Character: Good & Evil
the difference between good people and evil people is circumstance, opportunity, error, and trauma.
We are ALL just people. None of us start out good or evil. Those are learned as we go.
There is a thing called "character". Ever hear of it. Y

es? N

o? :confused2:
It is an intangible, yet very real something that is developed over time by a person based on an
accumulation of reactions and responses to what you called circumstance, opportunity, error, and trauma.
You make it sound like that is all there is to it. Cute
THEORY, but grossly flawed in my opinion.
Oh, yep, you got it all figured out - we are each a
blank slate at birth, and EVERYTHING we are is some combination of ONLY circumstance, opportunity, error, and trauma. To me that is dumb as can be.
Have you carefully
watched a baby develop right from when it is born? It is obvious to me that the "being" has a "slant on things"
right from the start. There are likes and dislikes that exist BEFORE any sort of learning. You are free to disagree.
Now, while it is impossible to duplicate environmental factors entirely, it was obvious to me that different people, in
very similar situations, RESPOND differently. Something (consciousness, a being, basic awareness, basic personality) takes in the environmental factors of (what you call)
circumstance, opportunity, error, and trauma, and then deals with and responds uniquely based on WHO he or she IS.
You seem to state it all as "nurture" in the "nature versus nurture" debate. You more than imply by your statement that the environmental factor is all that there is, or at least VERY senior.
Now, if one adds in the idea that this "inner personality" may be
developing over EONS (past lives, reincarnation), well then what you said is very incomplete and limited in terms of an accurate describing of what is actually going on here.
There is much more going on here than your statement includes.
This sequence underlying character development can easily be observed in people if one pays attention.
Character
Watch your thoughts, for they become words.
Watch your words, for they become actions.
Watch your actions, for they become habits.
Watch your habits, for they become character.
Watch your character, for it becomes your destiny.
A person's
character develops over time, based on
how any person chooses to deal with and respond to circumstance, opportunity, error, and trauma.
It isn't all "stimulus - response".
Maybe this basic character or innate personality is entirely genetic, and has nothing to do with a "spirit". Maybe it is "passed along" as part of the genetic bundle of information. And, as a person responds over an entire life, this NEW bundle forms, and may get passed on through genetics alone. I don't know about the mechanics or the details of the structure involved, but
functionally, there is
something THERE that acts as a sort of inner baseball player who
fields the environmental forces in a
unique way to him or her. How a person does this over time creates what is known as
character.
And, your character sets the bounds of your destiny. And maybe, based on WHO any person is at any time, a certain range of futures are thereby
attracted to him or her.
This is key now. Over time, and possibly over very LONG periods of time, this
collective bundle of responses known as
character takes on a quality of
goodness or
evil, and differing for each person as relates to the many different areas of life. While this basic personality can and will be changed over time, the components of any person's
character are much slower at this constant evolution. For at least certain periods of time at least, a person can exist fairly stably somewhere along the spectrum between good and evil, in regards to various areas of life. Any person has various predilections (towards good or evil) based on an accumulation of habits and actions over time. This is also know as Karma in eastern philosophy.
It takes a long time to change ones character, because it grows and evolves slowly.
So, watch what you think. Watch what you say. Watch want you do. Especially on a chronic basis, and be attentive to what sort of habits you are developing, because you are in this way creating a mold and setting a pattern for how you will next appear down along the chain of cycles.
And, whether it is a case of some sort of reincarnation, genetic accumulation and transference, some combination of both, or something else entirely,
some inner something is there and it gets transferred along through the species.
While what is considered good or evil is entirely relative and often culturally-defined, in addition to that, each person possesses his or her own unique
predisposition to think and act along lines that are at different times called good or evil.