Why are so many people so bad?

[quatona]

Not with "because that's the way it is", but if we assumed a spiritual realm, then we have a fairly complete explanation of evil from the Bible. The fall of Lucifer, the temptation and Fall of Adam & Eve, the line of sin passed from generation to generation, etc.

Well, so you didn´t mean "spriritual realm" but "Christian mythology". Ok.
The fall, however, doesn´t explain why they fell.

I'm just wondering what the materialists proffer as an explanation for badness vs. goodness.

There are plenty of explanation that work with or without your God.

 

[quatona]

Of course not. If we were assuming the existence of a spiritual realm, it would indicate that there are "outside" forces at work to influence people towards doing things that are bad.

How exactly is "there are outside forces" a better explanation than "there are inside forces"?

 

[dysert]

How exactly is "there are outside forces" a better explanation than "there are inside forces"?

If we assume the existence of a spiritual realm, then we have a body of evidence (the Bible) that explains these outside forces and to some extent what they do. Is there an explanation if we're only talking about inside forces?

 

[Halbhh]

This is a serious question. Let's pretend, for the sake of this thread, that there is no spiritual realm and there was no Fall. What reason do people give for the abundance of bad people? Thieves, liars, sexual predators, murderers, etc. It's rife, and it's non-stop. In the absence of a spiritual realm, why are so many people so bad?

By "bad" we really mean that precise things, like breaking this rule:
"So in everything, do to others as you would have them do to you, for this sums up the law"

Why do people do to others murder, rape, theft, slander, etc.?

And the lesser versions of harming others intentionally also: demeaning gossip, using people sexually, disregard for random strangers, prejudicial dislike (on just skin color or clothes, etc.)....

Why?

Because they are following their animal nature, the law of the jungle, which is to kill and take, and win. Or to use others like a bag of chips and then throw them in the trash.

Paul wrote about this pull on us in Romans chapter 7. We either follow the 'flesh', the power of sin acting through the body, or instead we follow the Spirit, from above.

 

[quatona]

If we assume the existence of a spiritual realm, then we have a body of evidence (the Bible) that explains these outside forces and to some extent what they do.

The good old "just claiming some agency is an explanation" thing? Your "explanation" would raise way more why-questions than it answers.

Is there an explanation if we're only talking about inside forces?

Sure there are - inside explanations that don´t require us to engage in mythological externalisations that just carry the questions to another level.
Of course, I still don´t get what exactly is in need of an explanation. Once we are at questions from incredulity, I tend to be more surprised about the collaborative abilities and efforts observed in humans than about the fact that they are limited.

 

[Allandavid]

I think you hold the minority opinion.

Maybe. But the facts don’t speak to opinions...they speak to reality. The vast, vast majority of people are not ‘bad’. They live their lives peacefully and harmoniously.

Moreover, despite what the ‘its all going to end’ crowd would have us believe, the world in total has never been more peaceful and less violent. And that’s not an opinion....look at the stats. You can be forgiven for thinking that America’s obscene level of gun violence is representative of a world gone crazy...but it isn’t. It’s a particularly ugly aberration in an otherwise improved world...

 

[Ana the Ist]

Do you think humans are born with this innate propensity to be bad, or is it learned behavior? Does evolution somehow drive humans toward the bad instead of the good?

It's a relationship between power and desires/wants.

 

[DogmaHunter]

Of course not. If we were assuming the existence of a spiritual realm, it would indicate that there are "outside" forces at work to influence people towards doing things that are bad. Being influenced is different from actually committing the act. And it would explain why all people have an evil bent since we've all been affected by the sin of the Fall.

"All" people?
I think you are moving on thin ice.

I'll also add that you are actually kind of agreeing with what I said: that there is an "external" influence that is not human, which drives behaviour or at least tries to.

You know, in court, there is a name for that... not sure what the correct terminology is in in English, but a literal translation from my native language would be something like "eased circumstances".

If you get convicted for something with that qualifier, it means that the court only considers you partly responsible... that you were under the influence of something which made sure that you weren't "fully" aware or in control of what you were doing.

It means that if under "normal" circumstances you would get, let's say, 20 years in prison... now you'll get only 1 year. Or maybe even no jail time at all and just some fine or something.

Just wanted to point that out.

 

[Everybodyknows]

It is relevant because if there is a spiritual realm, this realm could include an evil side, which would easily account for man's propensity toward evil.

Perhaps then we need some higher super-spiritual realm to explain Satan's propensity toward evil in the spiritual realm. After all Satan would need some outside forces to influence him to do bad things.

I just wanted to look at the question from a purely secular/materialistic pov (if possible).

