Are people basically good or bad

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are people (strangers) basically good or bad

  • basically good

    Votes: 32 82.1%
  • basically bad

    Votes: 7 17.9%

  • Total voters
    39
  • Poll closed .
I was looking to get a general outlook about our fellow men after the rioting in London. I'm happy to see 80% have a good opinion. Didn't want to get into defining good and bad. Thanks to all who have contributed.
 
After the tsunami in Japan and the reports of no looting, a girl at the office, who is black, asked me why the Japanese weren't looting. She asked me if it was in our genes. I simply told her that there is right and wrong. People there are taught to be right.
 
So how do you explain the difference between the NYC blackout of 1977 to the NYC blackout of 2003? Don't tell me New Yorkers just got nicer in between that time.

I would differ and say the Japanese are taught discipline. Self reliance might have something to do with it also. But I digress....

I stick by my original statement. We have both good and evil in us - it just depends which one gets squished out the most.
 
It all boils down to whether you have morals or not! Sure, I could rob the local convenience store when my money starts running low, but I don't. I could mug someone and take their money, but I don't. You're either honest or your not!
 
It all boils down to whether you have morals or not! Sure, I could rob the local convenience store when my money starts running low, but I don't. I could mug someone and take their money, but I don't. You're either honest or your not!

But if you were starving (not just hungry) would you steal another starving mans food? Morals can go out the window quick in a bad situation. Or is survival of the fittest evil? Modern Americans rarely meet those kinds of dilemmas. In the past, even currently in 3rd world countries, those kinds of choices have to be made.

Does choosing to starve to death rather than steal make you good or stupid? Is stealing so your family can survive good? Can theft be justified at all? "Thou shall not steal." - not much leeway there. Same with the other nine imperatives. Going by those, at least in the USA, we're mostly evil and getting worse by the year.

We all like to think we are good, but really we're mostly selfish, lazy, or at best, ignorant.

Anyone remember the post about the wife welcoming a stranger (returned soldier) into their house to help him find his wife? Most replied it was crazy to do that. It was a good deed that took trust and a bit of courage. I didn't look, but I bet several people that replied in that thread people can't be trusted also replied in this thread they are mostly good. So we should be jerks and fear each other because a small percentage of bad people? Fear is a tool of the Devil and he seems to have a good hold on us.

Sorry, I'm rambling - the good/evil thing has really bugged me my entire life.
 
I wish I could find this one cartoon I had on the puter...

This kid is shoplifting with an anxious look on his face
His mom catches him and makes him put it back
Mom tells him "If you steal it will be on your conscience"
The kid's angel shows up on his shoulder tells him...
"go ahead kid you heard her...It's on me!"
and the kid runs off with the thing and a big smile.
 
Sam, I kind of think it starts very early in life and the surroundings you were brought up in. You also make a very interesting point about starving, and what would you do. I would do whatever it takes to feed my family ,.. to a point. There is a line should not be crossed. I think we live in a society where things are just expected or taken for granted. I feel very fortunate to have the things I have and have had to do without before. I think the looting thing becomes almost like a pack of dogs. People see others doing and just jumpo in too. That's a shame. I saw a lot down in New Orleans after Katrina.
 
"Normal" people are the 50/50 Sam-HRP types ---just people. Thats actually "Good"

Far Far away and Long Long ago I worked a few years as a group therapy leader in the Missouri State Juvi Justice system. I bumped into my first psycopath. They are rare. Monsters in a mans skin. Not us.

I developed a little radar for them and every few years one will pop up. A 'man' will flash monster. It feels like getting punched in the gut. I keep my head down and hope it didn't see that I saw. Remember where it was and which way it was heading and be still--very still.

There's evil in our world but its not us--it just sorta looks like us.

