Do you consider yourself a 'good person'?

Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven.

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Is the opposite true? If you try to be bad and fail then you're a good person? So if I try to shoot someone dead but accidently miss and hence fail, I am in fact a good person?
I think intent is a very important factor to consider. Otherwise one may argue Hitler was a good person, on the grounds he attempted to murder ALL the Jews, but failed.

 

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What did you fail at and why?

 

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Ehm buddy, you brought up failing. I should be asking you that question.

But fine. I'll whip up an example.

You see a little kid fall into the water. You're some distance away and the only one around. You race towards the spot where the kid fell in. You jump into the water to safe the kid. But you're too late the kid is dead.
This is a person that had good intention but failed.

 

And if you don't believe in either? Why not do better?

 

No. It is unfortunately not symmetric.

If you are at the point of considering intents, you failed.

 

A Dream to some....A NIGHTMARE TO OTHERS.

 

Living in psych wards or on the streets or something like that isn't exactly the mark of a good person, is it?

 

I don't think being homeless or mentally ill is the mark of a bad person.

 

Would you seek to be friends with a homeless or mentally ill person?

 

Why do you think this is so?


The Law, for example, does take intent into consideration.

 

I chose other.

I'd defend a person if he or she was being attacked, unless the odds were overwhelming.

Typical human right?

I think that sums up my attitude.

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So doctors are bad people, because sometimes they fail to save people despite their best efforts and the fact they can't do anything for them.
I don't think your logic holds up. :shrug:

 

Absolutely. I have a friend who has paranoid schizophrenia, and she's been a family friend longer than I've been alive. I love her very much and she's one of the best people I know. She's amazingly kind and sweet. She'd do anything to help anyone. I'm sorry you think being mentally ill makes you a bad person. I work to maintain my friendship with her because it's worth having.

Family and friends are not "perfect." I don't always agree with everything they say and do, but the people I love are good people with good intentions.

 

no

it one thing to acknowledge and respect a homeless or mentally ill person , its another thing to hang around with them day in day out

 

You did and I answered. You just didn't like the answer.

There are a couple of points here.

Your example assumes omniscience, which you don't have. You never truly know what another's intent is. You only know their actions and their stated intent.

Also I never said a single example was sufficient.

Let's make the person a lifeguard at a pool. a single kid died and it was tragic.

Now over the course of the summer the body count rises.

Exact same scenario. Kid is drowning, the life guard says they intended to save them but they got there too late.

Are they still a good person after 10 deaths? 100 deaths? Your death?

We all live in a world where circumstances can get beyond our control, but there is also a point where "good intentions" become lame excuses and "failing" becomes criminal negligence.

Its not enough to just want to be good while you do otherwise. You have to do good as well.

 

I agree it is not necessarily being a bad person.

Most of them are just people in unfortunate circumstances doing the best they can.

However if they are sufficiently desperate or sufficiently insane you could still get hurt from it, which is part of why people tend to be uncomfortable around radically religious people...oh my mistake, I of course meant the homeless and insane.

Of course if our society was sane we wouldn't have homeless people and we would take care of the insane and do our best to help them heal, instead of just turning them into more homeless.

 

Have been from time to time.

 

If you are at the point where the law is trying to consider your intent, you not only failed in some way, you got caught.

Many places the law only gives you 3 chances at failing.

 

Failing to save people who cannot be saved is not failing as a doctor, its failing as a god.

However if a doctor fails to save a lot of people and there is evidence they could have been save then he is found to be a bad doctor and eventually his license is yanked.

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