It's actually not that difficult. Unfortunately most Christians start with the assumption that, without some kind of external moral reference point, good equates to only acting in ones own interest . E.g. If it's in my advantage to kill another then it can't be considered immoral. This assumption is wrong because it doesn't take into account that for a social species cooperative behavior is highly advantageous.

Once we take cooperation into account it becomes possible to determine a moral reference point completely internal to ourselves. It's not an objective moral reference though, as it varies, changes and responds to changing times, cultures and social structures. I view morality as a balancing act between self interest and tribe interest.

 

[Cearbhall]

Let's pretend, for the sake of this thread, that there is no spiritual realm and there was no Fall. What reason do people give for the abundance of bad people? Thieves, liars, sexual predators, murderers, etc. It's rife, and it's non-stop. In the absence of a spiritual realm, why are so many people so bad?

I don't understand what significance you're giving to the absence of a spiritual realm. Why does that make it strange that people do bad things?

 

[Chesterton]

We judge good and bad by the effects of actions on ourselves and others, they aren't part of the nature of reality themselves, rather good and bad are labels we give to our experiences of reality.

It's not always true that we judge by the effects, but even if it were, it begs the question of why one effect is labeled good and another bad. And saying "they aren't part of the nature of reality", is another way of saying they don't exist. So, again, it begs the question of why we label our experiences that way.

If by bad you mean they taste bad then yes I agree. If by bad you mean morally bad then Brussels sprouts aren't definable.

I meant, are they objectively bad because I think they're bad, taste-wise, morally, or otherwise.

Also what is special about a spiritual realm which allows good and bad to be defined in it which the physical realm lacks?

It would provide a basis or standard which simply can't exist in this physical universe. Kind of like how a gold standard used to define cash money. Paper money itself has no value. Likewise, physics and chemistry have no values.

 

[Belk]

This is a serious question. Let's pretend, for the sake of this thread, that there is no spiritual realm and there was no Fall. What reason do people give for the abundance of bad people? Thieves, liars, sexual predators, murderers, etc. It's rife, and it's non-stop. In the absence of a spiritual realm, why are so many people so bad?

For the exact same reason that there is an abundance of good people. Because humans tend to classify actions as either good or bad and so both exist. It is like asking why we classify some foods as "tasty" and others as "gross". Because we are humans and we label things.

 

[essentialsaltes]

 

[keith99]

The OP assumes things not in evidence. Far more people are god than bad. It is just that bad can be so spectacular.

And of the bad many are simply hungry or envious or greedy not doing harm for harms sake but taking from others because they want what they are taking (or what it can buy).

Some time ago we found a small dog. Leaving it would have been a death sentence, there are coyotes. We already had of our own. We checked and he was chipped, but that lead to a disconnected number 100 miles away. We back up to a park. We decided to walk that huge block, posting found dog posters and checking with people along the way.

We were 5 houses from completing that trip. When a young man on a beater bike rode up. He had been looking for the little guy for over an hour. It belonged to an old lady living in an assisted living home. This kid made minimum wage and he spent his time to find teh dog of an old lady, just because.

Why is there so much good in the world if the Christian myths are true?

 

[bhsmte]

This is a serious question. Let's pretend, for the sake of this thread, that there is no spiritual realm and there was no Fall. What reason do people give for the abundance of bad people? Thieves, liars, sexual predators, murderers, etc. It's rife, and it's non-stop. In the absence of a spiritual realm, why are so many people so bad?

People who are in desperate situations, people who came from a poor upbringing, people with psychological disorders, a more competitive world that pushes people to do things they otherwise wouldn't do, etc. etc.

 

[bhsmte]

While I appreciate your reply, it violates the assumptions set out in the OP. Without the Bible, why are so many people so bad?

When you say bad, I assume you are talking about those who harm others and commit crimes. IMO, that has zero to do with religion or lack of religion.

Many of the least religious countries in the world, have the lowest crime rates and highest standards of living (low poverty, low crime, higher education, etc.).

 

[Dirk1540]

Well thats a great post. I'm mostly uneducated in philosophy too, so I'm not bothered by that one bit.

"Meaning" is a excellent issue to examine for exploring materialism vs the soul or spirit.

When I put on my materialist lab coat (which I'm not always wearing), the explanation I give for meaning goes like this:

The eye evolved to doing seeing tasks (as you noted).
The ear evolved to do hearing tasks.

But the human brain evolved the capacity to do thinking tasks. And while the specific thinking tasks needed for survival were probably pretty finite, the mere capacity to think opens us to near infinite possibilities or ideas: in other words imagination, the capacity to invent things and ideas that are currently not real - or perhaps may never even be real.