PA41
 
I keep my head down and hope it didn't see that I saw.
PA41

I have heard people talking in what sounded like stereo and just spitting out venom while others around did not seem to notice i made sure to focus my attention elsewhere. But then there are people who have to be angelic
because they glow! :D
 
I was listening to Art Bell one night.
He had on a guest who is a paranormal psychologist.
Now normally my reaction is "great, another fortune teller. sometimes I get annoyed by these spiritualists, UFO and bigfoot experts that didn't get an education and somehow became a doctor of whatever ******** they made up"
Well, I got to listening to the guy and right or wrong he made sense.
He actually did have a doctorate and studied ghosts, poltergeists, hauntings, possessions exorcisms etc...

What I remember the most was his dissertation on possessions and demons.
He said the world of evil has it's own hierarchy of power and authority much the same as the world of the saints.
He was asked if people are possessed by demons and related that the spirits doing the possessions really don't like being called demons.
Demons are lower on the totem pole.
He said (as I have read from the bible and the apocrypha) that there are the fallen angels who fell with Satan and there was another group of fallen angels who fell when they abandoned their first estate to take up daughters of men as wives.

To get you up to speed Imma give a quick lesson
from Enoch. Moses's grandfather we learn the angel Sêmîazâz compels the other 199 fallen angels to take human wives to "beget us children"

"And Azâzêl taught men to make swords, and knives, and shields, and breastplates, and made known to them the metals of the earth and the art of working them, and bracelets, and ornaments, and the use of antimony, and the beautifying of the eyelids, and all kinds of costly stones, and all colouring tinctures. And there arose much godlessness, and they committed fornication, and they were led astray, and became corrupt in all their ways. Semjâzâ taught enchantments, and root-cuttings, Armârôs the resolving of enchantments, Barâqîjâl, taught astrology, Kôkabêl the constellations, Ezêqêêl the knowledge of the clouds, Araqiêl the signs of the earth, Shamsiêl the signs of the sun, and Sariêl the course of the moon."

The children of the angels and humans we called the nephillim. They have the immortal souls of the angels incarnate in physical long lived but mortal bodies.
Humans on the contrary have souls that continue on but know not and think not as they sleep in death awaiting the resurrection.
When a Nephillim dies it's soul retains it's consciousness and is set loose in the world. The souls of the Nephillim are the source of bad things reaching our world from the other side.

Michael, Uriel, Raphael, and Gabriel appeal to God to judge the inhabitants of the world and the fallen angels. Uriel is then sent by God to tell Noah of the coming cataclysm and what he needs to do.

God gave Gabriel instructions concerning the Nephillim and the imprisonment of the fallen angels:

I'm not an expert on all the different kinds of spirits, I haven't studied theology and occult in a long long time.

The Spiritual Psychologist on Art Bell was talking about these dis incarnate spirits of the Nephillim possessing people. he said there is a hairarchy of fallen angels over the Nephillim spirits and also lesser spirits which once had the choice to become living beings through birth but forake the opportunity.

He said the reasons for possession aren't just to make war with God and turn people from the right path by increasing evil in the world but also for these spirits to once again exist within the flesh they once had (or the flesh they chose not to take on)
He said when a person is possessed by these spirits the spirit's aganda is to drag the person down a path of self destruction.

According to the bible these spirits have no hope for salvation. Only man does.
Now some spirits just want to experience life again or experience the life they never had.
The guy was saying some of these spirits are trying to hitch a ride through death back to heaven from which they were shut off.
This is why they drag the person through self destruction into death.
he calls them "Malevolent Inhuman Spirits" to set them apart from the lost souls, and fallen angels who are just stuck forever shut off from God but not making war with God or doing evil on man.

He said make no mistake, when you open a door to these spirits. They have been shut off from God but know God. They crave what they knew but no longer have. They will deceive you to get what they want.

There are many ways possession begins.
At a level beyond the physical, your mind is a jewel. It is liquid and formless when you are young, It becomes spherical as you grow an identity, and it crystallizes into a multi faceted jewel which are the multiple facets of your personality.

This is why children are so impressionable and adults are so set in their ways

These facets allow a human to have different thought forms cooperate within the mind in a creative process or the human can resolve conflict within himself so that he need not resolve too much conflict with others. It's the committee in your head.

