[Tijeras_Slim]

After achieveing power, Stalin asked his mother why she beat him as a child. She assured him that's why he turned out so well.

[theDentist]

On the day I was born,
the nurses all gathered 'round
And they gazed in wide wonder,
at the joy they had found
The head nurse spoke up,
and she said leave this one alone
She could tell right away,
that I was bad to the bone!

[cripplecreek]

I don't think anyone is born evil. I think it's the result of a long process that often begins at an early age.

[DugwayDuke]

If, as the author says: struggle can overcome the influence of genetics. If vice is the easy option and virtue requires sweat to overcome difficulty, then one can only wonder if the author would support stuggle and sweat to over come the 'homosexual gene'?

[Gay State Conservative]

I firmly believe that some people are "born bad".Not many...in fact,a very small percentage.

[from occupied ga]

Are some people born evil?

Obviously; look at Pelosi, Clinton (both), Carter, Feinstein, Schumer, Rangel, McCain, Edwards, Kennedy, Gore, McCarthy (D, NY), Boxer, Mikulski, McKinney (former D, GA), Reno, etc. A more evil bunch it would be hard to find outside of the inner Nazi party and Stalin's close associates. Most of these people went directly into government jobs, never working a day in their lives. Born evil indeed.

[N. Theknow]

Are some people born evil?

Yep.

Then they move to New York and get elected to the Senate.

[goldstategop]

Some people are wired to be evil. We've had psychopaths around ever since the dawn of Man. You know the type: smooth, charming and very likeable on the outside. Its inside that they're different. They have no conscience and no regard for the rules of civilization. Evil people are egotists to the core. They take what they want without regard for others and they leave behind human wreckage in their wake. The bright dividing line between the Right and the Left is the former acknowledges the existence of evil; the latter denies it. Evil is still the knottiest problem facing mankind and its hard to completely eradicate it because its tied into the question of human free will. No one knows what is truly in the human heart save Our Creator, God.

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus

[fishtank]

This thread deserves a GRPL ping.

"T" = Total Depravity.

"TULIP".

[absolootezer0]

"there is no such thing as a bad boy"

-Rev E J Flanagan.

[snarks_when_bored]

Norman Mailer's got a pretty bad track record when it comes to sniffing out evil. Does the name Jack Henry Abbott ring a bell? If not, read Theodore Dalrymple's Of Mailer and Murder. Chilling.

[conejo99]

I agree with the others who say they believe environment to be the stronger influence, but the authors argument using brothers of famous murderers is weak. To be valid this argument would require identical twins of evil people.

[NonValueAdded]

yes

[PISANO]

We are all born sinners, which can be equated with 'bad'.

However, FREE WILL allows us to choose a righteous path for our lives OR the evil alternative.

[quadrant]

One may be born with a tendency to injure others, with a tendency toward insensitivity toward the pain of another, with a tendency toward having a sexual attraction toward the same sex, or with a dozen other destructive tendencies but we are moral creatures who are shaped by God. We have the choice as to how we will act on those destructive tendencies.
St Paul moans about a thorn in his flesh. He understood that without the power of the Holy Spirit we are unable to resist the power of evil.

[jude24]

Those of us with a Calvinistic/Puritan bent recognize that all men are born with evil inclinations, which is restrained to varying degrees by external factors such as civil government or society. Take, for example, the Milgrim experiments - given commands that "the experiment must proceed" by an erstwhile authority figure (scientists in lab coats), the majority of persons would commit tortures.

Turning the Nazis into cartoonish supervillians has obscured the lessons we should learn. Instead, we should remember that they were men like you and I, who loved their wives and kids and thought they were doing what was best for their country - and so justified the most astonishingly evil acts. The evil of the Nazis was disturbingly banal.

[ckilmer]

While I don't care much for Mailer it should be pointed out that the USA was founded by a people who were generally Calvinists. Calvinists believe that people are NOT fundamentally good at heart but rather fundamentally bad. That's why the US government was created with has all kinds of checks and balances built into it.

As pointed out in the article its the french revolution (rousseau) that came up with the idea that the men are basically good and that its society that's bad -- and society that makes men bad.

The calvinists believe that men have no righteousness of their own. (all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God)Rather Jesus imputes his righteousness before God to those who believe in him.

The French have come up with the opposite formula. What they do-- and what the communists & democrats have learned to do-- is figure out their own worst evil and impute that evil to the opposition.

In Sum: Jesus imputes his Righteousness to those who believe in him.
French Dems, commies impute their evil to their opposition.

[Leatherneck_MT]

All people are born evil, or at least sinful.

[Tokra]

Consider the case of Gary Gilmore - the American murderer who killed a hotel clerk in Utah, then killed a student the following night, and was fatally shot himself a year later by a firing squad - which was chronicled by Norman Mailer in his 1979 book The Executioner's Song. Gilmore had a brother, Frank, who turned out to be as peaceable and inoffensive in character as Gary was violent and destructive.

Consider that I have dark hair and blue eyes, my sister has blond hair and blue eyes, my brother has brown hair and brown eyes.

That argument holds no water. Just because one child in a family has a certain genetic trait, the fact that a sibling doesn't have the same trait does not prove that genetics is not real.

If we have no problem with believing our genetic makeup determines our height, our hair and eye color, our hand usage, our foot size, our intelligence (or lack of),our sense of humor, etc. - why is it such a stretch to think it might not also determine our sense of right or wrong?

I firmly believe that nature trumps nurture most of the time. Of course there are always exceptions but you very often hear about cases where identical twins are adopted into two totally different environments yet end up with striking similarities in their behavior.

Most old sayings have a kernel of truth in them. One of these is "Blood will tell".

[Pan_Yans Wife]

For a start, the use of the word evil - which is associated with the occult and the Devil - is pure laziness because evil implies conduct that is so bad we can never explain it.

Satan laughs at us, when we ignore his power. He reigns over the earth, after all. When we draw characatures of the devil painted in red, with horns, pitchfork, and a menacing grin, Satan is entralled in rapture. For the devil wants us to discount him, to pretend he isn't as dangerous as he is. He is EVERYWHERE. And to mock his existance puts us in peril.