I can't stop believing that people are essentially good - we might get lost upon the way, make mistakes, pervert our actual nature. But people are good.
... If you don't believe that... what is the point of any of this?
fuck no, people are basically assholes. why do you think they had to go and invent religion to teach people to go against their natural desire to be selfish?
By that very logic people can't be intrinsicly bad.
If religion is invented - and I possibly agree it is> - why would a bunch of a-holes invent it to circumvent desires they might have that were evil?
If we're just degenerates we wouldn't care. We wouldn't care if we were selfish. We wouldn't fight to be better. We wouldn't have invented religion to attempt something more.
If that's what religion is solely about - which I'm not sure it is - religion disproves your point.
you really think so? way back when somebody must habe said 'hey, being a bunch of assholes to each other ain't getting us nowhere, let's come up with some big sky god that'll strike us down for not following basic rules.'
then you get a society that functions and a buncha common sense rules backed up by the idea that if you don't follow them Zeus will toast your ass, or something. fear of punishment keeps people in check.
besides, everybody's born selfish. kids are selfish little fuckers, they gotta be taught not to be. how do you tell when somebody's basically good when they had to be taught so to begin with?
i don't think everyone is good, necessarily...but i think a lot of people are good who don't seem to be. like maybe they never learned how, or there's something wrong with them that keeps them from being good, superficially. but inside they want to be. idk what that has to do with life being pointless, though.
Comments 55
Reply
By that very logic people can't be intrinsicly bad.
If religion is invented - and I possibly agree it is> - why would a bunch of a-holes invent it to circumvent desires they might have that were evil?
If we're just degenerates we wouldn't care. We wouldn't care if we were selfish. We wouldn't fight to be better. We wouldn't have invented religion to attempt something more.
If that's what religion is solely about - which I'm not sure it is - religion disproves your point.
Reply
then you get a society that functions and a buncha common sense rules backed up by the idea that if you don't follow them Zeus will toast your ass, or something. fear of punishment keeps people in check.
besides, everybody's born selfish. kids are selfish little fuckers, they gotta be taught not to be. how do you tell when somebody's basically good when they had to be taught so to begin with?
ps you can swear. it's allowed.
Reply
Kids will also smile when someone else smiles. On instinct they want to be held. They love their parents even when given little reason to.
People aren't born selfish. They're born with a survival instinct. As reason develops that instinct is tuned and refined.
We're taught everything one way or another. Sometimes by society. Sometimes by experience. Sometimes by our own instincts.
For everything I've seen - I've seen more good than evil.
Reply
Reply
Reply
I'm going back to sleep.
Reply
...
And tea.
Reply
Reply
Reply
Regardless, I doubt the point is our entertainment.
Reply
Unless you were the one who jipped me on the sense of humour quotient then you don't have much to be sorry for.
Reply
Then what is good?
Can't anyone be good
in their own mind.
It is the moral principle
that needs attention
perhaps.
A less convoluted answer;
I think there are few limits
to sapient potential.
Reply
If anyone can be good, then yes, anyone can be good in their own mind.
And, yes, the moral principle needs attention. You need to question what is right.
That doesn't mean that a line shouldn't be drawn. It doesn't mean rules shouldn't be adhered to. It doesn't mean there are some acts that are wrong.
Reply
Of course. It doesn't mean that.
I do not know that it means anything at all.
Would it be fair to say
you favour the ethic of duties and obligation?
I forget what they call that.
Then can I ask
who decides where the line is drawn?
Who shall tell us
what is right and what is wrong?
Or should we just know
should we be instinctively moral?
Reply
I've always been a failure as a nihilist.
There is a point at which you have to make something black and something white. And, yes, instincts do come into it.
There is an instinct in all of us to protect others, not just to protect ourselves.
Reply
i don't think everyone is good, necessarily...but i think a lot of people are good who don't seem to be. like maybe they never learned how, or there's something wrong with them that keeps them from being good, superficially. but inside they want to be. idk what that has to do with life being pointless, though.
Reply
I'm not sure I'd call it deep. There's something about being called that - it always seems to be accompanied by a sense of mocking.
Reply
Leave a comment