Faith in People & their goodness

Subject: BS: New Angles on Human Faith
From: Amos
Date: 23 Apr 04 - 01:07 PM

Freda and Bill had a short back-and-forth on the other faith thread:

Subject: RE: BS: Faith
From: freda underhill - PM
Date: 23 Apr 04 - 09:28 AM

This thread has been sleeping a little.

But I want to talk about faith, not faith in God or a benevolent universe, but faith in the essential goodness and bravery of human nature.

I am thinking about people, who, under tremendous pressure from powers that be, choose to do the right thing and reveal government corruption, whistleblowers.

To me, these people, who give up everything, including their means of support and status, to publicly dump on a corrupt government, deserve the respect and support of ordinary people who benefit from their actions.

Here is a web address to an article on the subject (can anyone make a blue clicky of it?)While this is an academic article, it addresses a very important subject.

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/04/22/1082616257471.html

As well, I think of good friends and neighbours who, in the small friendships of daily interactions, by their essential ethics and decency, continually revive my faith in human nature, my faith in people.


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Subject: RE: BS: Faith
From: Bill D - PM
Date: 23 Apr 04 - 12:59 PM

I would politely suggest a new thread with a different title....such as "A different take on Faith" or something similar. This thread has a pretty 'heavy' lead in, and could be a burden to what you want to discuss.

---

Hence, this thread.

Regards,

A

Subject: RE: BS: New Angles on Human Faith
From: freda underhill
Date: 23 Apr 04 - 09:53 PM

thanks for this Amos. while I started off in a big way on whistleblowers, inspired by a talk with my local newsagent about people in government who keep jumping boat, I was also thinking about my neighbours James and Sarah, who are such lovely people.

So much bad news, so much to worry about, but people like that remind me that people are essentially good. and that is sustaining.

Subject: RE: Faith in People & their goodness
From: GUEST,claire wiffen
Date: 28 Apr 04 - 04:03 AM

I have faith in me and other my friends who I pray for my family and my foster sister Chrise I always have been praying about people who are fools and bad bavour. and people who are ill and sick god cares about the world.I have hope in faith

Subject: RE: Faith in People & their goodness
From: JennyO
Date: 28 Apr 04 - 12:16 PM

Here's your link freda, turned into a blue clicky:

On whistleblowing

Jenny

Subject: RE: Faith in People & their goodness
From: SueB
Date: 28 Apr 04 - 01:15 PM

Every coin has two sides. Everybody I know is a walking paradox, capable of both the petty and the sublime. I think we're mostly all capable of swinging one way or the other, with the right stimulus. Under some sets of circumstances, we rise to the occasion. Under others, we don't.

If people are essentially, necessarily, fundamentally Good, how is it that we are so susceptible to mob mentality, which is capable of driving people to extraordinary behaviors - and I don't mean extraordinary in a good way, I'm actually thinking of the genocides in Rwanda. I'm using extra-ordinary in the sense of extreme, out of the ordinary, unnatural, not normal.

Or think of the behavior of ordinary German people under Hitler. Some helped Jewish people to escape or survive, but some put on uniforms -and dressed their children in little uniforms- and rounded them up.    Where did their Essential Goodness go?

So I have trouble seeing it in those terms. It's easier for me to understand it in terms of both good and evil existing simultaneously, with neither one defining the whole. What kind of circumstances cause or allow one or the other to dominate at any given time is another question.

This is Faith, of a sort - that good exists in just about everybody - but not the same as faith that everybody is essentially good. Seen as a bell curve, with people like Mother Teresa (who are only good) way off to one side and people like Jeffrey Dahmer (who are only bad) way off to the other, most people fall closer to the middle of the curve.

Subject: RE: Faith in People & their goodness
From: Amos
Date: 28 Apr 04 - 01:22 PM

The essential goodness is always there. That's why it is called essential; it is an attribute of the basic person. The problem is that the layers of decisions and traumas and confusions and just plain black stupidities that sit on top of basic are pretty hard to shift without special tools.

A

Subject: RE: Faith in People & their goodness
From: TheBigPinkLad
Date: 28 Apr 04 - 01:35 PM

Humanism, solipsism, tolerance.

