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There is no bad deed that stops people from turning around and being a good person
Yeah, but past behavior is the best indicator of future behavior. Please excuse people if they have trust issues.
In my psych classes I learned a big caveat to this:
Behavior in the RECENT past is a big indicator. Behavior from further into the past tends to not be as big of an indicator. Another caveat is if someone did something multiple times in the past and in the recent past hasn’t, that’s also an indicator. So, basically it’s more about the span of time + frequency.
yea like as a kid i would always hit people. at 27, i have no arrests or even any record of assaulting people
Do you think it’s possible to distrust someone and still have faith in them?
"I still want to see them eat, just not at my table anymore"
I would say that that’s hope and well wishes for them, but not necessarily faith.
Can you mistrust a person, thinking they are likely to do you ill, and still have faith, believing that they can be better?
sounds like the very mindseat that keeps victums with their abusers, or people that stay with cheating spouses, "I know they ́will probly hit/cheat/(other) me again, but maybe they'll finally change this time"
Good point
Maybe you don’t trust them for yourself but you have faith that they will follow through with someone else. Maybe they’re loyal to their lover only and you have faith that they would show up to whatever event or something but you personally still distrust them.
Hm.
If it helps any, keep in mind that this is a hard concept to generalize down to rules of thumb.
Individual circumstances of every situation determine things like environment, the mental health of the individual, recency and patterns of behaviour, etc.
Whether you trust them again is an entirely individual decision and no one can tell you anything is always moral, but the biggest indicator for me in the past is whether there has been remorse shown or an honest and respectful conversation about where and how they fucked up.
If the same thing happens again, then that's usually the nail in the coffin, but I don't think we should ever treat people as infallible.
Also, wouldn't I want a second chance if I felt like I had changed?
Good points. Thank you
Only if they own it: take account, apologise and commit to doing better
I mean, yeah I definitely had that mindset until my gf cheated on me, and left me for the guy she told me not to worry about. That was after months of taking care of her when she was ill. So yeah, that mindset isn't healthy.
Yes. You can recognize what someone has the potential to become while also being realistic about who they currently are.
You can have faith in them to be distrustful.
This is truly an unpopular opinion, well done
I'd say that after certain things you can't be a good person, but definitely a better person
Like if Ted Bundy one day after killing another victim decided he's not gonna do that anymore and would do some good deeds, I still wouldn't think he's a good person. He'd be a better person than he was before for sure, but not a good one
To some extent I do actually agree with you, but there certainly are things that you cannot come back from.
Yeah, herpes
I'm in the behavioral health field, and I'm all for changing for the better. But there's some FUCKED UP people out there. There's lots of people who have zero intention of ever changing themselves for the better.
I suppose it depends on your understanding of a “good person.” I don’t believe someone that rapes or murders another person can claim to be a “good person,” ever. Their actions show their character. Yes, they can go on to never do another “bad” thing, but that alone doesn’t impart goodness.
That'a interesting, so do you believe in static character, that someone's actions may change, but at some point their character is set in stone and can never change? If not, how do you reconcile that, and if so, when is that point?
Imo at some point a person crosses the line into being a bad person permanently. Like if someone is willing to ever rape someone they will always have the capacity to be completely evil and sadistic, I can’t really imagine doing anything like that to anyone no matter the circumstances. At least with murder or something I could understand if it’s self defense or like if someone murdered my whole family or molested my kid
I think it’s more that even if your actions and character do change, it doesn’t make the bad not matter or undo the bad? That’s my takeaway, not that there’s a static point in someone’s character that doesn’t change.
Why would it have to make it not matter or undo it? If your character can change, that doesn't mean the previous actions go away, but why should they permanently overshadow everything else? If someone does great good, and then goes bad, is that the same? Does the past good overshadow the bad? If not, why?
If the bad you have done has permanent, serious consequences for another human being, then you don't get to move on from that. You can (and should) endeavour to do better and try put more good into the world, but if your victims have to live with what you did forever, so do you.
In the event it is static, knowing this “point” doesn’t really matter right? It’s not like by knowing when it’ll somehow change trajectory in any meaningful way.
Surely it would be related to brain development? Chemical imbalances of the brain result in permanent (if untreated) behavior changes in people that would otherwise never change without medical intervention. In this case, the concept of “static” already exists, especially for those who can’t change it. Ofc this is small percentage of people.