Children are born innocent with some innate knowledge of right and wrong. Not that they won't do wrong but they are not held accountable because they have not made the choice to do wrong with a developed mind knowing right from wrong. A child's person is created as a single identity. It's God's protection on the child from it's creation.

In the occult, Extreme stress and abuse is employed to create an alternate personality within the person. One which is not under the control of the person's will.
Remember it is will that makes people like God in his image, and it is what you do with will that makes you guilty or innocent. Those without will are neither guilty or innocent. they are animal and spirits can inhabit animals at will much more easily than people.
When the occultists split a person's personality, they call it "The splitting of the gem"
the first split in a persons personality is the strongest. The mind can be split into multiple personalities much in the way a mind of a single personality can develop multiple facets.
The only difference is in a normal person there is one identity in control. The damaged mind has lost control over part of itself.

The CIA has done experimentation with stress and drugs to split personalities as evidenced in the manchurian candidate scenario.
They actually did mind control experiments on many people.

With the CIA the purposes are to create a second personality under the control of the handler. it's beyond hypnotism.
The 2nd personality may be required to perform duties concealed from the consciousness of the original personality of the individual. Training allows the handler to bring forth the hidden personality at will, the individual usually thinks they just fell asleep while their body is out and about serving the agenda of the handler.
With the CIA the goal is to create a secret agent that can hide within the body of a person no-one would suspect and if caught the second personality can commit a self destructive act that the original personality would never perform, or a person working with top level security can be brainwashed to forget everything they knew through the control personality thereby keeping secrets.
 
With the occult the goal is to create a second personality which becomes the primary personality driving the innocent first personality down into the depths of the person's mind.
The reason is to create a personality an inhuman spirit may inhabit and live out life through. What happens is the occultists force a possession of the person. In a way, it is a reverse exorcism.
Why would any person do that to another person, especially a parent or elder of a family child?
Because they themselves have become possessed and are under control of malevolent inhuman spirits.

They might have become possessed in the same way they facilitated possession of their children by splitting their minds and offering the new personality to fellow evil spirits to inhabit.
Or they were possessed slowly by opening the door themselves little by little until they no longer were in control.

When people dabble in the occult they open doors. the opening isn't very powerful at first. Strange influences enter their lives. People are fooled into turning to ungodly methods to fix the problems that have entered their lives. They turn to more and more powerful spirits to stop the mischief and then the malice the arrivals brought into their lives.
In this way they are led into submission to possession.

You might have noticed "bad luck" when your not living right. Some people get a long way down the wrong road and it seems a long way back. the possessing or influencing spirit doesn't want the person to get right. It wants the person to continue down that road away from God's protection.

Something more spooky...
Father Malachi Martin, a Catholic Exorcist was talking about possession. He said it has varying degrees some people have not gone to far. Others have a long way to come back. He was asked if he had ever met a person who was so totally possessed that the original personality was no longer there. he said yes. The God created spirit in that person has died and the soul or souls within that took over that body have exclusivity. He said these people stand out. Something in normal people know that there is something un natural with this perfectly possessed person. They have no remorse, no feelings for other people, only what they want and their own feelings.

Father Malachi said what's dangerous about exorcisms is going in with lack of faith.
He said Faith gives you discernment and through faith you can see evil from good. Also this discernment let's you know you have faith and faith protects you from evil

But he said when you lose faith you don't know it right away because you have lost the discernment that faith brings. You think you have faith when you have lost it and are not therefor protected from evil and sometimes it is only when under attack from evil that you realize that you have lost faith.

Father Malachi died after falling seriously ill after tumbling down stairs.
"I felt hands on my back that pushed me and no-one was there" were some of his last words.

