For a quick change of place. "HELP PEOPLE DON'T TREAT ME LIKE A NORMAL PERSON BECAUSE I IDENTIFY AS A POKEDEX"

submitted by Alienhunter糞大名 from (reddit.com)

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[–]Alienhunter糞大名[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

I think part of it kinda plays back into the idea presented in the Genesis myth. The fruit eaten in from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Someone who eats of it becomes "like God" in the sense that they now know the difference between good and evil. Adam and Eve eat it, achieve enlightenment, realize they are naked, and are cast out of paradise, but really they do become like God in a sense. They know how to make life, which is why they realized their nakedness, they also know how to take life. And that really is the difference between humans and animals is that we know what we are doing and can project our will onto the world albeit through what limited resources are available to us. I very much doubt that a Lion has a crisis of conscience when it kills it's rivals cubs. Whereas we see that and think it's terrible.

I do think everyone is "capable" of comitting evil though. It doesn't mean that they will, we properly recognize that murder is horrible, we won't do it. But given the right context and prompting just about anyone can be "corrupted" into comitting unspeakable acts. The acts themselves are unspeakable because we understand that by describing these acts we are in some way allowing for the idea of evil to come into existence, and then it is only a matter of time before someone will take that idea and attempt to make it a reality. I think people are rightly scared of confronting their own inner darkness because it makes us uncomfortable to see that part of ourselves. But I also think that if we don't confront it, it can grow and cause us to justify otherwise what was once "unthinkable".

I think in some way the essence of being "human" not in the physical sense but the "spiritual" sense is a certain adherence to what we'd describe as "good" and that we can in our own ways, trade our souls either all at once or in pieces for "power". Essentially making a deal with the devil. It rarely works out to our long term benefit but it is in the short term an exchange many will be willing to make. Fiction deals with this concept quite a bit as the Faustian exchange.

Society exists in some way to counter these "evil" impulses but can easily become the evil actor as well.

For a less extreme example, we all know that when we visit a friends house, we can probably just steal their shit when they aren't looking. Almost nobody will do this, or even think of the possibility because it's entirely counter to the development of friendship. And clearly if we are "human" the risks outweigh the reward. But if we choose to trade our friendship for free shit we can make that Faustian exchange at the cost of our own soul.

[–]LyingSpirit472 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I do think everyone is "capable" of comitting evil though. It doesn't mean that they will, we properly recognize that murder is horrible, we won't do it. But given the right context and prompting just about anyone can be "corrupted" into comitting unspeakable acts. The acts themselves are unspeakable because we understand that by describing these acts we are in some way allowing for the idea of evil to come into existence, and then it is only a matter of time before someone will take that idea and attempt to make it a reality. I think people are rightly scared of confronting their own inner darkness because it makes us uncomfortable to see that part of ourselves. But I also think that if we don't confront it, it can grow and cause us to justify otherwise what was once "unthinkable".

Honestly, on this part I'd go in the exact opposite direction from your logic: Where you think not confronting your own inner darkness can cause people to justify what was once unthinkable, I would argue that accepting your own inner darkness will lead to the prompting you mentioned to make people do what was once unthinkable. By accepting you have an inner darkness and impulse for evil in yourself, it leads to these unthinkable deeds being desensitized to, and accepting those unthinkable deeds as something that just happens, and anyone or anything is capable of doing it...and anyway, your life is just as bad as this person who committed the atrocity's was, so really there but for the grace of god go you...and what makes you think you're so much better than this person who did it, anyway? If they could break like that, surely you could as well, and you have so many better reasons to break than they did- why, you really ARE on the side of right when you do this and it really is society that has to pay for it, so really you doing this is the most just and heroic thing anyone could ever do...and when the smoke clears someone staring into the abyss has caused them to break bad to do it as well. (We're seeing this with how many incels are the ones committing these atrocities, and it starting due to Elliot Rodger becoming a folk hero to them instead of the monster he was- the abyss stared back at them, and it caused this to occur.)

This really ties into the same point- it's not just "people have the power to not commit an atrocity", but rather "they are powerless NOT to commit the atrocity because they're just as bad as the person who did it." Your less extreme example worked, but for a less extreme "positive" example of this side, you'd have, for example, Alcoholics' Anonymous and its related groups using the "you have a disease that you are powerless to fight yourself, and only the help of God/a higher power will help you cure yourself of this disease." Now, there's nothing inherently STOPPING an atheist/agnostic person from trying to cure themselves of drug/alcohol addiction or succeeding at this, and if they do so more power to them, but by the rules of AA it flat-out says "you MUST start believing in God to be cured of your disease, and if you do not you will be a drug addict/an alcoholic forever because you're just not strong enough to do it yourself". Regardless of the chances of the atheist/agnostic having success on their own, it doesn't matter. The self has no power to know right or wrong itself, it's only through this that you can do right or wrong.