But you’d actually have to quantify “character” before anything else you mentioned. as how would you know when the parameters are “set in stone” if you don’t know the parameters to begin with.
Reconciliation would be in a sense impractical? Given that undoubtedly it’s related to timeframe of expected behaviors continuously occuring with no deviation from set parameters of character. I guess you could kmow towards end of life?
It's important because someone can't hold the position that there is a point if they're wholly unable to define it.
The next part is necessarily asserting that behavior results solely from chemical levels in the brain, and doesn't address structural causes, or how the way neural pathways formed or memory can affect behavior, and that's just the medical side. When making a moral argument, you don't need science, you can exercise pure logic. Someone's character isn't a physical thing, it's a concept, it doesn't exist in your brain, it's not a body part, it's a non-physical quality. Ultimately it raises the question of free will. If you deny free will, then you can't really hold that morals exist at all, and judgements of character become pointless. If you accept it, well, free will isn't a thing either. At that point, I would say defining character has to do with people choosing to take moral actions.
Mostly, u/puddinpo needs to initiate a definition of terms because they are the one who made the assertion. Without knowing what they meant, we can't really agree on any of this.
Genocide?
Kinda hard to come back from that.
Hitler has ruined a lot of hypothetical discussions about ethics.
The more I learn about Hitler the more I'm not a fan.
Yeah. Like honestly I can’t believe he thought he was a good artist
My meta unpopular opinion is that it's totally valid to bring up Hitler in a debate most of the time, it's sort of a shorthand for "X doesn't prove you're good, because it's possible to be bad while X."
Never mentioned Hitler, in a subsequent comment i said 15,000 dead people which was a slow day for Hitler. So clearly didn't mean him, but I get your point.
That said, even then if someone is arguing that one side of the coin is the absolute, you can use something drastic to prove that the other side of the coin exists. Hitler can be great for that. After that you can argue something less drastic to find where the lines in the sand can be drawn, which will be easier to do now you've established both sides of the coin.
There’s a difference between redeeming yourself and trying to do good things for the rest of your life. An individual who contributes to a genocide can still try to do good things and SHOULD try to only do good things with the rest of their life. They could go to prison and still try to do good things with their life as limited as it might be.
To focus on redemption is to tell them that it doesn’t matter whether they do good things or not so there’s no reason for them to even bother. I don’t have to ever like or forgive them but I can always expect them to try to be better.
Which brings up an interesting question - are all people worthy of redemption?
I don’t think redemption should really be the point if you’re trying to be a good person. You should just commit to doing good things.
There’s a lot of philosophical arguments you could make. But I would argue you aren’t your past and you aren’t future and the present is always fleeting. In a moment you can do a good thing and for that moment you are a good person but that moment will immediately pass. So to be a good person you just have to keep doing good things whether you have done bad things or not.
The previous commenter argues that there’s more of a scale when it comes to good and bad you must do more good things to outweigh the bad. I don’t like that framing because that means if you’ve done enough bad then there’s never a moral reason to do any good thing at all because it’s already too late. AND on the other side if you do enough good then you’re just saving up to do a bad thing. Either way I think it’s a poor way of viewing things imo.
There’s a difference between redeeming yourself and trying to do good things for the rest of your life.
I'm not sure I'm understanding your distinction here.
In my mind, if you're really redeeming yourself, you've recognized you've done bad things, why they're bad, and want to change. As a result, you will do good things the rest of your life.
It's the inner change that really makes you a good person. Any external acts reflect that - and the external acts without the internal change are meaningless.
Yeah maybe I didn’t phrase it exactly correctly. I do agree with you.
My distinction is you may never be forgiven for the bad or even deserving of forgiveness whether internally or externally, you should still strive to do good things. I suppose I just think that forgiveness isn’t required for goodness. Does that make sense?
Better than genocide is a low bar
even child molesters as well
General Butt Naked would like a word
Pardon?
R/Shermanposting is a strong counterpoint to that. Sherman absolutely committed genocide against the natives and is pretty beloved for his slaughter of the confederacy. And he did the genocide after the civil war.
Someone being beloved doesn't make them good. These are not equivalent terms.
I don't know much about that (Not American), but is it anything more than an exception to the rule?
