/christian/ - Christian Discussion and Fellowship

Technically neither, I think.

We are not born evil, but fallen and corrupted. If we were born evil there would be no hope for any potential goodness on our part. Our fallen nature makes it easy to commit evil works but I wouldn't even say it's "cultivated" in the sense that you can work on being evil, since Adam and Eve weren't given an evil cradling, but they nonetheless sinned. Maybe that's just not the right word to use.

It's like with St Augustine when he talks about how he and some fellow kids raided a neighbours orchard one night and stole loads of pears, not because they were hungry or because they wanted to hurt the guy, but just because it was wrong and doing wrong is "fun".

Considering that trashy book has a section where a little boy springs a boner over his half-brother being given mouth to mouth I'm going to have to say evil is written down on the page and made a bestseller

Is a tree?

Both? Sociopaths seem evil from birth, but they are a minority. For most people becoming evil is a slow process.

>>642614

People can be born with a predisposition to sociopathy but sociopaths are made, not born.

>>642642

Do you have evidence to support that?

>>642630

Wicked is an absolutely disgusting book and is proof of the idea that seeing what the lustful thinks are sexy would put you off sex. There's an bit where the author takes far too long describing the breasts of an elephant woman.

>>642605

Evil does not technically exist for it is the absence of good like darkness is the absence of light.

>>642678

>The darkness technically does not exist

Not really the point

>>642678

I disagree. The absence of compassion would be apathy, but beyond that there is sadism. Getting pleasure from harming others. That would be evil and is not simply the absence of good.

It is born. Every person has the original sin being part of Satan's seed and they have to find Jesus to get the sin out of them

>>642764

Found the gnostic

>a Christian thread got this far without specifically defining what "evil" means

Sickening. So what is evil, exactly?

>>642643

You made a positive statement first, do you have evidence to support yours?

I've read studies on the matter but I'm not going to go find them until you post yours since you made the first positive statement on the issue, the burden is yours.

>>642785

the absence of God/Good

>>642607

Surely, a little boy springing a boner in that situation is just a way to demonstrate his hypersensitivity to any kind of imagery that even has the potential to be seen in a sexual light? I mean, does the boy get a boner and become bashful about it or does he, sexually excited, watch the mouth-to-mouth gleefully and either considers masturbation or actively masturbates?

I thought it was a common thing in stories to, as a way of demonstrating a boy's immaturity, to have him sexually respond to something that only skirts the line of sexual and the boy is either pitied, chastised or laughed at.

Not just that but I thought it was a common thing in general for boys going through puberty to have "awkward boner" moments and for men to have painful "awkward boner" memories from their youth.

Surely, you're all overreacting?

>>642630

>>642754

>>642994

>The children watched the silly indignity of grown-up women tearing stupid Liir's trousers and tunic off. They rubbed him all over with lard. This gave the children a case of the giggles, and made liji feel very funny in his trousers, for the first time in his life.

I misremembered, it wasn't the mouth-to-mouth though that is described in sexual terms, which is all the more disgusting because its his mother. This is obviously not innocent though, the prologue of the book closes with the Wicked Witch's mother cheating on her father with a man and then her father sleeps with him too.

>>643022

Yes, I just read a bit of the book myself. This level of smuttyness and sexual content is the kind of thing I believe Hitler complained about when he demanded the burning of all Jew-created literature. It's just so obsessive.

>>642852

It can't be abscence of God because God penetrates everything. He is Omnipresent.

Evil is…

>>642605

>is evil born of cultivated

Neither. It is created isaiah 45:7

>I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things.

>>642643

While genetics are very important, so is the environment.

it is CAUGHT

Thomas Aquinas thought of it as resembling disease.

>>644244

Evil is not God. God neither wills Evil, nor creates it. The entire point of the Final Days is when God no longer tolerates Evil for the sake of His Elect and throws it into the eternal fire.

No, God does not permeate Hell.

Evil is sin. Sin in the Biblical sense is "missing the mark," as in archery where an archer misses the target. Sin is understood as a failure to accomplish what ought to be accomplished, or a misapplication of anything toward a purpose other than that to which it is naturally intended or suited. Sin then is the misuse of good things toward evil ends, as these things are nor evil in themselves. Humans are born sinful in that we are born not as we are intended by God to be, and we have a tendency to commit sin even after salvation by God. So to answer your question evil is both born and cultivated, but it has no essence in itself, but is rather the twisting of good things away from good ends.

>>642605

both

>>642605

Evil cannot create, only destroy

>>644244

>It can't be abscence of God because God penetrates everything

If you are in a bright room, you may close your eyes to cut it out. The light is still there, but does not register with you; you've actively eschewed it. And many more things that you would be uncomfortable with are less vexing if you can't see.

I would say evil is in part a choice. You can be predisposed to have an aversion to light, but you need not close your eyes. You have to have a will to do it, at least starting out.

>>662566 (checked)

Evil inverts and perverts good