Anticipation

Which is better? The desire for something, or the possession of the thing itself. Personally, I'd be inclined to ask you to define "better", but that's beside the point. Think back and examine any point in your life when you had to wait for something you really wanted. I'm not talking about the kind of anticipation that kids experience on December 23rd - knowing that something good is coming but not sure what. I'm talking about when you know beyond a shadow of a doubt that something is en route. The sort of anticipation that could drive an impatient person to violence.

Yeah, that kind.

It could range from waiting for a mail ordered item to waiting on the results of a test to waiting to hear back from a potential employer. How often does reality fail to live up to our expectations? How frequently do we watch the mailbox intently waiting for something and then once we have it in our hands, we lose interest in it within a day or two? I wonder if this is an indication of our own selfish natures - that we will obsess and focus on our own preconception of something for weeks and promptly forget about the object of our obsession the moment we have it within our grasp.

Is this the nature of envy? And if so, someone tell me why anyone who's developed even the remotest shadow of cognition would choose to envy and desire something after the first experience.

This sort of thing is why I believe that man is not inherently good.

Although, to be fair, I'd probably demand you define "good". Within the context of that philosophical debate, most people define "good" as "decent"; yet, historically, the debate has been whether man is essentially pure/perfect at birth or not. Tabula rasa, and all that rot. As such, mankind's propensity toward morally neutral selfishness seems to be a massive bit of evidence against the argument that man is inherently good. Is man inherently decent? Sure. As C.S. Lewis might have put it, the echo of what we were intended to be recognizes the echo of what everyone other person was intended to be and acts out of respect for the Creator.

We are spiritual beings, and even though we've fallen from the perfection for which we were initially designed, we do recognize the echo of that perfection. We sense that perfection (or rather, the intended perfection) in each person and act accordingly. Why do you think it is that most people will agree with the concept of absolute truth and moral absolutes? If we're simply the product of our environment, then why has absolutism ever been allowed in the general mindset? The development of the Christian theology from social pressures is absurdly backward, and as such, begs the question: if it couldn't have rationally developed from anthropological origins, then where did this theology come from if not from God?

That's an argument/discussion for another day. For now, I find myself in this interesting position - having established the existence of absolutes, and having explained the existence of decency among human beings, I am left with the initial question: are we inherently perfect or not?

No. Definitely not. Perfection - true perfection - is not subject to entropy. And if you leave a child to his/her own devices, selfishness will become the motivating factor, leading to a breakdown in whatever moral code has been established in the child. Go hungry long enough, and almost anyone will kill for food.

Sorry if this is kind of a bleak post, but it's interesting to think about. I also believe that the reason for decency and goodness among an evil people (myself included) is due largely to the desire for the intended perfection that we sense in ourselves and in one another. We often rely on our own strength (thank secular humanism for that) to restore that sense of order. Spiritual entropy cannot be overcome by anyone within the system it affects, though.

In other words, the only way out is a perfect being unaffected by said entropy.