Well, I don't agree it's a load of drivel, but I'm back to a thought I often think in meetings and discussion groups, and hold back because people would think it's ....gulp... solipsistic:

"Everyone has it wrong but me."

I believe that man is a critter, and born with a blank moral conscience. But man has lived long enough to develop - and survive by - socialization. So we like to 'club up' but we can gather around almost any set of rules, so long as they make for a strong community. Whether that community worships a god-ruler, sacrifices human beings, or elects its leaders and allows freedom of worship, if the society can perpetuate itself and defend itself, or conquer its neighbors, defines a lot of what we grow up thinking is good and bad. There are some constants. We're all programmed to support our babies being born and reared. We are not necessarily programmed to think that way about the other fella's babes.

Going back to a common point of reference is what allows us to even be able to talk about this concept. My reference is the early part of Genesis when it says human is made in God's image. To me that means that humans have a creative potential, that implies choice, and that implies omni-capability, we can do good, we can do evil, we can do both. And creative encompasses destructive potential as well, as God has shown great capability in that arena.

I wasn't taught to believe in Original Sin, I have learned to apply the concept as 'birth defect', the first example that comes to mind is the foundation of the American Republic, wonderful literature, wonderful intellectuals expounding on the rights of man, freedom to vote for representation, and BANG, slavery in there, too.

If you watch a bunch of kids playing, you'll see some pretty disgusting things. This is corrected by correction. But it ain't mother nature. Mother nature tells us to get to the table first and eat everything you find.

So I see good and bad as a measure of how we choose to use our god-granted abilities to do and be pretty much anything.

I don't know if this post made a whole lot of sense, but it allowed me to use 'solipsistic' so I'm happy.

(And I suppose I might be wrong after all)