Subject: RE: Faith in People & their goodness
From: SueB
Date: 28 Apr 04 - 01:47 PM

Special tools - are you referring again to psychiatric paraphernalia, Amos? Reading your post, I get a vision of a diamond encrusted with tar.

Solipsism: the view that the self is all that exists or can be known.
I had to look it up. Too cryptic, I can't get what you mean, BPL.

Subject: RE: Faith in People & their goodness
From: CarolC
Date: 28 Apr 04 - 02:15 PM

For the most part, I see "evil", as expressed in people, as an absence of empathy. I see "goodness", as expressed in people, as being the humanity that is inherent in all people, and the divinity that is inherent in all beings. A lot of decisions that are made by people, that others would call "evil" or "bad", I see as being a result of disordered thinking caused a lot of the time by the "layers" that Amos mentioned.

Subject: RE: Faith in People & their goodness
From: TheBigPinkLad
Date: 28 Apr 04 - 02:31 PM

Solipsism: the view that the self is all that exists or can be known.

Not quite, SueB; I believe that would be id (or selfish). I would define solipsism as the only thing one can be sure of is one's own existance, and that true knowlwdge of anything else is impossible.

While I appreciate there are arguments for '...good vs bad is entirely perceptive,' '...people are only able to do whatever benefits themselves (Atkinson's Law)', ... [insert name of your god here]'s will be done, etc. I very much adhere to the 'treat others as you'd have them treat you' philosophy. Unless the other person is a masochist ... ;o)

Subject: RE: Faith in People & their goodness
From: GUEST,Shlio
Date: 28 Apr 04 - 04:35 PM

I have faith in people to act like people - neither inherently good nor bad, just being. And, as is human nature, most likely to act for the good of others if they first recieve some benefit themselves.

Therefore, do unto others as you would have them do to others...and see how long it lasts.

Subject: RE: Faith in People & their goodness
From: Amos
Date: 28 Apr 04 - 05:15 PM

(philosophy) the philosophical theory that the self is all that you know to exist
www.cogsci.princeton.edu/cgi-bin/webwn

A

Subject: RE: Faith in People & their goodness
From: freda underhill
Date: 28 Apr 04 - 09:05 PM

well, apart from all the high falutin philosphical theories, I know that I have some friends at work who are great people to spend time with - and it helps make it through the day, being able to talk to them!

and i know that there are good people out there in the world, doing fantastic things, whether its in hospitals, school rooms, political dealings or an artists studio . and this restores my faitrh in humanity, amongst all the other crap.

Subject: RE: Faith in People & their goodness
From: katlaughing
Date: 29 Apr 04 - 02:26 AM

Me, too, freda. I talk to people everyday, mostly on the phone, and there are always at least one or two who restore my faith in humankind, as individuals. These days it's a bit tough to have a lot of faith in humankind as a whole. But then, I don't think we're the centre of the Universe, either, so if we do annihilate ourselves the planet will carry on. I guess believing this helps me to continue to see the good in most people with whom I come in contact and I try to pass that good on. I know I've posted this somewhere before, but it's been awhile. I don't always adhere to it, but it is something to keep in mind, imo:

There is so much bad in the best of us
And, so much good in the worst of us
That it hardly behooves any of us
To talk about the rest of us!

I am sorry I do not have the author's name to hand.

I have a new vice...I do not like television much and I abhor realtiy shows, but I've become a big fan of Starting Over. There was a highly emotional episode this week in which a young woman due to give birth anyday had decided to go back to her boyfriend, who'd kicked her out on the street, leaving behind the other women in the Starting Over house and all of the opportunities and support they and the House offered her and her baby. She was there to decide if she was mature enough to raise the child or should give it up for adoption. As she was preparing to leave, each of the women talked to her, cajoled, yelled, begged, and cried for her to stay and let them help her. They pointed out how awful the boyfriend had been and she isn't even sure it's his baby.

