Thread: Innately Evil

What kind of argument is "animals are evil?" The prevailing view is more like animals are innocent.

Regardless, we evolved from social animals, not solitary predators. Our ancestors have very likely been social animals much farther back than the primate phase of our evolution. Love and compassion are our survival instincts. Maintaining social bonds and helping one another are our survival instincts. Most often you see these instincts distorted in individuals who were 'cut off from the pack' in childhood, isolated in a loveless situation, or given distorted models of love.

Yes, bad things happen. We do what we can, as a society, to correct the situation, but we still have a lot of work to do.

Originally Posted by Taosaur

What kind of argument is "animals are evil?" The prevailing view is more like animals are innocent.

I don't know. Who's saying that?

Originally Posted by Taosaur

Regardless, we evolved from social animals, not solitary predators. Our ancestors have very likely been social animals much farther back than the primate phase of our evolution. Love and compassion are our survival instincts. Maintaining social bonds and helping one another are our survival instincts. Most often you see these instincts distorted in individuals who were 'cut off from the pack' in childhood, isolated in a loveless situation, or given distorted models of love.

Yes, bad things happen. We do what we can, as a society, to correct the situation, but we still have a lot of work to do.

Can an animal "love"? Can an animal be compassionate? Animals can't think enough to be "evil" or "good". They are just trying to survive. We get these survival instincts from them. We did evolve from social animals... but this doesn't make us good. Apes and monkeys are aggressive to defend their territory... they used these characteristics and innate traits to be dominant in their group and control. These were passed down to us.

Originally Posted by Grod

I don't know. Who's saying that?


Can an animal "love"? Can an animal be compassionate? Animals can't think enough to be "evil" or "good". They are just trying to survive. We get these survival instincts from them. We did evolve from social animals... but this doesn't make us good. Apes and monkeys are aggressive to defend their territory... they used these characteristics and innate traits to be dominant in their group and control. These were passed down to us.

So you're saying neither humans nor other animals are innately evil?

I was talking about animals other than us, but I think you already knew that.

Bringing this back to lucid dreaming. In another thread, people say that if you have sex in a lucid, it is very much like cheating on your real-life lover. How is the concept of doing other immoral deeds in a lucid dream different?

I'm not saying that humans are or aren't innately evil. I'm not saying that people can't control their selfishness through altruism. I'm saying that when stripped of societal boundaries, people are also stripped of this control (however gradual or fast this may occur, it will occur to some degree). Lucid dream acts such as rape and murder tend to confirm this postulate.

Also, I really like the book Lord of the Flies. <3