We are ALL inherently evil...

[z00se]

Hahaha, not the typical taoist view, or the view of most on here, but equally true non the less, to the common 'We are inherently good' view people often speak of on here.

 

I can't claim this view as something i made up myself, i heard it listening to christian radio since my aerial in my car is terrible and it was the only station i could get clearly. Sounded strange at the start, but the way the speaker explained it, it made good sense. Speakers like this give me respect for Christianity, there are indeed some clever Christians who honestly do understand god / tao. It got me thinking and i would like to share his ideas with some of my own.

 

His argument was that we are all sinners, the idea of the original sin was Christian and it was a great contribution to society. The fact is we all do things against what we think we should do, or that perfection that most of us believe we should be. We all have bad thoughts that are against our religious, cultural or moral beliefs. I'm sure even a Buddhist may want to kill that damn mosquito that keeps buzzing near his ear and biting him all over when he's trying to sleep in bed. Bad thoughts creep into our minds, we have selfish desires where we look out for ourselves ahead of others, OUR family members over OTHER'S family members. Thinking of ourselves as autonomous or separate is what he defined as being sin. Being whole and at one with everything, that is heavenly.

 

So the fact is that EVERYBODY has these thoughts, from the moment they are born (babys are indeed incredibly autonomus). So this sinning, or evilness is a part of us, it is always there. We don't need to try to be good, or try to follow what we believe is tao, god, or any of that, because all those sins and good acts we do are all a part of tao or god. There is no need to feel defensive, or despair about 'dirty', or 'evil' thoughts that enter our mind. When somebody tells us we are no good, have poor technique, little qigong knowledge, no real understanding, etc, etc, we shouldn't try to reject it, we should accept it, listen to it, make realizations from it, grow from it. It's better to accept these bad things about us, and the bad things others say about us, and rather listen to them so that we can understand ourselves better, or at the very least other people's opinions of us.

 

We can try to weed out these thoughts, and try to make ourselves 'good', or heavenly, but it is a constant battle until we are on our death bed. We ARE evil, constantly striving to be 'good' or heavenly, but when we realize this, we don't need to worry about our sins, we all are sinners and we all do wrong.

 

If you were inherently good, then why do you all have these evil 'bad' thoughts? Why do you sin every day, and do thing that are evil or against your beliefs? Why do you keep hurting yourself and others, and on a daily basis wreak your diamond body for some fleeting selfish desires?

 

YES YOU!!! WHY??? hahaha

 

Do you see my point? Isn't it more uplifting and easier to accept if you look at yourself as inherently evil? Easier to realize who and what you are and accept all of who and what you are? A simple shift in perspective makes something much easier to accept, something that has no right or wrong way of being looked at, so long as the acceptance and realization occurs?

 

Forget texts, forget the web pages, forget Lao Tzu what do you think?

 

[Seeker of Wisdom]

Maybe if someone is struggling with feeling like an awful sinner (from an oppressive Christian background or whatever), the perspective of that guy might be extremely liberating for them, like how some people need to go through the satanic ritual blasphemy thing for a while to get over harsh conditioning.

 

But for me, it's more uplifting and useful to see these flaws as a lack of skill based on false views, which can be uprooted through gnosis. I tend to prefer 'unskilful' or 'ignorant/delusional' to 'evil/sinful'. And I don't think it's something that has to be inherent to us - it is not based on the nature of reality, so it can be cleared by seeing reality, therefore we have the inherent capacity to be free of it.

 

I definitely agree with not ignoring negative traits, learning from them, etc - 'use poison as medicine'. But as a cultivator, I want to either remove my unskilful traits or harness them skilfully (definitely not repress them though!), not because I hate myself for being 'evil', but because someone who cares for himself doesn't want to stay deluded when gnosis is possible.

 

I think many people would be better off with that guy's ideas than the 'we are horrible sinners, so feel bad about it and try to repress your evil, even though you can't be good anyway' bilge though, I respect his thoughts. Makes way more sense, and much more healthy.

