Good men?

I was reading a book by Dennis Prager, "Genesis" in which he asserts why having the world view that men are inherently good is dangerous.

These are the reasons why he asserts it is dangerous

1. Children are not taught to be good. Parents and teachers who believe people are basically good do not feel the need to teach children how to be good. Why teach what comes naturally? Only when people realize how difficult it is to be a good person do they realize how important it is to teach goodness. In our time, there is virtually no character education in schools, and parents are more likely to be concerned with their children's self-esteem than with their self-control, and more concerned with their children's grades than their goodness.

2. God and religion become morally unnecessary.
If we are basically good, who needs a transcendent source of morality--a good God or a Bible? In the West and elsewhere, the more people have come to believe people are basically good, the less religious and less Bible centered they have become. And the less religious and less Bible-centered they have become, the more they have to come to believe that people are basically good.

3. Society, not the individual, is blamed for evil.
Another dangerous conclusion drawn by people who believe people are basically good is outside forces rather than the individual are to blame for human evil. If people are basically good, the reasoning goes, the evil that people do must be caused by something outside them. Why else would a basically good creature commit evil? This is why the most widespread explanation for violent crime has been poverty. "Poverty causes crime," the argument goes.

But this is just not so. For one thing, the great majority of poor people do not commit violent crimes. They don't because they have a moral value system that tells them criminal violence is wrong. And what could possibly link poverty to, let us say, rape? If one argues poor people steal because of poverty, at least there is a plausible link between the two. But what has poverty to do with rape?

The Carter Center, named for its founder, former US President Jimmy Carter, issued a statement, one of whose subjects was "Poverty and Terrorism". Under the heading, it wrote: "Effectively addressing poverty can make an important contribution to avoiding conflict and combating terror." Likewise, when he was the US Secretary of State, John Kerry, also a one time Presidential candidate, said, "We have a huge common interest in dealing with the issue of poverty, which in many cases is the root cause of terrorism."
Those who link terrorism to poverty might consider, for example, the economic backgrounds of the Islamic terrorists who killed 2,977 people on September 11, 2001 in the US. The terrorists came from middle and upper-class families. And the architect of the attack, Osama Bin Laden, was a multi-millionaire.
Since people who believe in evil ideologies are as likely to be wealthy as poor, ending poverty does virtually nothing to end ideological evil. It also does nothing to end non-ideological crime. If escaping poverty made people better, the rich would be the kindest and most honest people in the world.
Another outside force frequently blamed for violent Criminality - when the criminal is a member of a minority race or ethnicity-is racism. Yet the same arguments against attributing violent crime to poverty apply to attributing violent crime to racism. The great majority of individuals who are members of a racial minority-such as blacks in America-do not commit violent crimes-and did not do so even when they were subjected to systemic racially based persecution. And this reason is clear: their moral values did not permit them to do so.
Values and moral self-control matter far more than outside forces. Nearly all people who commit violent crimes do so because they possess a malfunctioning conscience, a morally defective value system, and/or lack of impulse control. The best way to make good people is through the combination of good values, good laws, and a God who commands goodness-such as that of the Bible. If people lived by the 10 Commandments alone, the world would be a beautiful place.
The Biblical view of human nature was perfectly described in secular terms by Professor James Q. Wilson, a Harvard political scientist: "The forces that may easily drive people to break the law, a desire for food, sex, wealth, and self-preservation, seem to be instinctive, not learned, while those that restrain our appetites, self-control, sympathy, and a sense of fairness, seem to be learned and not instinctive."
Those who blame evil on outside forces-i.e., "society"-rather than on the individual will encourage people to battle society rather than battle their own nature. Indeed, the need to change society rather than have people control their nature has become the dominant outlook in the Western world.
The Torah teaches that, especially in free society, the battle for a good world is not between the individual and society but between the individual and his or her nature. There are times, of course, when the battle for a better world must concentrate on evil emanating from outside the individual. This is always true in a tyranny and is sometimes true in democracies. But even then, in a free societies, the battle for a moral world is waged primarily through the inner battle that each of us must wage against our nature: against weakness, addiction, selfishness, ingratitude, laziness, and evil.
The most important question a society that wishes to survive can ask is this: "How do we make good people?" But societies that believe people are basically good will never ask that question.

Do you think religion affects how "good" ordinary/average people are?

@fmf said
Do you think religion affects how "good" ordinary/average people are?

@whodey said
Depends on what you mean by "religion" and what it means to them.

@fmf said
Christianity [an example of what I mean by religion].

They believe they are "saved" [an example of what it means to them].

@fmf said
Christianity [an example of what I mean by religion].

They believe they are "saved" [an example of what it means to them].

What I find is that as society becomes increasingly secular, it becomes increasingly tolerant of evil. Most secular atheists, for example, oppose the death penalty.

This is what Prager says about the death penalty.

"Taking the life of a murderer is another Noahide Law-a law on all humanity. Indeed, the Torah considers the death penalty for premeditated murder so essential to creating a civilized society, it is one of the first three commandments God gives to mankind.
In the Torah's view, God deems taking the life of premeditated murderers fundamental to the moral order of society-every society, not just Jewish society. Very few commandments in the Torah are demanded of all people, but the death penalty for murderers is one of those few; it is listed here prior to the existence of the Israelites.
The verse also makes it clear God expects human beings to take the murder's life, providing a direct rejoinder to those who believe that only God is allowed to take human life. But that is obviously not true. Not only are people commanded to execute murderers, but human beings are permitted to kill others in self defense and when fighting in a just war. The notion that only God can take human life is nowhere stated in the Bible. What is clear is that hu8man beings can kill, but only in morally justifiable circumstances.
In addition, this is one of very few commandments in the Torah accompanied by an explanation: a murderer's life is to be taken because "in His image did God made man." We are to take a murderer's life precisely because human beings are created in God's image.
Opponents of the death penalty argue the very opposite: precisely because human life is uniquely precious, we should not take even the life of a murderer. But both in the view of the Torah and I terms of simple logic have nothing to do with God or theology, allowing every murderer to keep his life reduces the worth of human life-because it belittles murder.
This is easily demonstrated. Imagine the punishment for murder were the same as the punishment for shoplifting. Everyone would acknowledge this would belittle the seriousness of murder. And when murder is belittled, the worth of human life is cheapened. Society teaches how bad an action is by the punishment it metes out. Only when a society takes the life of a murderer is it announcing in the clearest way possible that murder is the ultimate sin. Keeping every murderer alive makes no such announcement-even if it involves life imprisonment. Life in prison is a harsh punishment-but the murderer, while not free to leave prison, is allowed to keep his life. I have talked to murderers in prison for life; every one of them far prefers imprisonment to death. It is also worth noting, however, that at the largest maximum security state prison in America-the State Penitentiary in Angola, Louisiana-I asked about a dozen men convicted of murder if they believed some murderers should be put to death. The majority raised their hands."

@whodey said
I believe that goodness comes from God, not religion, although religion can point to God which can lead to goodness

@whodey said
What I find is that as society becomes increasingly secular, it becomes increasingly tolerant of evil. Most secular atheists, for example, oppose the death penalty.

@fmf said
Do you think goodness can come from God without religion?

@secondson said
Do you think goodness can come from man without God?

@fmf said
Of course. It has been discussed and - I think- established here hundreds of times since I have been active here.

@secondson said
Do you think goodness can come from man without God?

@divegeester said
Yes, apparently when a person “chooses” (sic) to believe in Jesus.

@secondson said
Just who was it that provided the choice? Without God man would have only one choice.