Of people who have committed genocide and been seen as popular? No. If you have a national hero from prior to 1945, and they were a general or military commander then odds are they engaged in genocide or ethnic cleansing.
That was a long time ago, are we judging today's standards by over 100 years ago?
Last time I checked, most serial killers and sex predators have no interest in changing their ways
Most serial killers and sex predators are bad people. Even OP would agree with your comment.
OP says “the most heinous crimes” so doubtful
He says there's a possibility of change for everyone, not that its inevitable or even common
So what? The premise is that past heinous actions and later dedicating one's life to good works are not mutually exclusive. You'd have to argue that they can't, not that they don't want to.
I think they have had success in some Scandinavian countries in fixing them.
We don’t do that here in america though.
The US system is about punishment only not reform, that's why
The US system is great at turning people who commit minor crimes into future felons.
I am 100% certain you did not check before writing that, nor have you ever checked. I encourage you to if you insist on having a strong opinion.
From what I vaguely recall, some of them really want to stop but struggle with extreme urges to do the heinous things they do.
How'd you check that?
This is very true, but on the flip side people don't have to trust a person who has done bad deeds in the past.
True dat
Lol. So the guys who butcher and eat children, they are cool if they repent? The guy who brutalized women and cut their boobs off to put on display gets redemption? Kiddie movie people and serial killers and public bombers?
These people shouldn't have the option to "repent". That's my issue with most religions lol these kinds of people should be stained by their actions for eternity.
They should afcourse be able to repent, but it should mean jack-shit.
That's the fundamental difference between God and Man, its like the whole point of the Old Testament. Man's opinions and judgment mean jack shit against God's.
That IS what makes religion, religion. As least within the Abrahamic ones. What you think should and should not be does not matter, according to scripture.
This ignores most of the post, and doesn't actually engage with what OP wrote. It's just lazy pathos.
Actually, I was directly responding to ops lines "There is no bad deed that stops people from turning around and being a good person I truly believe everyone has the capacity for good, as being good is a choice. Even people who have done the most heinous crimes can wake up the next day and decide to be good for the rest of their lives and it would make them a good person. "
I was raised Catholic, so I am very familiar with this line of thinking and I think it's disgusting. I'm arguing that op is wrong and there are bad deeds are irredeemable. Certain deeds you can't come back from and be considered a good person. The victims are impacted for life. The perp doesn't get redemption
I mean this is basically Religious logic 101. So hey, at least 85% of the world agrees with you
How many religious people actually follow this belief though?
In America at least, religious people are actually more likely to support the death penalty. Evangelical Christians specifically are more likely to support the cause. Catholics as well.
I'm pretty sure they're not forgiving people as they're sending them to death.
Definitely don't agree Catholics do. The Catholic Church has always been against the death penalty and pope has repeated this multiple times, mostly for this exact reason.
After looking it again, it looks like catholics generally prefer life without parole as a sentence for murder.
Though a big chunk still support the death penalty. At least according to this study from a few years ago.
https://www.prri.org/spotlight/support-for-death-penalty-by-religious-affiliation/#.VaMS__lViko
The position of Catholics on the Death Penalty has always been that it's admissible in a situation where other punishments would be impractical. For instance, in medieval Europe where feeding prisoners indefinitely would be a challenge and an escaped convict would only need to travel maybe 50 miles before being basically indetectible.
But that in a society where long term imprisonment is possible, that the death penalty cannot be allowed.
The disagreement comes when people try to reason out whether we're living in such a society.
Maybe in recent history, but the church certainly wasn't always against the death penalty
This is more like a strictly Christian belief or honestly more Lutheran idea
Upvote because God might forgive someone touching, hurting and then killing little children, but I wont.
What makes someone a bad person? Doing bad things.
One can change their future behaviour but not the past.
Some things matter less as time passes and there are other things that will stick with people forever in my opinion. You did xyz, yes, you are a bad person. Forever.
Thoughts on Diddy?
Have my upvote, cause damn that is unpopular, in my opinion.
Some actions remove individuals' right to second chances.
To be allowed the chance is disgusting in some situations. Also, endangering the civic individuals that prove every day they deserve to be safe from pointless attempt to recondition broken goods.
We put down animals for less. I don't believe humans should be the exception.
This is true.
