Sin and Zen.

I think that we westerners are guilty of trying to break things up into "good" and "bad" catagories a little too briskly. Granted it has served us well in many ways, but it also does disservice too. For example, I know I am not a potential murderer, a potential rapist, barring some mental illness that would make me not me and I know that most people aren't either. How do I know that? Well in other's case I can't say for sure, but statistically speaking others are almost certainly NOT ever going to be a murderer or rapist. In addition, it has been pretty well established that man has to be TAUGHT to kill, it is NOT a natural act, we are NOT fallen by nature when it comes to homicide.

Post war studies have shown that an incredibly small percentage of soldiers actually do MOST of the killing, the rest keep their heads down. It was so low that now the military uses systematic desensitization techniques to program soldiers to shoot at targets that pop up automatically so that more soldiers will kill out of habit and not think about it.

Now granted, a small percentage of the population is cracked, has been abused to the point that they can kill or rape with no effect, but they are actually fairly rare. To assume that we are all fallen rapists and murderers based on them is like assuming that we are all geniuses because Einstein existed. Absurd.

I much prefer the Good/Bad views of our eastern relatives. They view the world as one seemless whole. To use my avatar as an example. One view of the Yin Yang symbol is that there is good and bad, black and white, but they comprise one part of a larger whole (the circle) and there is a teensy amount of good in the bad (the dots), and vice versa. Thus the symbol. This, to me, is a more complete understanding of "reality" than the western models often are. My bias of course.

When I look at bad acts I often look for the exception to the bad act. Why did the person do it? What was their story? If it is wrong to kill, why is it right to kill someone in self-defense or in defense of others? If killing one soul would save an entire village/city/state should that "right" be done? These are the Yin Yang of reality IMO.

The darker side of human nature is that we try to see the world as darker than it is. Not that it actually IS darker.