Among those ideas is could well be "why?".
Why do seasons change and come back around in a circular fashion?
Why does lighting split the tree in half?
Why am I here?

A related explanation is that we observe in our own minds a purpose for every action we ourselves do.
Why do I make fire? To cook food.
Why do we go north? To hunt bison.
etc.
And, finding a positive reasonable answer for every question, we project that sort of expectation onto nature, onto everything, resulting in questions like:
Why am I here?
Why is the world here?
etc.

So, I think thats the origin of the demand for meaning. We dont demand it because its actually out there (though it may well be). We demand it because we have the basic capacity to ask why. And a single unanswered "why?", when everything else seem to have an answer, is really unsettling.

You're right, 'Belief in meaning as pointing towards the existence of meaning' vs 'Beings with higher levels of cognitive/curious traits that naturally results in thoughts about meaning' are great theories to pit against each other. At the end of the day I simply believe that every time this 'Meaning' trait of ours causes evolutionary theory to look like it has gone awry, that nudges me closer to siding with the 1st theory, that meaning is an actual thing. Now personally I don't think that the reverse would be true, that if something makes evolutionary sense it would drive me towards the 2nd theory (since evolution could be part of the stage among this grand play called human meaning).

The unanimity factor of the human obsession with meaning nudges me towards the 1st theory. This factor actually turns into a 2 part question. When a human sits on top of a cliff and stares at all the different species doing there thing, it's not just a 'Why?' question (about this existence up on this cliff) that's ingrained inside of the human mind, but it's also a 'Why am I the only species obsessed with asking Why?' that is strangely only a trait that we humans have. Unanimity in and of itself is evolutionarily strange to me. But the unanimity factor of curiosity driven invention is even more strange to me because it is absolutely crushing the 'Survival of the fittest' capabilities of so many non-human species, how many species will humans cause to go extinct before a 2nd species evolves with creative intelligence of their own in order to protect themselves from us? This monopoly we have on curious creative intelligence (which causes the byproduct of a belief in meaning) strikes me as not making any evolutionary sense. Other species should be competing. This is evolution flat out playing favorites.

This curiosity/meaning quirk also damages the literal mother nature that created us. Even prior to technology humans have done disastrous things to mother nature like relocate other species around the planet, totally disturbing natural predator/prey balances. Start opening the conversation up to human results of curiosity driven technology and the list goes on & on...we've damaged the ozone layer, we've dumped toxic waste all over the planet, we can now cause a nuclear holocaust on Mother Earth, etc. I think it would make more sense for mother nature to find a 'Better Solution' to deal with this psychopath species called humans, instead of just letting us run our course until we end our own existence (how about unleashing a much stronger Black Plaque on us? That would make sense to me as a smarter evolutionary solution). Actually I might take that back...I first believe that it would make more evolutionary sense for this disastrous 'Meaning' trait to never evolve in the first place.

I don't want to present straw man counter arguments (well, I'm more thinking out loud than arguing with you) but in my experience the counter often comes back that Earth doesn't care, that humans are a joke and the 4.5 billion year old Earth will just heal itself eventually. But I think this is like a person who likes to cut themselves as long as they don't cut too deep and cause fatal consequences (cutting yourself, a whacky behavior original to only humans). Wouldn't allowing the continued existence of humans actually be like mother nature cutting herself in a sense?

Now it is true that other organisms have wreaked havoc on mother nature (as opposed to respecting the parameters that Earth gave them to live in). But these are organisms that don't even register on the scale of cognitive self awareness. Very strange how the self destructive (towards) Earth trait completely skips over all organisms that are even remotely self aware, and lands right on us humans, the most self aware organisms that there are. It's a constant tugging on me that there is something 'Special' going on with our evolutionary status. I've said it before in here that I think it's strange that in biology class we are 99% identical to chimps, but in history class you feel like you should have your head examined if you think that humans are similar to chimps. Which implies to me that physiological similarity is drastically overrated.

Have u ever seen the very bizarre movie Clockwork Orange? If you have, they took a sick twisted violent criminal and they did an experiment on him. After the experiment he became extremely nauseous any time the urge to commit violence came upon him...he couldn't do it anymore. I think it would at least make more evolutionary sense for our curious/meaning trait to be accompanied by a much higher natural degree of disgust at the thought of harming the mother nature that provides for us.

Other species are so much better then humans with being innately knowledgeable about not destroying their natural habitat. The Clockwork Orange analogy, I think a toddler (if evolutionary survival instincts were the same for humans as other species) SHOULD not have an instinct to want to rip the family's garden apart if he is accidentally left inside of it. The child has just destroyed the family's food supply, that instinct makes no sense!! There should be a Clockwork Orange type of 'Bad' instinctive feelings about doing that.