Edited November 9, 2014 by Seeker of Wisdom

[Marblehead]

I can't claim this view as something i made up myself, i heard it listening to christian radio

Yes, one will hear stuff like that on Christian radio programs. And we are born in sin too.

 

Please leave me out of those baskets, Okay?

[johndoe2012]

No we are good not evil.

 

The evil is a cause of the original split which results in rage and ultimately violence.

 

Some Christians then project their original self as God and seek externally for this God even though he cannot be found.

[dust]

 

edit, just to say: I think we're inherently selfish. That can be turned either way.

Edited November 9, 2014 by dustybeijing

[thelerner]

Personally I've always disliked the original sin philosophy. I think taking a creation myth and using it to form a pretty dark philosophy isn't good. The whole 'thoughts' can make you evil is similar to the farce of never say Jehovah. I think our actions are much more important then stray thoughts.

Teaching kids (& adults) that they are inherently evil feels controlling and sets up a standard that can't be met but flows into you deserve eternal extreme torture for being born human, unless you follow my rules/system/religion. More about control then bettering people.

 

I think we have free will to do good/help others or bad/selfish. I don't think basing ones actions on old creation myths is a good idea, but we improve our lives and create a better world when we work together and help each other, no particular theology needed.

Edited November 10, 2014 by thelerner

[Taomeow]

Here's a theory of mine:

 

the word "sin" originally meant "wrongdoings against you," not "wrongdoings by you." It stood for "damage to your wholeness," not "damage you cause." "Sinful" meant "compromised, tampered with." If this hypothesis is correct, then the original sin is real. We are born victims of a crime against humanity perpetrated by demiurges who created or, more likely, refurbished us toward their own goals.

 

From this point there's three paths we can take.

 

The victim of a crime can proceed to identify with the perpetrator -- and that's where evil would come from.

 

Or he or she can embrace the state of being a victim -- and that's where all the ideas of self-sacrifice, a self in need of being sacrificed to this or that cause, come from.

 

In the first case it's evil we perpetuate against others, in the second, against ourselves.

 

The third route is to acknowledge the damage and undertake to correct it -- in oneself, leaving others out of it. This would mean return to the original wholeness. Human wholeness, not otherworldly.

 

The first two routes are popular and easy, all you have to do is replicate the program. The third is rare and difficult, because you have to use a program that is not imprinted into your make-up experientially, the program that has been deleted, overwritten by other programs. You have to find it and restore it without having been shown where to find it and how to implement it, unlike in the case of either doing damage to self (you know how, you've been done damage to) or others (you know how, others have done damage to you). This task of course cannot be accomplished in the head, because the program is not in the head, it's systemic. I think of the original taoism as either such program, or an attempt to find it.

[Brian]

I think you are spot-on, TaoMeow.

 

I would add that radio evangelists are rarely devout practitioners of their faith -- and that the converse is equally true.

 

Think about what the content of an open-mic TaoBums radio station might be like...

[dawei]

If your going to view yourself as 'something' apart then you've already lost your sense of Unity. To me, this is closer to the meaning of having lost innocence/paradise; Sin.

 

I have heard other religious folks explain its original meaning as "missing the bulls-eye" and I think my point is similar; not in the center of Unity.

 

The easy way that I resolved this (and I was mixed up in this conservative realm for a long time) is to consider two living things:

1. Babies. Clearly this is as close to unity and naturalness as it gets... are they evil ? NO.

 

So why do we even entertain the idea of evil... due to our later existence, not our beginnings...

 

2. Animals. Clearly, animals have a loving side and care for their own but they are much more aware of the harsh realities of survival and the need to 'eat or be eaten'. They can kill without hesitation. Why are they considered natural and not considered evil ?

 

Thus, man seems to focus so much on himself and then seek some meaning in life and find a purpose... etc... Not so for babies and animals. They remain centered.

 

I would say man's awareness of his existence (ie: which can border infatuation with self) bolstered by the ability to think, plan, muse, and plot give us a spectrum of peaceful civility to lunacy. And because of this we want to call that evil?