Anyway, the goodness in these women, who'd only known her for a week, was life-empowering, inspiring, and made me very proud to be a woman. In particular one of them, Rain, who is a mom seeking to get off of welfare and provide for her two daughters without assistance (she is doing it, too,) came in like "big mama" yelling at the pregnant one about what she was doing to herself, etc. She really was getting to the crux of the matter, no self-love, etc. and just when the pregnant one looked as though she was going to strike out in anger and yelled that Rain probably hated her, etc. Rain wrapped her arms around this little bitty, though very pregnant girl, and told her over and over how much they all loved her and wanted her to love herself and that baby, too. It was a touching, climatic, and completely honest moment which spelled out Faith in a BIG way. THIS was the way we are supposed to live in society, with support, love, nurturing, etc. surrounding us, helping to push through our challenges and celebrating our triumph. I've often wished we had a more tribal type society. This comes close in some ways.

Thanks for the thread, freda.

kat

Subject: RE: Faith in People & their goodness
From: SueB
Date: 29 Apr 04 - 02:53 PM

I agree, Freda - I have some friends at the Mudcat who are great people to spend time with - and it helps me make it through the day, being able to read their posts! And you're one of them, don't you know.

Subject: RE: Faith in People & their goodness
From: SueB
Date: 29 Apr 04 - 03:05 PM

By the time I got to Woodstack
we were half a million strong
everywhere there was song and celebration
And I dreamed I saw the bombers
riding shotgun in the sky
turning into butterflies
above our nation
We are stardust, we are golden
and we've got to get ourselves
back to the garden...

Subject: RE: Faith in People & their goodness
From: GUEST,SueB
Date: 01 Sep 04 - 02:02 PM

refresh

Subject: RE: Faith in People & their goodness
From: Once Famous
Date: 01 Sep 04 - 02:11 PM

I work with a very religious Christian man who I respect and is a very good man.

We have had this discussion before and he has convinced me.

People are generally bad.

It takes nurturing and the right influences, the right teachings to make a good person.

Subject: RE: Faith in People & their goodness
From: Amos
Date: 01 Sep 04 - 02:44 PM

Martin:

Bad action, I submit, is not the basic layer of human nature. It is the efffect of (among other things) invalidation and overwhelm by force.

When you resort to free-for-all badmouthing, of course, you forward those vectors.

The more basic nature of the individual -- the side that seeks to be and do good -- does not "erase" with therapy but grows stronger. The darker side, which you have identified as human nature, does diminish with more looking and ocmmunicating of a therapeutic sort. This gives you a clear notion as to which is more basic than the other.

A

Subject: RE: Faith in People & their goodness
From: *daylia*
Date: 01 Sep 04 - 02:53 PM

Martin, I see "good" and "bad" as a value judgments, not objective reality. Whether something is perceived as "good" or "bad" depends on who's making the judgement - particularly, the cultural conditioning, or "learned biases" of the one making the judgement.

For instance, 2,000 years ago the Romans considered crucifixion a "good" thing. Today things have changed ... crucifixion is deemed "bad" and electric chairs are deemed "good" - depending on where you live. In my country, the death penalty in any form is deemed "bad", while life imprisonment is deemed "good". Does this make any of these things "good" or "bad" in and of themselves, though?

I'm confused!   ;-)

I think people are born neutral. How they learn to think, feel and behave ... including how to make moral judgments ... depends on nature (genetic predisposition) and nurture (environment).

daylia

Subject: RE: Faith in People & their goodness
From: wysiwyg
Date: 01 Sep 04 - 02:57 PM

The more time I spend ocmmunicating in relationship, the more I think this--

Belief, yes. Faith, no. Hope, always. Expectation, low.

~S~

Subject: RE: Faith in People & their goodness
From: GUEST,SueB
Date: 01 Sep 04 - 03:33 PM

There's the Doctrine of Original Sin - I'm not strong in the theology area, but I think it's a Christian belief, that we are all born sinners, (and must be saved - whether by works or by grace is the argument which appears to divide christians in general from Fundamentalist Christians.) Baptism (rather than therapy) is key - Catholics, for instance, or at least my Irish grandmother, who went to mass every Sunday, believe that a child who dies unbaptized goes to Purgatory, and it requires intercession in the form of prayers and masses said, to get the poor babe out of Purgatory and into Heaven.

