Evil at the core?

I was reading a post by a fundie last night in an online forum. He said that humans are incapable of doing anything good, and they are evil at the core. I remember being taught this. It's the idea that we are all born so depraved, there is nothing good within us. Our only inclinations are toward evil things. The only way someone could possibly do something good is if they allow God to enter them and implant his goodness within them. Then, they can do good things. But, even then, they are not good, it's just God being good in them. So, even if someone is out making all kinds of sacrifices for the benefit of others, they still aren't considered a good person. That is all a result of God doing good things through them because there is nothing genuinely good about people themselves.

I have two thoughts on this. First, there is pretty solid evidence against this. Most of us do appear to have a natural inclination toward good things and an aversion to bad things. Most people don't need to be taught to not kill other people. In fact, most people are traumatized after being put in a position in which they must kill another human being, such as situations of war or self defense. The average person does not need to be taught to not molest little children and most of us are naturally appalled when we hear of someone that did. In fact, it seems when there is a child molester or a serial killer, etc., the person has something wrong in their brain that causes them to be that way. In other words, when our brains are working right, we have an aversion toward causing great harm to other people. Likewise, we get a good feeling when we help someone else out. Most people feel very good and even invigorated after providing help to someone else in need regardless of their religious or spiritual perspective.

Now, there is the side to us that is aimed only at our survival. We all have a level of selfishness. I don't believe this is a bad thing or that it is a bad side to us. If we weren't at least a little bit selfish, we wouldn't be able to survive. We'd be giving away our food to starving people as we starve ourselves or failing to provide for our children as we give our complete all to others. We have to be somewhat selfish. The problem occurs when we allow this part of us to get out of balance. But, the existence of this side of us is not automatically "bad."

So, there is plenty of evidence that there is indeed goodness in each of us, and it does seem that the only time we see people doing things that we call evil, the person has some sort of dysfunction in their brain. We are not all evil at the core. There is no war between our spirit and our flesh like many Christians propose. It is just a matter of keeping our various interests in the proper balance rather than a struggle to completely eliminate one side of us.

My second comment is more of a question. Is it healthy to teach this idea to children? Is it healthy to tell children that they are evil and incapable of goodness? That the goodness we see coming out of them isn't even from them, but from someone else projecting his goodness through them?

Fundies often say that a person cannot feel valuable until they have turned their lives over to God and found the truth. But, this "truth" teaches them that they are 100% evil...and somehow, this is supposed to make us feel better about ourselves? Fundies teach their children that none of us deserve love, but God loves us anyway. It is taught that we all deserve nothing other than unimaginable, eternal torture, but because God is so merciful, he will grant us otherwise. This furthers the idea that we all basically suck and are awfully lucky that God is good so he can fix all of us helplessly evil beings. I don't see how these principles are good for children to learn.

One thing I have noticed as an ex-Christian is how much better I feel about myself. I believe there is goodness in me that is very much a part of who I am. And I believe I have the capacity to foster that goodness so that I can become a better and better person over time. I value myself more than I ever have. And I feel more empowered to spread goodness in the world than I ever did as a Christian because I know that the power to do that is a part of me...I don't have to wait and ask for someone else to use his power to do that through me and hope he answers...I can do it myself.

And herein lies a theme you will find in this blog. While people generally think of Christianity as a good thing that makes people better, there are many things about it, particularly fundamentalist Christianity that not only don't make people better, but can actually be harmful and take away from their lives. I am not launching a campaign against Jesus or anything of the sort. I intend to speak plainly about the negative ideals that the fundie perspective gives to people, and to offer a critical evaluation of these ideals.