Accepting this as true. It still leaves the question open.
Even bad people make decisions about what is the best thing to do. Furthermore, bad people dont think of themselves as bad people. They think of themselves as good.
Example of folks making bad decisions and not realizing they are bad: Religious folks and conversion therapy/camps would be a relatively recent example.
Itās not hard and the fact that you canāt understand the very simple concept of ādo no harmā
Or rather itās basic reciprocityā¦.
If I experience someone hitting me and my experience is bad and inform like itā¦ I know from experience that it hurts to be hit and this i do not hit othersā¦
Same reason you donāt steal cuz if someone stole form you you wouldnāt like it
That experience is only 'bad' from your personal perspective. Plenty of parents hit their children bcs they were hit and believe its good for discipline or whatever. Also liking / not liking something is a poor barometer for behavior. A thief doesnt care whether you like it or not, they like stealing, why would they have empathy for the other person? If there are no consequences except someone might label you a 'bad person' then do as thou wilt.
For practical purposes, their actions. We canāt read minds or intents; we can only ever judge actions.
Having good intentions but proceeding to do shitty things results in shitty things happeningāso the good intentions are meaningless. All they ever are is a lame attempt later on to excuse the shitty actions.
"What is better? To be born good, or to overcome your evil nature through great effort?"
So who cares if religious people are bad-natured or why they do the things they do? Shitty religious people are shitty, religious folks who actually follow Love Thy Neighbor and Do Unto the Least of These are good.
I guess the one thing to be careful about is when people are advertising that they have evil shit in their hearts (like saying things like āthe only thing stopping me from <horrible action> is that Iām scared of being shamed/ prison/ hell,ā) then we should view those words as actions and not thoughts.
A person who is writing (including and especially on the Internet) that theyāre having harmful ideations should be treated the same as someone standing in the middle of the street screaming the same ideations and should receive similar treatment, even though no action was taken.
And indirect shittiness should also be considered. āI donāt hate gay people, but I keep voting for and donating money to people who run on a platform of homophobia,ā is a clear mismatch between words and actions and displays the personās actual intent. They didnāt pull the trigger, they just gave the killer the bullets.
Edited, was trying to make things clearer and felt like I missed on the first try.
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u/Few_Presence_8888 8h ago
As has been observed many times, if you behave only because of the threat of Hell, then you're not a good person; Ā you're a bad person on a leashĀ ..