Are Humans Fundamentally Evil in Nature?

Mankind invented the concepts of good and evil. Our ancestors knew the difference between the law of the land and the law of the sky - the Gods, much like it is now with the Church and the State. To them there was something strange about the word 'good'. It felt different. It commanded them to feel a different type of satisfaction. There was something about society's written code, despite the way it is followed, that made life something to really be cherished.

It is our realest, most genius invention. The media can print and show our dark side all they want in the murder stories, conspiracies, and natural disasters. We invented the word 'evil' because we saw it manifest in our behavior and in the behavior of the animals in the chaotic jungle.

Evil is uncivilized. Evil became what the law sought to destroy. One of the greatest and rare facets of religion is the word of what is good - what is meant to happen. What is the will of God.

But mankind invented religion as well.

It's always been the will of Man.

God is the symbol of our manifestation in the natural universe. It is the ultimate idea of our avatar; what we will look like in the evolutionary paradigm. Centuries of interpretations of the meaning of 'good' integrated differently into different societies. It's such a shame that mankind's pursuit of good, the heavens, and the very meaning of life, is something they all share.

The tragedy is that wars and violence toward other religions were against the very written laws of the religions. People don't realize that in the same way that man's knowledge of technology evolved, the same has happened in his knowledge of the existence of God. And coded religion today was simply the preservation of what we knew thousands of years ago.

A thousand years ago we didn't have the space shuttle, the Internet, computers, laptops, and the concept of democracy. That's because we adapted to evidence and change. We became smarter. Our understanding of life through science and art became powerful.

Religion is still an art, you see, for it shapes the very speed that society runs. It shapes the entire world and will continue to live on even when we are able to colonize different planets. God is real in a way because he is a symbol. He is immortal in the days of our lives and He's going to live on in the world in the days of our children and their children. As real as mankind's invention of the concept of good.

Don't believe religion has a real impact on what we think is good and evil?

God (good) and the Devil are not just coincidentally similar sounding words to good and evil. This is another way to see how religion's teachings were written to be understood best by the people in the past.

Scientists still don't understand how humans were able to become so intelligent. Something happened. Scientists just don't know what. Something happened in our heads, a great powerful realization; the true epiphany. It changed the course of our evolution. We became humans, leaving our ape ancestors behind. Stephen Hawking once said it all started when we learned to talk, which was a snippet featured in a hit song by Pink Floyd, 'Keep Talking.'

Good and evil must exist together. In the west it was became God and Satan. In the east it became the Yin and Yang. Other societies, who believed life was too complex to place into two categories of good and evil, took different paths with the concept of karma, dharma, reincarnation, and other philosophies. The Existentialist era of the 1940's and post-World War II times still leaves some traces in the intentions behind modern movies, television shows, and novels.

There is more to the world than good and evil. They are our fundamental intentions but the way we make our moral choices is beyond good and evil. It is done out of our concept of love. We may rob a store to feed our children. We may swear because we know they are simply words perceived to be threatening only because people are taught that. We can play violent video games and watch over-the-top brutal movies but still be caring individuals.

We live in a violent society but still we see good people every day. But we expect it so much that we don't see the beauty of empathy.

Good and evil is mankind's masterpiece of art. They are words that become the electron and the proton. The negative and positive. Force and reaction. Gravity and repulsion. If we were to pinpoint evil as an emotion, it would be called pain. And our happiness can never be as great as it could be without it. Our own mortality makes our lives that much more beautiful.

We live in a chaotic world where our decisions become butterfly effects; the results of our choices can't be defined so strictly to good or evil. Our fundamental aggressive nature, described to be the Thanatos death drive by Sigmund Freud, is simply the passion we have as living beings. We may be different from other species but we are animals first. Our frontal lobes may be highly advanced (it allows us to think consciously) but they are a new evolutionary feature of our brains. Violence means war and war means a boost to the economy - it's all about self-necessity. Our survival instincts and brain activity govern everything.

Humans know what is right and what is wrong by understanding consequences. That is the beauty of understanding evil. And it is undeniable that evil is entertaining. Why else is it such a part of movies, music, and pop culture? In good form, it's black comedy.

So before we look down on mankind for inventing evil, remember that it was mankind that also invented good. Maybe if we start seeing the good things that people do every day that always go unseen, the world can be a better place. The Devil was invented and ironically, some people still seriously quote "the greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing to the world that he doesn't exist."

Maybe if we reject good and evil and instead place emphasis on our choices and empathy, we will discover that perhaps mankind is actually fundamentally good in nature.