmental stages. But, he added, development depends on vigorous interaction with the environment. Thus, learning is not something poured into a child; it is something a child helps create through his or her own activity. One example: until age five or six, most children thing that six pennies stacked up are quantitatively less than when they are spread in a row. By age seven or eight, almost all children understand that the number of pennies does not change, no matter how they are arranged. The child may have the innate ability to comprehend this new mental picture, but he only learns it through action.

Indeed, in Piaget's view, all experience is organized by intelligence. Every child, he said, constructs and constantly revises his very own model of reality, and does so in a regular sequence. Piaget outlined four stages of mental growth. In the first two years of life, the child is primarily concerned with learning about physical objects; in the next four or five years, he is preoccupied with symbols, in language, dreams and fantasy. From age six or seven to about twelve, the child moves on into the abstract, mastering numbers and relationships and how to reason about them. Finally, from age twelve to 15, the youngster tackles purely logical thought and can think about his own thinking and that of others. For the first time, he can understand double entendre and resonance of aphorism.

Though his ideas stressed inborn processes during learning, Piaget called himself "the man in the middle" on the nature-nurture debate. In the U.S. especially, the prevailing intellectual fashion for years was emphatically pro-nature: environment shapes the person, not heredity, and there are no instincts or other inherent structures. As a result, Piaget was cold-shouldered in many sections of American academia as late as the 1960's. Since then, his work, as well as that of such scholars as Anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss and Linguist Noam Chomsky, helped persuade skeptics that some form of innate mental structures exists, and the nature side of the argument has gained new respectability.

One common criticism of Piaget is that his work does not lead to any clear vision of how to educate children. Two of his conclusions, however, are clear enough: 1) motivation and rewards are not necessary - the structuctures in the child's mind lead to a kind of spontaneous development, and 2) the teacher plays a limited role. For Piaget, the child is the real educator, not the teacher."

Another interesting possibility to consider.

Sela


« Last Edit: March 03, 2006, 12:18:10 PM by Sela »

reallyME

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Re: Are people born - or made - evil?
« Reply #20 on: March 04, 2006, 05:30:44 PM »
Moira : ...i do believe that people are born genetically impaired in terms of being capable of feelings, specifically empathy and having a conscience. We may all look human but there are monsters walking among us in human form. I know many people find that a disturbing and difficult to wrap- your- mind- around concept.

I agree with this and yet I also believe that in some cases, people born normal can be raised by N's and abusive/neglectful/indulgent parents who end up influencing them to an extent that they turn out evil.  I don't believe I can unequivocally say that being "born" evil is the only way people end up that way.  A human ends up that way either from genetics because of pre-destiny in my opinion, wrong up-bringing or by choice.  That's my view.

ReallyME

mudpuppy

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Re: Are people born - or made - evil?
« Reply #21 on: March 04, 2006, 09:37:55 PM »
Hi Portia,

I didn't vote because i'm not sure what you mean. How are you defining evil? Do you mean people who are predominately evi or people who are purely evil or people who are evil sometimes but not others or what?
I personally think we all have an inherent evil nature. We are all capable of dishonesty, greed and  lust. In some people it is far less pronouinced than others, but I believe the potential is there in everyone.
So I guess i believe the latent evil is there at birth in everyone and some combination of genetics and environment causes it to be more or less prevalent in every individual.
I guess the flip side is there is also good inherent in every individual at birth and the same factors cause it to be enhanced or diminished as well.

mud