[SEQ RERUN] Are Your Enemies Innately Evil?

Tyrrell_McAllister

Today's post, Are Your Enemies Innately Evil?, was originally published on 26 June 2007. A summary (taken from the LW wiki):

People want to think that the Enemy is an innately evil mutant. But, usually, the Enemy is acting as you might in their circumstances. They think that they are the hero in their story and that their motives are just. That doesn't mean that they are right. Killing them may be the best option available. But it is still a tragedy.

Discuss the post here (rather than in the comments to the original post).

This post is part of the Rerunning the Sequences series, in which we're going through Eliezer Yudkowsky's old posts in order, so that people who are interested can (re-)read and discuss them. The previous post was Correspondence Bias, and you can use the sequence_reruns tag or rss feed to follow the rest of the series.

Sequence reruns are a community-driven effort. You can participate by re-reading the sequence post, discussing it here, posting the next day's sequence reruns post, or summarizing forthcoming articles on the wiki. Go here for more details, or to have meta discussions about the Rerunning the Sequences series.

Today's post, Are Your Enemies Innately Evil?, was originally published on 26 June 2007. A summary (taken from the LW wiki):

People want to think that the Enemy is an innately evil mutant. But, usually, the Enemy is acting as you might in their circumstances. They think that they are the hero in their story and that their motives are just. That doesn't mean that they are right. Killing them may be the best option available. But it is still a tragedy.

Discuss the post here (rather than in the comments to the original post).

I think that counts as saving a soul. LW 1 - 0 Vatican.

You don't think Roman Catholicism has saved any souls? I mean, you can argue it does more harm than good, mostly due to lowering the sanity waterline, but ... none at all?

I'll resort to the lazy argument: anyone nowadays who stays in the Catholic Church pays for their personal salvation by supporting an organization that shields child rapists, and is therefore thrice-damned. Of course this doesn't apply to people who lived before the scandal broke out.

Catholicism probably did in fact save some souls, though not the way it tries to.