 

We're just one of ten thousand in this playground.

 

Our advantage is that if we become apart or stray from being centered, we have the ability to return/transcend/transform from that place.

[bax44]

Yes, one will hear stuff like that on Christian radio programs. And we are born in sin too.

 

Please leave me out of those baskets, Okay?

 

ditto.

[idquest]

LET’S SET THE EXISTENCE-OF-GOD ISSUE ASIDE FOR A later volume, and just stipulate that in some way, self-replicating organisms came into existence on this planet and immediately began trying to get rid of each other, either by spamming their environments with rough copies of themselves, or by more direct means which hardly need to be belabored. Most of them failed, and their genetic legacy was erased from the universe forever, but a few found some way to survive and to propagate. After about three billion years of this sometimes zany, frequently tedious fugue of carnality and carnage, Godfrey Waterhouse IV was born, in Murdo, South Dakota, to Blanche, the wife of a Congregational preacher named Bunyan Waterhouse. Like every other creature on the face of the earth, Godfrey was, by birthright, a stupendous badass, albeit in the somewhat narrow technical sense that he could trace his ancestry back up a long line of slightly less highly evolved stupendous badasses to that first self-replicating gizmo—which, given the number and variety of its descendants, might justifiably be described as the most stupendous badass of all time. Everyone and everything that wasn’t a stupendous badass was dead.

 

Neal Stephenson, Cryptonomicon

 

We are the result of the evolution and we are badasses because we have to fight for scarce resources with competitors - this is what N. Stephenson (my favourate sci-fi author) says. You can regard this as an original sin out of which you should evolve spiritually, as OP is saying (or so I understood the OP).

[Aetherous]

If we can fall short of our highest ideals at times, then it's true that we are all inherently evil.

If we can rise above our destructive tendencies at times, for the greater good/our ideals, and if we take pleasure in this transmutation, then it's true that we all have an inherent goodness/Buddha nature.

 

How can it be true that we're both inherently good and inherently evil?

 

This contemplation reminds me of a passage from James in the Bible:

9 With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse human beings, who have been made in God’s likeness. 10 Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers and sisters, this should not be. 11 Can both fresh water and salt water flow from the same spring? 12 My brothers and sisters, can a fig tree bear olives, or a grapevine bear figs? Neither can a salt spring produce fresh water.

 

The popular Native American idea of the "two wolves" put it in a way that's less koan-like, and perhaps easier to put into practice:

 

An elderly Cherokee Native American was teaching his grandchildren about life...

He said to them, "A fight is going on inside me, it is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves.

One wolf is evil -- he is fear, anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, competition, superiority, and ego.

The other is good---he is joy, peace, love, hope, sharing, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, friendship, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith.

This same fight is going on inside you, and inside every other person, too."

They thought about it for a minute and then one child asked his grandfather, "Which wolf will win?"

The old Cherokee simply replied: "The one you feed".

 

Evidence abounds in our world of either extreme point of view being equally true...that we're evil, or that we're good. Which one do we feed? That is our "cultivation".

[Michael Sternbach]

What is seen as evil by some people can be good or natural to others. The first step towards a true understanding of self is dropping rigid categorization. Actually, this is the position of Daoism which states that postulating the dichotomy of good and evil creates the problem in the first place.

Edited November 9, 2014 by Michael Sternbach

[Aetherous]

What is seen as evil by some people can be good or natural to others. The first step towards a true understanding of self is dropping rigid categorization. Actually, this is the position of Daoism which states that postulating the dichotomy of good and evil creates the problem in the first place.

 

[liminal_luke]

Yes, almost all people are both kind and mean, loving and cruel, depending on circumstances. And yet I´m firmly of the opinion that we´re inherently good, not evil. Here´s why.

 

What happens when we do the hard soulwork of gathering together all the fragmented traumatized parts of our being and become whole? We become more compassionate. You can´t be well put together on the inside, integrated and harmonious, without also becoming a more loving person.