Now, humans DO have the instincts to take care of their habitat to a certain extent, that is true, BUT the strength of such an instinct pales in comparison to other species. It seems to me like that's a major hint that our instincts are in PROPER proportion for caring more about meaning than for caring about habitat proliferation. After the infant phase, that toddler cares more about his toy then he even cares about eating dinner, and even if he didn't eat yet and is hungry he'll cry if you yank him away from the current 'Meaning' he has attached to that toy.

Our good traits are also bizarre, not just the bad. Things such as altruistic actions that not only do not benefit us, but actually hurt our survival situation.

I mean even if I threw the Bible out, and became skeptical & cynical about every faith, I still can see myself defaulting into the belief that humans are at least evolutionarily 'Special' in a bad way. That humans are the only species that we know of that ponders meaning is bizarre enough...but couple that with evolution playing favorites with the one and only species that ponders meaning and I think that puts us in a situation where something else is going on here...and IMO what's going on is that these are all clues that meaning is actually a true reality outside of chemical compositions of human brain matter.

 

[SolomonVII]

This is a serious question. Let's pretend, for the sake of this thread, that there is no spiritual realm and there was no Fall. What reason do people give for the abundance of bad people? Thieves, liars, sexual predators, murderers, etc. It's rife, and it's non-stop. In the absence of a spiritual realm, why are so many people so bad?

Once people are self-aware and self-conscious, they become intimately aware of their own vulnerability and their own mortality. Realizing that you are naked means realizing that you can be hurt.
And, to understand how you are vulnerable, and what causes you pain gives you an understanding of what you can do to hurt others the most.

Animals do not have that consciousness of their own mortality or that sense of vulnerability. They live in the moment, they do not see into their future. They are therefore not capable of evil. Every action that an animal does is instinctual and based in a reaction to their present environment. Hens peck at those lower on the pecking order not to hurt the other chicken, but because that is what chickens do to establish their place in chicken society. There is plenty of pain involved, but no malice, no consciousness of the other's pain.
It is a person's self awareness of his or her own vulnerabilities that makes evil possible.

 

[Everybodyknows]

It's not always true that we judge by the effects,

Then how else?

but even if it were, it begs the question of why one effect is labeled good and another bad.

Because it either benefits us or is to our detriment.

And saying "they aren't part of the nature of reality", is another way of saying they don't exist. So, again, it begs the question of why we label our experiences that way.

Events exist in reality. But we label our experience of those events as good or bad by how they affect us. Our labeling of those events is subjective with our own (or tribe) well-being as a frame of reference.

I meant, are they objectively bad because I think they're bad, taste-wise, morally, or otherwise.

How can an inanimate object be objectively bad? Sprouts are good for someone who likes them, bad for someone who doesn't and worse for someone who's allergic. In order to determine if something is bad one must first ask bad for who?

It would provide a basis or standard which simply can't exist in this physical universe. Kind of like how a gold standard used to define cash money. Paper money itself has no value. Likewise, physics and chemistry have no values.

I'm still not following your argument of why this moral gold standard can exist in a spiritual realm but not in a physical one? Or indeed if it exists at all?

 

[Freodin]

This is a serious question. Let's pretend, for the sake of this thread, that there is no spiritual realm and there was no Fall. What reason do people give for the abundance of bad people? Thieves, liars, sexual predators, murderers, etc. It's rife, and it's non-stop. In the absence of a spiritual realm, why are so many people so bad?

A possible explanation.
The way humans developed over the last few thousand millenia has stripped us from most of the instinctive behaviour that guides social interaction of many other species. Not all, but most. I can be argued that the "higher" a species is developed in mental capacity, the less instinct-driven its actions are.
One thing that replaced instinct in social interaction is "empathy"... but because of the unavoidable limitations of the human mind (or the "material" mind at all), it doesn't really work that well.
Human empathy only works reasonably well when we accept - unconciously or rationally - the other being as on the same level as ourselves. And because we are "stuck" in our own minds, this fails very often.
(eta: as an interesting fact: empathy can also misfire because of that.)

The "Golden Rule" shows the basic concept of empathy: the other is equal to the self.
But as this is neither obvious nor instinctive... people fail to adhere to this rule.

And you will find that everything that we call "evil" is derived from that.

(Sidenote: based on that one can argue that, with a "spiritual realm" in the Christian sense, evil is unavoidable, because the basic structure of this spiritual realm violates the Golden Rule.)