After Birth: The Human Development

(Man Is Naturally, Good vs. Evil)

The birth of an individual is the start of his journey in this planet. His development is a continuous interaction with his environment and constant quest for survival. His characteristics are being honed, developed and defined as he traverse the roads of his being.

A night ago, I was caught in a conversation with my brother. We have this kind of philosophical conversation which happens occasionally whenever the muses are available. We often had topics about life and its applications. Since it is election season here in the Philippines, we keep on assessing the different characteristics of those persons eying the top posts in the government, and certainly we did include Iloilo's aspirant – the determined Mel (Mel Carreon). But hey, don't you say that we've forgotten other aspirants claiming themselves as Ilonggos, we didn't (in Philippine politics all politicians are keen to tracing there respective kins, then claim that they are from that place as well). Well, “Lakas Loob's” standard bearer Mel is far different from them, the man had the chance of running in the elections from the councilor's post and now it's the top post that he is after with( unfortunately he wins nothing from his previous elections). He keeps on asking me about them (politicians) since politics is not his thing according to him. But this scripts do not revolve in politics as I've said earlier. I will talk about human development in this chapter.

The conversation was cut with my brother changing the topic and raised a question, “Do you believe that man is naturally good or otherwise?” We got different views regarding this issue. But if you think that because I am an advocate of defying man's social beliefs that it took me to choose “man is naturally evil,” then you're wrong. I believe that man is naturally good. However, my brother has faith on the other theory - “Man is naturally evil.” And since this is my article, I prefer not to discuss his arguments here...I will discuss my contentions instead.

Let's start from the very basic. Forget the influential society. Society was just formed because of individuals.

The child in the mother's womb is good, free from the influence of the outside environment. By the time the baby is freed, the moment he is born, his mind is still under the control of the good characteristics. However as the child feels that he has now the freedom to breath and move, his brain will start to make him think about self-preservation. The first environmental influences will initially set in – food and air. With his body calling for self-preservation, the child reacts in various ways in order to transmit a message that he is hungry for this, that he needs comfort to live his life (this is the initial stage for the baby to adapt a very small percentage of bad traits). As the child grows older, meeting others, he started grabbing the toys of his playmates to satisfy his desires..other traits also include actions in relation to food, clothing and other basic life needs. The child is subconsciously doing simple evil deeds. The once pure good creature is now a mixture of predominantly good and a little bit evil. The process continues as he grows older and become adult. And those who were dominated by their environmentally - acquired evil traits became what the present society calls “Evils in the society” and those people who possesses the dominance of good characteristics are called the good ones, though they are not totally good...they have few touches of evils shall I say.

And as the population grows, the society develops. Good is distinguished, so as evil is defined. Laws, norms and concepts of morality is developed by different societies. These were all formed to regain the natural goodness of man.

Man is naturally good, you cannot find a plain individual who will accept that what he is doing is the wrong thing. He always believes that what he is doing is right. Excuses and alibis are just few manifestations that man doesn't want himself to be associated with evil, because he believes that he is naturally good.

Lastly, but I don't want to embrace this idea of the religious folks, God created man according to his image, and character and being. Many, if not all of us, believes that God is undoubtedly good. And if God created man in accordance to his image and character... Man is naturally good, according to the bible. However, I want to extract myself from giving out this kind of reason. It's my faith that anybody who uses the “Holy Scriptures” to advance his arguments is the one who wants an easy way to explaining life's existence. There was no fruitful conversation about the said issue if I simply used this kind of reasoning.

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