Evil??? Born or bred?

wow quick response cobra , well I think to some degree we all have the same battle spittincobra, we all wrestle with what we are told is right and wrong and what we feel is right and wrong, Surely that is what makes us human! What you, me and millions of other people experience is conscious and the basic good in us fights what it knows is wrong, I mean if you know you don't like something due to your own suffering or experience, you wouldn't want to do the same to some-one else because you know how it feels, and its not nice. That is very different to the people out there who do it anyway, but make it as nasty an experience as possible for the victim, knowing full well how horrific the crime they are doing and loving it all the more and it makes it worse if that person has suffered that experience, because they should know EXACTLY how bad that situation feels to the other person. You show you have good in you by the very fact that you fight evil in yourself, if you were truly evil then you wouldn't even put up a fight, think about that, and take pride that you have some fight in you! that surely is a good sign of humanity in itself, I always think of evil like a bubble, it tries to suffocate and surround you and if you let it, it consumes you and you are trapped within that bubble. Most people fight that bubble and the longer you fight, the more tired you get, but the weaker the bubble gets too I strongly believe that light attracts light and reverse.

Originally posted by Jonna
Nature or nurture, eh! I refuse to believe that it is nature because it would mean that I have no control over who I am and who I wish to be, but perhaps that is my own desire to believe in the way that I do.

Or you were born that way?

I think that both good and evil are inherent in everyone. Most people are neutral though and aren't on either side of the spectrum most of the time.

You also have to think about un-prescribed schizophrenia and how that may fit in. People snap all the time...evil just waiting until it is allowed to flow in an unfavorable situation.

I'm going on Freud with this last bit...
About kids...usually they don't develop a sense of morals and the difference between themselves and others until later on.
Dahmer...something to do with his preasure principle being a fetish for human skin...environmental probably, when he was growing up.

What a great thread

Just not sure it should be here, but deserves to be on ATS instead of BTS so will leave it for others to decide

OK, here is my 5 cents...

I see a lot of kids .... and can quickly make some judgements about them. Sometime I am wrong, others I am on the nail.

One kid walked past me the other day, and as I saw him I went internally "Whoa, this guy is trouble".

Why? He looked the same, as the others, he was shorter than usual, he had no horns on his head. But he just gave off an "aura" of malevolience.

Sure enough within minutes of watching him he was threatening another child. I ejected him from the room, and he went slowly and reluctently, fighting me every step of the way by will, not physically, trying to take the upper hand, to force his will over mine.

When he was finally ejected he stood outside the room in full view of everyone and made rude jestures at us.

He was a kid, for whom either a prison cell or an early death is his future, and he was about 12 yrs old.

He was the sort of child for whom no amount of talking, discussing, or punishment, would change, I imagine if he abused you and you threw him through a window, or hung him out by his ankles he would STILL abuse you. Life for him seemed ot be a mater of his will over all others.

Maleviolent, is the only word I could use to desribe him, and a social ticking bomb. ... yet I had only experienced his presence for under 15 minutes in total.

Yes there is evil... and this kid had a bit of it in him.

Check this from Scott Peck...
www.gurteen.com...

"There really are people and institutions made up of people, who respond with hatred in the presence of goodness and would destroy the good insofar as it is in their power to do so. They do this not with conscious malice but blindly, lacking awareness of their own evil--- indeed, seeking to avoid any such awareness. ."

This was this kid....

[Edited on 4-6-2004 by Netchicken]

I'm going to have to disagree with you on a few points NC, mostly because of the changes I have undergone.
I was that same kid at one point, I used to bully, cut up all the time, not listen to authority (still don't sometimes), I even threw a book at a summer school counselor. I was cutting up up until high school. But then I found out that I was much happier being filled with love for everyone (even the guy who broke my face with a beer bottle, all my friends wanted to go after him, but I stopped em).
Anyway, I have faith in everyone, especially kids and even one of my friends who gets in a fight pretty much frequently and gets angry at nothing even more.
But, all in all, that is exactly like your quote about blind rage. That's what it is in my opinion, blind rage, but thats not to say that it can't be helped, it has and can.
Just don't rag on the kids, believe in them...they might surprise you in how they can change. This is all from my experience though which isn't much at 19.

wow fantastic responses from both netchicken and jamuhn, I pesonally Know where both you are coming from I have seen it from both sides of the spectrum and can fully understand your points of view, Firstly Netchicken I have met children and Adults like this and it's very freaky , You can't explain it you just know they are a bad apple and nothing you do can change them! that is evil, Or a watered down version either way its a different shade of grey, like in an earlier reply. Jamuhn i know where you are coming from as i too was very much like you at an early age, but that was mainly due to boredom as I had above average intelligence and found no-one to relate too ( not being egotistical here btw) , this was discussed at an early age with a psychologist , I changed because I realised how stupid i was, but not all children or people can be believed in , I wish they could jamuhn i really wish that, because i like to see the good in people too but sometmes it blows right back in your face, sometimes bad people take advantage of that kindness and Screw you with it, The hardest thing is forgiving that person EVEN though they have screwed you.
Thats the real test. This thread has exceeded my expectations and Evil is still very much a taboo subject in my humble opinion, people ignore it, or think Good can overcome it, as much I think there is a lot of good in the world, and yes i strongly believe Good is more powerful than evil, i still think evil is very under-rated, people try to explain it in different ways ( " Oh it must be his parents etc etc) when we still understand very little about chaos and evil. I sometimes think reality was created just to mask the chaos that is underneath. I leave you all with that thought and thankyou