However, society doesn't need to hold out hope for everyone forever. Locking up someone with a history of truly bad behavior and throwing away the key can be the correct choice (mistaken convictions notwithstanding, of course).
I like this way of looking at it
Sure, but society will not accept them.
What's that line from BoJack horseman?
There aren't bad people or good people. Just people, who sometimes do bad things, and sometimes do good things. Just try to do more good things than bad things
Vague paraphrasing
This is somewhat consistent with what Jesus taught. Not the “good person” part, since his message was that there are no good people: all have sinned and fallen short. But because of that, no one is beyond redemption; so long as they’re alive, they can choose to accept God’s mercy and forgiveness which covers their sins, however heinous.
So yes, Hitler or Dahmer or Bin Laden could have repented, sought forgiveness, faced justice for their crimes, and been granted salvation.
Maybe I am just naive, but depending on what it is.I can still see some people turning to good. I still forgive certain people who actually turn into a good person later in life despite the sexual assaults commited against me.
But again, I might just be too naive for always seeking the good in a person. The path to redemption is long and hard. If that person is actually serious about turning around. But sadly many just don't, and continue with their crimes.
You're saying that within a system that has the ability to permanently ban you from a group unilaterally and without justification. You can be falsely accused of being bad and permanently punished for it.
This is the same "prejudices are always wrong and bad and evil" bullshit that is so prevalent in today's society.
We are making an informed prediction that that person is far less likely to be a "good" person later on compared to other people who haven't done the heinous whatever.
This simple method of learning from experience and taking into account past experiences when making future decisions also known as prejudice has kept us and other organisms alive for millions of years. I have no intention of unevolving that because feelings.
Yes, exceptions can happen in all cases of prejudice but that's on that person to convince others somehow that that prediction of their future heinous crimes is not valid. Stronger the prior judgement, harder to reverse the judgement. Some crimes are so heinous there simply is no way people will believe that that person has turned around no matter what they say and do in a lifetime.
i love how the comments lay bare what reddit really is: a hypocritical, hateful group of people that want any reason to morally justify hating other people.
What is the most heinous thing someone you know personally has done? Because I think this is an easy viewpoint if you’ve never seen atrocities first hand done by someone you actually know
Can they possibly become a person that no longer does bad things? Yes.
Do they have a right to expect anyone, whether they were directly affected or not, to forgive them or give them 2nd chances? Hell no.
Regardless of what they are doing now, they clearly made the choice to be a bad person in the past and there is every chance in the world they will at some point make that choice again. Just because someone says they won't do it again is not a reason for the rest of the world to suddenly welcome them back to the normal people club.
Take Michael Vick for example. He's a bad person that does bad things, and frankly I don't care what he does from now on he will always be the animal abuser to me. The NFL might be dumb enough to let him back in, but the only sport he should be allowed to participate in is the last dog match of him versus the 50 dogs he tortured. You can put a bloody shirt in the washing machine but it will always have the blood stains and they should never be forgotten. Individuals can choose forgiveness but are under zero obligation to do so.
I belive someone Who has done terrible things can change their way of living and be a good person. It does not forgive their act but they can still be a good person overall. In Norway around 32% of people go back to prison after being released. In USA its 70%. In norway they treat inmates like people instead of animals and it makes a very big difference. I think most of the 32% of people are very sick and cant change their way of living and will forever be a "bad person".
Yeah except that Hitler fella. I more I learn about that guy the more I don’t care for him.
One big thing modern discourse struggles with is that good people do bad things, and bad people do good things
People act righteous and are constantly trying to sort people into “good” or “bad.”
Once they’ve got them sorted, especially on social media, people cannot acknowledge a good thing done by a bad person, or they disbelieve a bad thing done by a good person.
You know the kind of guy who does nothing but bad things and then wonders why his life sucks? Well, that was me. Every time something good happened to me, something bad was always waiting around the corner: karma. That's when I realized that I had to change, so I made a list of everything bad I've ever done and one by one I'm gonna make up for all my mistakes. I'm just trying to be a better person. My name is Earl.
You're coping hard. Tell us what did you do and want forgiveness for?
I think truly evil people exist and have existed in the world. But I also think 99.9% of humans are flawed and endlessly redeemable. Putting people into good/bad buckets is what fuels the prison industrial complex which fuels the military industrial complex. It's insane that we keep clinging to this idea that if we just shut all the "bad" people in concrete boxes with little effort to actually help them, it will somehow end up producing some kind of better society.
There is no such thing as a good or bad person, there are simply actions. And certain actions cross the line so far and cause so much damage, it doesn’t matter whether the person who committed them had secretly good intentions or feels remorse over it and changes. The victims sure would have loved the “second chance” you are giving the perpetrators.
What makes someone a good person? The absence of doing bad things? How many people do you know that actually go out in the world and do good? Good as in, things that only benefit others.
You don't see those people, they won't do a photo op on social media.
A good example is cleaning groups we have over here. People picking paper for an hour and making sure it's shared in every local group.
The illusion of goodness. I don't trust those people.
it's quite unlikely that a piece of shit becomes a good person in the bat of an eye, sometimes it's also impossible, and i'm not willed to call "good person" someone that lived 99% of his life as a piece of shit, and your responsibilities don't drop magically by just repenting
I’m always thinking about this…. But more like should I be hating people for their evil deeds when they might just be a product of their environment? Like idk what went on in their life or their family or brain to make them act like that. And even if it was terrible, I like to believe that anyone can change bc if not we’re kinda fucked
good and bad are developed with conciousness. remove it and you have only survival insict. we devolded like shits disappear in the toilet.
There's not a lot of people who would disagree with that, it's just that knowing if someone actually changed and isn't lying is impossible, so while a person can always turn around, their reputation not so much
I agree, but becoming and being a good person takes work. For example murdering someone changes you as a person, and while it isn’t impossible to become a good human being after that, it is incredibly difficult. And also some people just don’t want to change, so there is that
I mean...what about Ted Buddy? I get what you're saying, I truly do..buuuut I just can't see someone like Buddy being classified as a good person if for example he was not never captured and decided to be good for the rest his life...he would still be evil. Just an evil person doing good things here and there.
I just believe some acts will always make you a bad person no matter what you do with your life.
While I agree with this, I will say that this being true doesn't mean anyone has to be impressed by or care about your improvements and growth. People are more than entitled to still want nothing to do with you.
I agree that anyone can start making morally good decisions after making morally bad ones, no matter how bad they may have been, as an action is an action regardless of past actions.
However...
That doesn't mean that past actions will or should be forgiven.
What if they’re one of those monsters who doesn’t return their shopping carts?
Even if everyone exists with the potential for change, there are so many variables involved that determine whether or not they would actually do it. We all have the potential to climb Mt Everest, but variables like if we can afford it or even have two legs to climb with will determine the likelihood of whether or not we can actually accomplish it.
I agree to some degree. You can change to become a good person in the context of the remainder of your life but some bad deeds aren’t washed away by changing to become a good person. You might be a good person but that does not mean people have to accept that version of you or even allow you the opportunity to be that good person.
I also think that if you commit a heinous deed then part of becoming a good person afterwards is accepting that there is nothing you can do to atone for that. If you can’t do good knowing that the overall sum of your life is that of a bad person then I think the reason you want to be good is that you just want to clear your guilt not to actually be a good person.
Take my upvote for an unpopular opinion. But people like Ted Bundy, Hitler, ect have absolutely no redeeming qualities. I don’t care that Bundy helped the BAU refine their profiling skills. I wouldn’t care if he fed homeless people and animals. There are things like cold blooded murder and sexual assault that are unforgivable
Some people may turn things around. It doesn't mean they didn't do irrevocable harm to those affected by their ill/selfish deeds, and nothing is owed. I've had to write people off because they were simply incapable of not trying to take advantage of me and my loved ones.
There are some things that are unforgivable
I do think people can change and do better; everyone can.
But changing and doing better don't make you a good person, they just make you a better one.
Hurry, someone show this to the cartels. Maybe they’ll stop beheading people and hanging them off of bridges.
maybe, but a good person doesn't neccesarily deserve forgiveness, either. forgiveness is given, and people are free to withhold it however they like to.
No. If you murder somebody, or sexual assault somebody you cannot ever be a good person.
Some people who do bad things see the error of their ways and change, but others do not have this aspiration, and are happy doing bad things. Depends on the person.
Doesn't seem to be the case for conservatives.
Pedophilia. There is no redemption for it, if you just a child in any capacity, there is no redemption for you.
Pretty sure serial killers are bad people.
idk, i think it would be pretty selfish to expect to move on from cold blooded murder
Just because you could be good doesn't make your behaviour excusable. There's no coming back from some things.
Some people just cant. Its not hard to understand. They cant be good
Depending on what they did, the bad stuff they've done still lives as long as there are victims involved and for as long as those victims' trauma exists. That itself is enough to mark them as "evil people", at least IMO.
I completely agree.
But they can’t expect people to trust them in the future. Nor are they entitled to an opportunity to do better.
If you somehow wrong me, I am not obligated to give you a second chance to redeem yourself. If that means you’ll never have a chance to, then tough shit.
Ted Bundy saved a boy from drowning once. Does that negate the harm he caused?
I'm glad you've never (knowingly) been affected by someone with a personality disorder
Good for you
But the world has plenty of people who are happy to watch it burn
To declare what I personally have been through based off the assumption that I could not have possibly encountered horrendous individuals is so dumb, get a better argument.
This a very naive take.
I don’t think you can turn around and be a good person after you do a 9/11.
Edit: Looks like someone’s really looking forward to the upcoming Khalid Sheikh Mohammed redemption arc. 😂
Being bad is a choice and some people are just bad people. Seeing the good in everyone will just set you up to be taken advantage of
So every bad thing you’ve done has been a conscious choice. You haven’t made mistakes? You don’t have regrets? Everyone is going to do bad things, we have to be prepared to forgive people and allow them to grow or we will be stuck in cycles of abuse and punishment forever.
Wow. Yeah, i would definitely consider this unpopular with non religious people. What about psychopaths? lol
Is isn't a psychopath someone who is both with a brain condition that cause them to feel lack of empathy towards others?
There's no coming back from committing a Murder/Suicide.
There's no one deed but some people prove while they are capable of good they have chosen to do evil so many times you can no longer trust them to do the right thing.
OOC OP do you believe in the opposite of this? Do you think there’s no good deed that stops a person from becoming a bad person?
You don't come back from being a pedophile. You can do whatever you want after but still a pedophile
Jeffery Dahmer, Hitler, Stalin, Mao. Just to name a few that makes this opinion nonsense
Ngl, this is such a dumb take
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This reminds me of the Minister Roy Radcliffe. He did prison ministry and worked directly with Jeffrey Dalmer. Eventually, Dalmer professed his belief in God and Radcliffe baptized him, stating that he was forgiven and his sins were washed away. Radcliffe was heavily criticized for this, and his belief that Dalmer was in fact forgiven of his sins and entered into heaven after his death, resulted in half of his congregation leaving.
Got damn that is an insane story, never heard it before.
It's so curious because can we as a society believe he actually felt remorse and wanted to be better?
Does it even matter what we think and believe about him, or is only what Dalmer believes about himself that truly matters?
Anyone can choose to be better. Most people with a long history of not doing so never will.
I could not agree less. Take my upvote.
Rape, child abuse, animal abuse, murder. You sure you still want to carry on with this claim?
So if a person kills a child, has sex with the corpse, cuts it into pieces, and then cooks and feeds those pieces to other people, suddenly decides they will never do that again and goes on to live a good and productive life, that makes them a good person? Assuming they get away with it of course. As long as this person acts like a good person the rest of their life, that makes them a good person in your eyes. Would you genuinely feel safe alone with this person if you knew they had done this, would you feel safe leaving that person alone with a kid decades after that happened? If the answer to that last question is no then you don't genuinely believe they are a good person.
Capacity is one thing. Willingness is a whole other thing. Some people just don’t wanna do good.
ALSO bad actions don’t happen in a vacuum. Things have happened that led to the person being able/willing to commit heinous acts. Those things stay relevant even if a person wakes up one morning and decides to turn their life around
So if al- kedi or Jeffery dahmer were still alive then there bad deeds doesn't mean they can't be a good person.
Or say people who bombed abortion clinics yet that doesn't mean they aren't capable of being good people, and I mean genuinely good people.
Just gonna leave this here (OP is correct)
DUde.. Psychopaths and batshit insane people exist. How would you expect any good from a person who doesn't understand it or don't find any value in it. There are a lot of people who do bad things because they got desperate. Robbing, stealing in order to get by. Even maybe small time killing (e.g they shot someone while fleeing the police). These people may have a chance for redemption. And there are those who don't even want to be good because they don't believe in it. (Psychos and other crazy people)
What about schizophrenics that can’t help themselves?
The most heinous thing? Like torturing 1 million babies with hot irons and god knows what else
I feel the same way but we are the minority on this, I fear.
When a person keeps being hurt by others then someone else's bad deed can stop them (the victim) from being a good person. Hence the saying "villains are made not born"
OP, I agree. I can't say I follow my faith, if I exclude people from redemption. All people are capable of doing bad (of course some more than others) and all people are capable of turning their life around if they choose to do so.
Past bad deeds should be punished if the effect is longlasting; but once atoned, if possible, they should be given a fair chance to be a part of society.
Being a judge is not my place in life.
Forgive not forget. Give people grace but don’t be foolish.
In the same vein, there are some bad actions that no quantity of good in the world can undo.
This is a true unpopular opinion.
Living by standards and rules that don't apply to everyone is silly 😂 bad people gonna be bad people. Only way to see change is to watch habits change over time. I won't trust you unless I see valid differences, even then, what's stopping you from going back to your old ways? How do I know that you haven't only changed for me? Totally depends on the situation. There's people who cannot change. There's some that can.
Labeling a person good after knowing they did heinous acts is such a weird choice... Stop with overgeneralizing things. They are not a good person. They are A person who has done horrible acts who tried to fix or cover up their mistakes. Many people will see it as unforgivable and unfixable. Some see certain acts as acts one cannot be redeemed from, hence life sentences in prisons and the death penalty. Just because someone does good doesn't remove their history of future altering, life destroying choices. You can't negate bad with good. You can try. But that bad is still going to ring out for generations...
I see what u mean and I agree. I think it’s easier said than done but it is possible. Humans are wired into habit aka repetition and patterns so it would be hard to break out of that cycle than to just “switch sides” within a day. It’d have to be a conscious uphill effort to mentally condition yourself out of it before it ever feels like your new normal with peace
You diminish both goodness and forgiveness being so free to offer them up to bad people. What's the point of being good if you can just be good later and everything is cool? Your past stains your character, forever.
Sorry but a predator / pedo or a serial killer cannot redeem themselves in my book.
Agreed. Almost anyone can change, barring a crippling nuerological disorder, although most of us won't.
Hey if you haven’t been wronged hard enough yet, you’ll get yours eventually.
This is just a fact.
I don’t believe that anyone who commits heinous crimes can ever be considered a good person even if they turned their life around. And they honestly don’t deserve to be treated like they’re a new person. You reap what you sow
"Me? I’m dishonest, and a dishonest man you can always trust to be dishonest - honestly. It’s the honest ones you have to watch out for. You can never predict when they’re going to do something incredibly... stupid." - Jack Sparrow, Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl
not only unpopular, but incorrect!! very well done
Today I put a dollar in a vending machine and it wouldn't give me a drink. Luckily I had a notepad and pen in my jacket so I wrote a note saying "out of order" and "doesn't work" I didn't have to do that, but it felt good.
It’s rare someone does a 180 like this tho
Can anyone become a good person? Of course!
Does that mean they deserve a second chance? No. A second chance is something that needs to be earned. If you do abhorrent things to somebody, they can want nothing to do with ever again, even 60 years later, and that's valid. Let's say somebody gets caught with child pornography on their computer and does their time. They may have done their time and reflected on their actions, maybe they have even become a nice person, but that still doesn't mean they should ever, ever be trusted with someone's child. Some bad deeds revoke your right to a second chance indefinitely.
What are we, if not the product of our past choices?
I agree, but if you are someone who turns their life around, you cannot expect anyone to automatically like or trust you. You also still need to be willing to accept responsibility and accountability for your previous actions. Nobody is good or bad, only our actions, and who we are to the world is the sum of those actions.
I know how that feels. However there are such a thing as “limits” as there are just some people who can’t be good
On one hand I agree with this- I cheated on one of my very first girlfriends, then felt absolutely dog-shit terrible about it and have never cheated again since.
On the other hand I completely respect that persons right to never trust me again (we aren’t still dating but the point stands)
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