Originally Posted by crimzy
Interesting point... my thoughts here may, in your estimation, be a semantical argument. I stand by the first post, that the essence of human nature is violent, barbaric, cruel. That being said, the atrocities you mention in the first paragraph are no more evil than the black widow spider that kills her mate.... just chalk that up to another of the millions of examples of the violence of human nature.
The 10 year old boy donating his money is not consistent with our violent nature. This is the exercise of free will. This is similar to Martin Luther King, Jr. suggesting that violence be met with nonviolence. We do not have to act in a violent way, although we usually do.
The only reason that humankind is not necessarily destined to destroy itself is that we have the ability to lay down our arms, we have the ability to protect the environment, to conserve endangered species. These abilities are what we should strive for. However so many people are more inclined to follow the basic instinct to achieve our goals by sheer force.
If people would take responsibility for our species' barbarism, rather than distance ourselves by the thinking that, "they are just bad people", then these people would feel more compelled to combat violent tendencies. By believing that the terrorists are simply evil, we allow our minds to justify more violence. As such, peace will never be achieved because both sides feel that they are fighting "evil".
A spider does not have free will. Therefore it cannot be good or evil. A person chooses how to behave.
Without "good" or "evil" our decisons would be based solely on our own desires. You speak of laying down arms, conserving species, etc. Why does it matter? Without a conscience we should be free to do anything we want within the framework of arbitrary and whimsical laws.