I heard a Pastor once talking about being saved and having the holy spirit dwelling within you. This is having faith, not just believing it so but being a good and clean home for the indwelling of the spirit.
He also said though you may have lost faith the p[protection of the Lord may still be upon you.
He said this is why when you have lived wrong, then get saved, and then lose faith and try to go back to your old way's the old dirty way's don't go so good for you as they once did.
He said when the Devil has your name in his book he doesn't need to spend any effort making your life miserable. he already has you. But when Your name is in the lambs book of life he needs to win you over, get you to lose faith.
He said once he walked into an occult book store in a town he had never been in.
He said everyone there stopped what they were doing and looked at him with eyes that burned right through him.
He didn't understand it at first, there was no physical evidence he was a pastor, not his cloths or any noticeable thing. No-one there knew him.

He said he prayed about it and the answer the Lord gave him was "They didn't know you personally but my holy spirit is with you and those people have a spirit with them that is not my spirit but that spirit with them knows me.
 
So we have Satan and his angels who lost the war with God, and the other 199 who abandoned their estate, and the disincarnated but conscious spirits of the nephillim, and whatever other unclean spirits wraiths and shadows trouble man and beckon him to do what he should not.

So if the bible is right... People are born innocent but not inherently good or evil, just innocent. As they become adults their choices, and the influence of evil in their lives can cause them to lose their innocence and become guilty of sin or guilty of breaking the law.

Remember right/wrong is not the same thing as legal/Illegal
Break the law you might go to jail... You might end up in jail and still get to heaven but chose sin and you won't live forever.

The purpose of man's law is to punish.
The purpose of God's law is to bring you to salvation

I believe therefore as long as someone is eligible for salvation they can sin and do evil but not be naturally evil unless they have totally given themselves over to it.
They killed off the person God made in them and therefore have no innocence.
The only way back to grace for them is to lay the only thing they have left their fleshly life upon the altar of Gods justice.
Anyone who can take that step into oblivion. When you know there is nothing left of you and nothing left in you that's good, when you can lay that down for what is right or for someone innocent then providence moves.
If you live through it, you may be given back the person or the spirit that you forsake before you became hollow.

This is the most extreme form of what it means to be born again.
You exhausted the life you were given.
If you ask and he answers you will be given an opportunity to take your last step into the abyss. you surrender everything.
when you trust all that you have left with the Lord and do what is right
Then a miracle happens. the old man dies and new one is born.
You become a new person with a new spirit and a new life.

It's one of those things you could talk about forever but unless you've been there you'll never really understand it. and even afterwards you still can't put it into words. You just know you are a new person. Not a same old person with a new way of looking at things. The old man s gone and the new man is born.

Before you'll see people as good and evil
Afterward you'll know there's just people doing good and evil. some are saved/born again and some haven't gotten to that leap of faith yet.
Some know they are doing wrong, some are unaware.
Why do some people do greater evil than others?
Some people have more capacity for greatness than others.
Be it great good or great evil is a matter of choice and a matter of knowing.
 
Thanks for the Information Torchman. I'll have to read that a few more times. I once knew an x-priest that explained that to me much the same, but I don't run that deep. He insisted they have, or once had, souls--as you described. From just my experience--they don't--but I don't run that deep.

If a .45 can't handle it-I just keep my head down.

PA41
 
Normally I wouldn't have read any post that starts with 'I was listening to Art Bell...' :rolleyes:, but after PA41's comment I did go back through it. Interesting at least.

...and my usual comment about your long posts: ;)

3 Pages Tmann?! I'm not sure you should be allowed to post after midnight!
 
I'd be interested to hear from a Muslim Seik or Hindu or Buddist or some other creed you don't usually hear talking about spooky stuff.
I've read alot on the occult and about religions. No matter how you look at it, or what your religion it seems there are unseen influences and the same behavior leads to the same ends.

"Ends... some people would rob their mother for the ends.
Rats snitch on one another for the ends" -Everlast
 
very deep man, but also very true. I have to say that, with working with the general public with my job, most people are good people but at least 10% around here would crap on ya and not care. Its a vicious world and alot of people are self centered and lack judgement between right, wrong and Gods will in there lives. Sad part is it seems to get worse yr after yr, esp when you hear and see some of the stuff that people do.
 
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