Jos

>>In my opinion, the argument of whether children are inherently good or bad is pointless.

I agree. My point was about *people* not being intrinsically good. Children are people too. They can be incredibly cruel. Hopefully my point is clear.

>>Therefore you do not know whether the behaviour you see in chldren is their inherent, natural, behaviour or whether it is a learnt behaviour from the caregivers, or a combination of the two.

If nurturing were the determinant, lovely people would have lovely children. How often have you seen decent parents heartbroken by the awful behaviour of a child?

I might also observe that latest research suggests that being unfaithful is an identifiable genetic predisposition. Again, QED.

>>Personally I believe very young children are inherently good. There is no malicous ego in their actions even when such actions may cause another child harm.

A hurricane has no malicious ego, but it is still not inherently good.

>>However I again do not believe this is evil or "bad" but rather the normal behaviour of all animals in learning the rules of society, of pushing the boundaries, of testing the limits, finding the pecking order, etc. This is all normal behaviour.

Sure. We have natural behaviours. Those behaviours are not lovey-dovey. They are investigative, testing, competitive.

>>I think if one believes that children are inherently bad then we are in a pretty poor state of affairs.

Lets not paraphrase. My point is that *People* are not intrinsically good, not children specifically. Since we are focused on this single point for some reason, I must observe that anybody can learn to be good given the right nurturing and opportunity. Whether we are in a pretty poor state of affairs depends on whether we "teach our children well" as per the song.

>>Morals and moral behaviour come from what the society is accepting and desiring and teaching. There are some "morals", like not murdering, that simply make sense in any society in order to maintain some level of harmony. We cannot all go around killing each other as it is detrimental to the society at large.

You are saying that morality is determined according to what is best for the community at large. I disagree. True morality does not carry a "what's in it for me" pricetag. Morality often requires stepping beyond "personal/community benefit" in the interests of humanity or a greater sense of morality. For example, acceptance of refugees carries little if any materialistic benefit for the recipient society, but is a humanitarian moral act carried out every day. In addition, every day there are thousands of religious groups throughout the world who carry out moral acts with no hope of publicity or reward in this world, in pursuit of what they regard as morality.

>>One does not need religion in order to have a moral society per se.

No. Nor does one need to attack religion to have a moral society. in fact, societies that attack religions in the 20th century have a 0% survival rate.