After much consideration on the matter however I have come to a painful epiphany. It truly pains me to say it, but I must admit, I was a wrong to say that everyone is born good. In saying this though, I refuse to admit defeat. I was mistaken, but so was he.
The matter of being born good or bad is an age old debate. Something people have spent years trying to prove. I say they've been wasting their time. Can't everyone just simply be born and then in conjunction with the situations they find themselves in they make the decision of what they will do?
In saying that everyone operates under self determination I am rather embarrassingly reminded of a song I sang at a wedding when I was seven. It went something by the way of: "Life is what you make it, it's all up to you. Take it or leave it..." Even though as I write this my ears are burning with the shame, at least I can say that I'm not alone in my point of view.
Whether we are conscience of the fact or not, it is societies commonly held principle that people make free choices. Take our justice system as a prime example. If a criminal was predestined to be bad, what would be the point in punishing them for something that was out of their control? Likewise, prisons are not just means of keeping bad people off the streets but they are centers of rehabilitation. Someone who made the decision to do wrong should be able to return to society a reformed character. The fact that free choices are made and people can change is something funded by tax payers money.
I don't believe either that it can be said that everyone is born fundamentally good, all modern religions are evidence enough to prove that argument wrong. Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam and more all attempt to get their followers to adhere to a certain set of guidelines which when followed would create a perfect person. Christians for example follow, or at least are supposed to follow the ten commandments.
An american friend of mine recently put up a status an Facebook that ended with "WWJD" meaning "what would Jesus do?". Certainly this was disgustingly American of her, I must admit it made me LOL, but never the less it proves my basic point. She wanted to do the right thing but had a decision to make. She could have done the wrong and perhaps more selfish thing or she could have done the right thing, but that was her decision.
Take this piece of writing for example. I had a decision to make. I could very well have ignored my genuine outlook, stuck with what I had already said and knowing my previous opponent would be reading this, put forward an argument that would have crushed his hopes and dreams. But I knew that would have been the wrong thing to do.
I will now leave you with some inspirational words from the ever correct Ms. Hannah Montana: