It depends on who you ask. I think everyone thinks they're a good person. I think Hitler thought he was a good person. I think the Bush supporters believe they are good people. I think Pat Robertson, Osama Bin Laden, Sam Alito, etc. believe they are good people.

I think I'm a good person, but even the best person makes mistakes. For instance, I slept with a married woman for 3 years and I knew her husband. I said, "Hey, I'm not cheating, she is" and tried to rationalize it, but I wouldn't want anyone to sleep with my wife so i was wrong.

I give to the poor, support several people financially, work hard, and try to make the world a better place for future generations by fighting against injustice where I can. I don't steal, rape, murder, or otherwise harm any non-consenting other, though I piss off quite a few.

In my book I'm a good person, but merely being an atheist makes me a bad person to some people.

Last week SWMBO said that I lack a conscience. I wasn't the least offended by that. I am not particularly immoral, I just don't really care what others think of me, for the most part.

A few nights ago she added that I am criminal. Not a criminal. Just criminal.

Also not really offended by that either, how could I be if I lacked conscience?

Does that make me good or bad?

Well, Radar's post actually got me to thinking (amazing on a number of levels, eh? :D ). Its true that just about everyone believes themselves to be a "good" person. I think the exception would be sociopaths, and they would consider the question irrelevent.

People with the best of intentions can do some pretty awful things through ignorance or denial or fear, and you don't have to be Hitler, either, to do them. When I look back on my life, I see some actions that were pretty misguided, although, at the time, I thought I was doing the right thing or at least was justified in my deeds.

If we label ourselves "good" or "bad" we are engaging in black and white thinking and indulging in a line of thought that can only contribute to an "us versus them" mentality. I'm "good" and they're "bad," so off to the ovens with THEM!

Human beings are complex critters and on a good day can be saints and on a bad day, the same person is one everyone would run from. Then you have to take the prevailing culture into consideration. Today, we would consider anyone who burned people at the stake "bad." 500 years ago, such acts were considered just and "good."

"Good" and "bad" are just not useful labels, all in all.

Everyone is criminal.

For example, I jaywalk every day. I try hard not to risk my neck when doing it, or slow drivers down by getting in their way. I am a courteous jaywalker that way. But I certainly break the law frequently and intend to continue doing it.

I'm willing to bet everyone reading this does something like that too, whether they admit it or not.

I speed regularly, and in my home county, with impunity.

Professional courtesy.

footfootfoot, I'm lucky that I do worry what people think about me. Too much actually, but it seems to keep my immorality in check. Although it's more a case of not having morals rather than being bad I suppose. I have a conscience but am able to box it off until it's quiet sometimes.

This could be an excellent example. Did you eventually get guilty about it? Or was that a revelation that occurred long after the affair was over?

Everyone does bad things and everyone has a reason for doing bad things. I guess whether you are good or bad depends on how good your reason is.

This is a fascinating question. It just leads me to more questions.

If someone says they are good, is it because they really are good or because they always think bad collateral damage justifies the good end?

If someone never does anything bad but also chooses not to do good things when they could are they good or bad?

If someone does something bad to prevent someone else from doing something even badder is that good or bad?

If you do something and everyone thinks its good then go somewhere else and do the same thing and everyone thinks its bad what's the score - good 2, bad 0; a tie; or good 0, bad 2?

Seemed like a simple question at first....

OK Beestie, think on this from Der Spiegel
It's been a bitter cold winter in Europe.
Right wing groups are handing out hot soup to the homeless and needy. Good?
It's pork soup that Jews and Muslims can't eat. Bad?
They're doing this to support ethnic purity of Europe. Bad?
French police have made them stop giving soup to anyone. Good?
Sure gets cloudy when you take intent into it. ;)

Fundamentally bad.

I would have to call myself - Evil.

I was born 6 AM, June 6.

I was born with a "birth caul".

My parents claimed that I never cried as a baby.

As the priest was trying to baptize me, he had a massive stroke and died on the spot.
As I was told later, that was the first time they heard me laugh.

The folks wanted me to go to a Catholic school.
I was the only kid the Mother Superior called "a fucking cunt-rag".

A "job placement" test resulted in informing me that the 3 jobs I am best suited for are -
1) Mortuary Sciences, 2) Slaughterhouse Worker, or 3) Armed Forces.

I laugh at funerals.

I think horror films are great warm-ups for sex.

I giggle at car accidents.

After watching "The Passion of the Christ", I fucked my wife for an hour and a half.

Animals freak out when I get near them.

------------------------------------

But, on the other hand, I'm house-broken.

It is a bigger sin for an observant Jew to starve himself to death than to eat non-kosher food.

Since Islam follows the same dietary laws as the Jews, I would think this principle of life is the apex of their commandments as well.

However, if a Jew is being forced to bow before an idol, it is his responsibility to kill himself, if possible, so as not to do that act.

Is your name Chuck Norris or Vin Diesel, by any chance?

Hmmm... So do you think this requirement is a good thing? I can understand it being labeled a "bad" action if someone bows before something that is spiritually wrong for them of their own free will. But if someone has a gun pointed to their head? So someone points a gun to my head and requires me to bow before a statue of Satan and I do it, while inwardly saying, "In your dreams, Satan, and you and I both know it!" Then I escape and live to do nothing but good deed for the rest of my life and worship whatever is the true right Being to worship. Would Jewish doctine still label me as "bad"?

What if I had the gun pointed to my head and I bowed to the idol which resulted in the deaths of a million people? Would I be more or less bad than in the first instance?

What if by bowing with the gun pointed at my head, I could SAVE the lives of a million people? Would Jewish doctrine require me to refuse and save my soul, if not my life, at the expense of a million other lives?

PS How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?

Under your circumstances, I would not think twice. In many areas of my life, I am a hypocrite. I crave ideals and rarely live up to them. I have more than one higher power, and the God of Abraham is one of them, they are all interconnected anyways, there is only one ONE. I bow to the almighty buck daily, it is an idol. I look in the mirror and see the centre of the universe, it is an idol. I have loved many women, and needed a couple, they were idols. Madison avenue are pros at idol making and I buy into a few, more than a few.

If I was ever in a position, where it was perfectly clear that it is a formal idol, a power that completely contradicts all my ideals, which I adhere to, and I know without a doubt the God of Abraham is with me, and some creature was aware of this, and in spite of this, my relationship with God, it attempts to make me spit in the face of God, I have the faith, not the intellect, to know, taking the bullet is my only choice. It is impossible to justify or explain, it would be beyond reason. Jews have something called a Nashama, a Jewish Soul. I could meet a stranger, and in no way know his or her religion, if he or she was Jewish or not, our Nashamas dance if he or she were Jewish. There is a connection and we both know. Similarly under the conditions you presented, it would not be up to me, it would be my Nashamas

Your discourse is interesting. Got silly around saving my life saves a million, or causes the death of a million people. Far Fetched. I chose to put aside those examples in my reply to you. I don’t know what to call them, drug induced fairy tales? (No offence meant). Tell me how in the world the death of one man could be responsible for the lives or deaths of a million people. Maybe JFK, Bobby, Martine Luther King or Malcolm X. I would say hypothetically if these men lived, millions of lives would have been saved as the direct result of their living.

Technically, there are no exceptions to the responsibility of a Jew being forced to bow to an idol.

I am not speaking for other Jews, just myself.