Even people who don't hold with the doctrine of original sin will usually agree that children need to be taught right from wrong, and even people who believe that children are naturally disposed towards goodness will usually agree that people who were badly parented will have a tendency to parent badly, resulting in children who grow up and teach their own children all the wrong things.

Most religions, it seems to me, deal with the concept of attaining grace or perfection or nirvana, rather than having grace or perfection or nirvana being your starting point, so for that reason I would say I think Martin's viewpoint on this is the more traditional one.    I think Amos' viewpoint is, historically speaking, far more radical.

I really have to think about this more. Amos, would you agree with the statement that we are what the world makes us?

Subject: RE: Faith in People & their goodness
From: Once Famous
Date: 01 Sep 04 - 03:37 PM

Daylia

what you say is pretty much what I have felt.

It is nurturing and environment.

People are not born good. It is not a genetic thing.

Subject: RE: Faith in People & their goodness
From: GUEST,SueB
Date: 01 Sep 04 - 03:58 PM

Time for another musical interlude:

Teach your children well
Their father's hell
Will slowly go by
And feed them on your dreams
The one they pick's the one you'll know by...

Subject: RE: Faith in People & their goodness
From: Once Famous
Date: 01 Sep 04 - 04:05 PM

Doesn't that song just have the sweetest pedal steel guitar?

I believe Jerry Garcia played it on the record, but I may be wrong.

Subject: RE: Faith in People & their goodness
From: GUEST,*daylia*
Date: 01 Sep 04 - 04:10 PM

Ok, I think I experienced your hypothetical situation in a dream once, Carol, and at the risk of sounding like a Crisco commercial I'd like to share it with you ...

In the dream I was resting in a beautiful white stone room with white draperies, looking out the window. There was a booth outside, with a very very VERY tall man (or Being) in a white robe behind it. In front of the booth there was a long lineup of much smaller men, also dressed in white robes.

The first one stepped up to the booth, and suddenly I could hear the most godawful sounds of a beating ... the thuds and cracks of boots and fists pounding into flesh. But no one was moving - not even the Tall one behind the booth. Yet the one who'd stepped up to booth was crumpling to the ground as if his body was being broken by invisible thugs - first his feet, then legs, then up his body. Finally he was completely prostrate on the ground, nothing left unbroken but his head ... and as I watched in horror the Tall One stepped out from behind the booth and stood over him. As the final crushing blows fell I had to turn my eyes away and cover my face ... and I woke up.

Yukky dream, huh? I DO hope it's not like that .... :-(

daylia

Subject: RE: Faith in People & their goodness
From: GUEST,*daylia*
Date: 01 Sep 04 - 04:12 PM

Egads, I posted that on the wrong thread! IT's supposed to be on the one about the hypothetical semi-philosophical question. Sorry folks ... and don't tell anybody ok?

;-) daylia

Subject: RE: Faith in People & their goodness
From: Once Famous
Date: 01 Sep 04 - 04:26 PM

Daylia

I keep using that excuse but no one believes me!

however, sometimes I have found the same post works no matter what the thread is about.

Subject: RE: Faith in People & their goodness
From: wysiwyg
Date: 01 Sep 04 - 04:35 PM

... I have found the same post works no matter what the thread is about...

Here's a post one can always make with good effect:

:~)

It can mean almost anything, inlcuding "I've read whatever xxxx said to me/about me a few posts back and I decline to fight over it!"

;~)

~S~

Subject: RE: Faith in People & their goodness
From: Nerd
Date: 01 Sep 04 - 05:13 PM

Yes, but Martin's all-purpose posts are filthy (and funny)!

Subject: RE: Faith in People & their goodness
From: Bill D
Date: 01 Sep 04 - 05:24 PM

"bad" & "good" are relative terms. In some societies, the willingness to fight & kill are considered to be virtues, and at one time were true survival characteristics......I am more & more coming to the suspicion that a lot what WE consider to be anti-social behavior may be a combination of testosterone, genes AND social conditioning.

People 'tend' towards timid or agressive, but can be eased into more 'middle of the road' behavior, with conditioning and luck.

