Quotes / To be good

While I type my response, I really want to make sure that I’m absolutely clear that I don’t mean to come off as mean or arrogant in anyway. I tend to write in a way that paints me in a bad light and I want to avoid anything like that.

I have no taste for current conventions. They change from week to week and I prefer to have something a bit more lasting adhering to the definitions that outlasted all of the civil revolts. “Man” in this context is to mean “(Hu)man”

Held onto every inch of the way. Good must be held onto every inch of one’s life, when faced with all of the twisting evil one is faced with every step one takes. Someone that takes a stranger into their home for the night, because they have nowhere else to say, is doing good. That stranger then takes advantage of them and, say, steals them blind. That good is vanquished, and the opportunity to help those that actually need it form that point on is stolen. That good, to help those that need it even though experience has taught them that not everyone is honest, must be held on to.

Why is it that if good is not born, then neither is evil? They stand at polar opposites of one another, and as a matter of fact is completely logical that if one is burn evil, or if one is born good, then the other is not birthed in tow. What you say only functions under Locke’s philosophy, that man is a blank slate and learns good or evil through enculturation.

This could be true, but no more true than noble primitivism (men are born good) and original sin (men are born evil). How is it, even if a child is not taught outright to lie, that said child will learn to lie regardless? It can only be that the seed for evil is already there, and it takes a conscious effort to suppress it.

Same for stealing, same for war, and so on and so on.

To wrap this up, I’d just like to sincerely thank you for taking the time to review my quote :).

You don’t seem mean or arrogant, just passionate.  I see what you mean now by ‘held on to’...  I think perhaps you might find a better way to express it, or simply delete it.  It’s really implied anyway. If good is made, the obviously you’d want to keep it, as you would anything worth making.

Re: born good/evil…  To me, Good and Evil are human constructs, made indeed.  But if one is made, the other is not natural.  As you say, the are polar opposites.  Neither concept exists without the other.

From my perspective, the more ‘in tune’ someone is with their nature, the more open one is to the unity of all Nature, the more they will naturally act ‘good’ as most people would describe it.  This isn’t moral though.  Balance and harmony appear as ‘good’ to some people.  But this has nothing to do with Heaven or Hell, or Santa’s Naughty List.  In that sense, yes, knowing Nature is cultivated, but it is inherently possible for all people.  We are BORN part of Nature, and nature is balanced.  One need not turn water into wine to know it.

Just my perspective.