 

Evil is all about fragmentation. When we become who we really are that person always turns out to be good. If we seem evil it´s only because we have more work to do.

 

Liminal

[Marblehead]

edit, just to say: I think we're inherently selfish. That can be turned either way.

Yes, now this I can accept. And you are right, it can turn either way.

[iain]

Pranam,

There was me thinking that we are inherently sentient apes, herbivores who resort to carnivorous activities when needs must, and then eventually to cannibalism when we become over crowded perhaps pressured by environmental factors to do so, such as the weather; food for thought there.

Good evil or black and white, this kind of thinking is highly limited.

The vedic view is I think best, we were spiritual much more advanced prior to the bronze age.

Edited November 9, 2014 by iain

[GrandmasterP]

We choose to do good or evil.

Most people would do you a good turn before they would ever deliberately do you a bad turn.

By and large people are good.

Edited November 9, 2014 by GrandmasterP

[Michael Sternbach]

Yes, almost all people are both kind and mean, loving and cruel, depending on circumstances. And yet I´m firmly of the opinion that we´re inherently good, not evil. Here´s why.

 

What happens when we do the hard soulwork of gathering together all the fragmented traumatized parts of our being and become whole? We become more compassionate. You can´t be well put together on the inside, integrated and harmonious, without also becoming a more loving person.

 

Evil is all about fragmentation. When we become who we really are that person always turns out to be good. If we seem evil it´s only because we have more work to do.

 

I see what you mean. As we become more integrated ourselves, we have an integrating influence on our environment as well. This equals being good - beyond adhering to a book of "dos" and "don'ts". Very naturally, very daoistically... Excellent explanation!

[PLB]

So the fact is that EVERYBODY has these thoughts, from the moment they are born (babys are indeed incredibly autonomus). So this sinning, or evilness is a part of us, it is always there. We don't need to try to be good, or try to follow what we believe is tao, god, or any of that, because all those sins and good acts we do are all a part of tao or god.

 

If it is true that we are evil from the start, wouldn't the condition strengthen arguments made by those who claim only enough people following some "path of righteousness" keep the world from dissolving into an orgy of murder, rape, and pilaging?

 

Your depiction of evil avoids discussing the very worst things human do to each other. If the concept doesn't start with that awful reality, I don't see what possible meaning it could have for the rest of our existence.

[silent thunder]

If we were evil at our core, we would have died off long ago.

 

The basic human drive is to help one another and pick each other up.

 

Else, we would long have since ceased to be.

[Nungali]

What is seen as evil by some people can be good or natural to others. The first step towards a true understanding of self is dropping rigid categorization. Actually, this is the position of Daoism which states that postulating the dichotomy of good and evil creates the problem in the first place.

 

 

Thank you !

 

I was going to point out some MAJOR flaws in the first post ... but you saved me the trouble.

 

 

But still ... all of us ... inherently evil ?

 

Hey Christians ... make a up term ... apply a definition ... declare I am it ... now offer to 'save me' ...

 

my honest response to that is against the rules here ...

 

Speak for and about yourself Christian radio broadcaster and z00se !

 

Dont try to include me and everyone else in your perversions, just so you feel better about having them.

 

- We are all born in sin and intrinsically bad ....

 

 

 

Edited November 10, 2014 by Nungali

[Nungali]

You are all evil, bad to the core - naturally, you were born in sin

 

So hang your heads in shame and line up to trudge into church ... the factories ... the armies ... because . franky you are a worthless individual ... listen to us ... we have worth ... we know how to 'make you better '

 

Yeah ? - I've always liked the 'liberation theology' approach : Time to 'clear out the temple again! '

 

 

 

Time to 'clear out the temple again! '

Edited November 10, 2014 by Nungali

[silent thunder]

It's a sad way to view the world, but I know I have definitely been in places in my life where I agreed.

 

Thankfully, one constant of life is change.

Edited November 10, 2014 by silent thunder

[Marblehead]

 

 

 

 

Time to 'clear out the temple again! '

I actually like that and I should be ashamed of myself for feeling that way.