You all know someone whose kids simply are 'different' from their parents...or from their siblings. One will be quiet & calm, one will be a holy terror.

I am reading more & more articles which point to discoveries in DNA, etc. that support this. It doesn't change the fact that we need to study and teach and try to instill 'goodness' in people, it merely indicates that we may have more problems than we realized...

Subject: RE: Faith in People & their goodness
From: wysiwyg
Date: 01 Sep 04 - 05:25 PM

So is goodness an internal character trait? Or an essential nature of the beast? Or one's outer behavior? Hm?

~Susan

Subject: RE: Faith in People & their goodness
From: wysiwyg
Date: 01 Sep 04 - 05:26 PM

.... cuz my apples are very good but my orangutans are real stinkers! :~)

~S~

Subject: RE: Faith in People & their goodness
From: Bill D
Date: 01 Sep 04 - 06:14 PM

nothing about behavior is entirely one thing or another....

(dem O-rang-a-tangs need special monitoring)

Subject: RE: Faith in People & their goodness
From: freda underhill
Date: 01 Sep 04 - 06:45 PM

i strongly believe.....that children learn by modelling what they see about them. and that if you are postive with children, helping them by giving them interesting things to do, and raise them with respect and courtesy, that they learn those values on a very deep level.

any numbers of studies of criminals (and I've worked with crims in the past) show that they've had some heavy childhood experiences/deprivations that have helped make them what they become as adults. the basic modelling for a sociopath is physical or emotional cruelty before the age of seven, which causes the child not to trust anyone, and destroys their ability to empathise.

rather than believing we are born with original sin, i think we are thrown into life without hangups, we are cultivated in our home and school environments, which help pattern our emotional responses. we encounter good and bad experiences, and have to learn to respond constructively, to swim rather than sink, with whatever we've got.

Subject: RE: Faith in People & their goodness
From: Bill D
Date: 01 Sep 04 - 07:16 PM

freda...I don't think that it's even necessary to debate 'original sin' anymore...

what you say is quite close to the 'tabula rasa' theory that was so popular years ago. I studied Psychology under one of the foremost proponents of that, N.H. Pronko. He believed that everything about us was a product of complex environmental influences, and wrote many papers about it. Unfortunately, most current research is indicating that there are other factors involved, and sometimes override all attempts to modify behavior.

No one doubts that BAD behavior can be increased by bad childhoods, but it is less obvious that good childhood is enough to guarantee good behavior.

Subject: RE: Faith in People & their goodness
From: khandu
Date: 01 Sep 04 - 08:20 PM

Feed'em garbage, they'll become garbage.
Feed'em goodness, they'll become goodness.

k

Subject: RE: Faith in People & their goodness
From: Amos
Date: 01 Sep 04 - 08:30 PM

The nature of the beast is pure-dee aware and good by definition. That is, life-force has certain traits and tendencies which are what we thin of as good; but when it gets loaded down with misplaced thinking, stuck past overwhelms in various directions and so on, the natural impulses (things like justice, open communication, faith in the universe) get soured and ensorcelled with pain and regret and intentions geared to the past rather than the future.

If you care to consider this happening in only one lifetime it is obvious enough, but if you take into account that many people go through these repeating patterns lifetime after lifetime because they haven't learned the tricks of them, it is even more understandable how far from their own basic nature some individuals can get.

That's my take on it, anyway.

A

Subject: RE: Faith in People & their goodness
From: Bill D
Date: 01 Sep 04 - 10:30 PM

"... people go through these repeating patterns lifetime after lifetime..."...????

no kidding? They do? Why wasn't I informed?.....

oh...I just was! I guess it's settled then.




yes, sometimes when I'm tired and sleepy, I get cynical...*grin*

Subject: RE: Faith in People & their goodness
From: Amos
Date: 01 Sep 04 - 10:40 PM

BILL:

Yore a hard-bitten case, all right, but we loves ya anyway.

I was just describing my point of view, of course. Some folks see it otherwise -- all black and nothing but molecules. 'S awright, s'awright! :>))

A

Subject: RE: Faith in People & their goodness
From: GUEST,SueB
Date: 02 Sep 04 - 12:39 AM

Before I had kids of my own, I had a discussion similar to this one with a woman whose children were grown. I said to her, "How the hell can some one like me have kids? I'll screw 'em up for sure!" She said, "they're not born perfect, trust me on this. They come into the world with their own agendas - they already have personalities (and issues) almost as soon as they're born." (or words to this effect.)

I appreciated what she said - it seemed to take some of the pressure off - and remembered it later, when I had two kids, completely different, with their own personalities and ways of dealing with the world right away.

Now maybe how you start has to do with the accumulated experiences of your previous lives, and maybe it has to do with genes and probabilities and prenatal nutrition and how much acid your parents dropped and other unfathomable factors that resulted in your own personal brain chemistry. I'm just not sure I agree with the "blank slate" idea, where we start out without hang-ups or predispositions to be one way or another.

Subject: RE: Faith in People & their goodness
From: Ebbie
Date: 02 Sep 04 - 01:53 AM

I believe they/we are born desiring goodness. As an example I propound that there is no child (before he or she is grievously wounded) that does not want to leave the world better because they have lived.

Subject: RE: Faith in People & their goodness
From: Rapparee
Date: 02 Sep 04 - 10:35 AM

So those who were in, say, the Hitler Youth would never be able to change their ways?

Subject: RE: Faith in People & their goodness
From: Bill D
Date: 02 Sep 04 - 11:31 AM

well, Ebbie, I could introduce you to several counter examples to what you 'believe', but I suppose you would just counter that they MUST have been "grievously wounded", or they wouldn't be like that.

If one were to lay out the argument, it would follow a form of logical fallacy known as affirming the consequent

(Note that this does not prove the assertion incorrect, it only shows whether one has a 'valid' argument.)

Sue B...makes MY point in her post. People often differ no matter what seems to be very similar environmental circumstances.

Now it IS true that stress and problems can make things worse--Hitler and Stalin both had childhoods that pushed them over the line and contributed to their later hate and excesses, but since we can't do the experiment about how Hitler would have grown up if his father had NOT been so domineering, we must examine a LOT of cases and not just 'believe' X because if feels better.

Subject: RE: Faith in People & their goodness
From: Ebbie
Date: 02 Sep 04 - 12:21 PM

I'm referring to the idealism we all had at one time in our lives.

Subject: RE: Faith in People & their goodness
From: GUEST,SueB
Date: 02 Sep 04 - 01:20 PM

Rapaire, not sure what you're asking.

Subject: RE: Faith in People & their goodness
From: Little Hawk
Date: 02 Sep 04 - 02:55 PM

Yes, I believe that people are essentially good, and heroic in fact. Life is also essentially good. Nature is essentially good. The World is essentially good. And it's all alive and expressing as as a single Unity.

The problem in many people's consciousness is that they are quite unaware of that Unity, and they feel alone, isolated and afraid. This leads them to behave in a destructive fashion...but for reasons that seem good to them...because they don't see the whole picture.

Subject: RE: Faith in People & their goodness
From: Bill D
Date: 02 Sep 04 - 05:40 PM

[.................................................................]

(insert several paragraphs of tedious, repetitious counter-claims and examples above)

thank you,.... *whew* that's a LOT less work!

Subject: RE: Faith in People & their goodness
From: Little Hawk
Date: 02 Sep 04 - 06:30 PM

Yes, but is it as much fun, Bill? :-)

Subject: RE: Faith in People & their goodness
From: Bill D
Date: 02 Sep 04 - 06:52 PM

Little Hawk...I can't decide whether some of this is fun, work, knee-jerk response, moral duty or programmed response to on-screen **error messages**....

What it ultimately is, is my attempt to clarify my own thinking and opinions using the best tools I have available, and to leave at least one reasonably coherent set of alternative views about some of these issues for others to read. Max claims these posts may be around for years yet, and who knows...I might be famous! ;>)

I do know we are being collected by Google's spiders now, as I looked up the phrase "self fullfilling hypothesis", and found one of my own recent posts as the 3rd to last hit!....I guess your opinions are at least as easy to find, if someone puts in the right keywords.