which is the strongest human trait: Greed or Fear?
373817
I personally think fear rules all negative emotions.  you are greedy out of fear of having nothing.  You are jealous out of fear of losing.  You are hating something out of fear of not knowing the truth or the other side.  You are judgemental out of fear of accepting.  You are anxious out of fear, and we have to learn to look with love instead of fear to follow the proper path and achieve what we dream.
1130659
There's a good majority, Mixed with the created hormonal emotions from the processed food we eat, of humans that  define their reality in pain and suffering. They can't ever be happy. And their thoughts and Ideas, which are quite subjective, of what a perfect world should be, is always wanting to be put into effect. Like Hitler. His perfect world consisted of only blonde-haired blue-eyed germans. He was also beaten severly as a child, and i'm guessing a bit repressed. There are a lot of factors that go into it. Fear leads to anger. anger leads to hate. hate to suffering. It's true. Perphaps the key to fear is reverse paranoia. Instead of everyone expecting everyone to do wrong unto them, perhaps if they expected only the best from them. It's my personal experience that thoughts, whatever they may be, good or bad in perception, that they'll come to life and be seen most by the mind of that who thinks most about it. Your brain has a way of blocking out things it sees regularly from your memory. Only things that are of perceived importance, (things being thought of often) stay in memory, or in notice, on sight. Awareness is created by change. Things that are normal occurances always blend in. Therefore if you make a note of thinking most of good positive things, you'll find that you'll become a good positive person in essence. Likewise if you define your reality through narrowminded beliefs and generalizations, and only feel reality though existance in pain, always paranoid around those whom you don't know personally, then yes, you'll become old from the stress, twisted, maladjusted, and another force generating more negative energy for the world to pick up. Good begets good. Evil begets evil. If the world is to have full and thorough peace within it. There's going to have to be a LOT of accepting going on. Personally, I don't believe that'd be very possible due to the very natures of certain personalities. I believe everything must balance. There is no all good or all evil. Good wouldn't be good without evil. People cannot live without killing and consuming another live being or object. Whether it be plant or animal, the world was destined to always have some form of evil or another in it. I believe it's just the balance of society and of the universe. Otherwise, it'd just be our ego's driven by emotions telling us that death and dying and killing is bad or wrong. Our emotions tell us that, but universally, you'll notice the universe completely indifferent to all emotion. Perphaps just a mechanism to keep us alive, just like lust is a mechanism to keep us reproducing. If it wasn't for our minds ability to believe anything and to perceive purpose, i think we'd all go insane for being like puppets in the grand scale scheme of things, being strong along by our emotions and feelings towards certain things, embedded in our genetics and brains to make it all but most difficult to do anything but what the brains automated reaction had in mind. All in all, stepping out of human persona, and perception of derived purpose, in the grand scheme of things, without human aspect of good or evil, one could possibly say everything is perfect as is. But somewhere somehow, perphaps this is just a good form of entertainment to another entity larger than ourselves, or perphaps our perceptions. The beat goes on da-da-doom-da-doom-da-da. It's going to continue whether we like it or not, so we may as well know our roles and shut our mouths. That's my 2 cents.
598572
Selfishness & Greed (I think selfishness is part of GREED) & these seem to be the most major epidemic of the 21st Century. \nIt's behind every negative act on the road (road-rage), in public places (at the chequestands, on the phone with customer service/billing, in our schools, at our jobs, in our clubs...and between friends & family members disagreements---& even behind the demands of the oppressed (illegal immigrants, over-weight people, smokers, etc.) --- \nRemember "The Golden Rule" ...yey!!! \n\nIf we'd all re-enact "the Golden Rule" (do unto others what you'd have them do to you)...the epidemic would subside. \nREGARDLESS of the acts of selfishness I see everyday, I truly believe all people want to re-enact that rule.
1132981
Yes.  It comes from our primitive hunter-gatherer days.  Greed exists in all living things in this world, it is necessary for survival.  They (all living things) are greedy by taking advantage of the weak, it can be seen in nature and primitive tribes in the Amazon and Papua-New Guinea.  Some humans still participate in tribal warfare to steal women from neighboring tribes to propagate the species.  Some baby sharks eat the rest of their siblings while still in the womb before birth so they don't have to compete for the same food when they do come out (sorry run-on).  Even plants compete for the same sunshine, blocking sunlight from shorter plants therefore killing them--we know plants don't think, but can this be considered greed?  We (humans) are animals, whether we want to admit it or not.  Greed is natural and is all about survival.
1000090
Ignorance and greed, in my opinion cause hatred.  I don't know where you are from, but I think most people are good at heart.  Fear is a negative thing too.  People fear what they don't understand.
1157084
Its really the simplest thing and hence the deepest of all. There are these two emotions that extreme and uncontrolable - LOVE and HATE(war). Look at them as the two extremes and between them lies the grey area tht has boundries and limits and rules. BUT for the two extreme emotions the only limit is the zeal with which you want the outcome of your pursuit - be it the love of someone more special than a bright blue sky or the sweet revenge on the hated enemy at war. AND ethics only matters as long as you are true to yourself and your aspirations... go on tiger conquer the world - its yours, if you want it bad enough
340676
fear, ego and personal experience
205785
Exactly what is says.  Having and wanting stuff leads humans to commit all kinds of dumb things.  Pride is the absolute beginning of sin and evil.  Money is the best nutrition for pride
116597
this phenomenon is because we were raised in a society that seems to reward greed.  The more things you have supposedly the better off you are.  So it seems natural that this infused value begins to show through in our attitudes and emotions.  It's just been part of our life that material thigns will make us happy, although once we obtain whatever it is we eventually discover how hollow it turns out to be.  then it's on to the next thing that'll forever change our lives.  Then as we lust for all these material things, somebody's pockets are getting lined with our money.  The little secret they wouldnt' want you to know is that it's really up to an individual to choose to feel satisfied or not regarless of their situation. The old maxim: The ebst thigns in life are free...   now then again so are the worst, nobody ever paid for cancer.  for the sake of not ending on a sour note like that, it's up to the individual.
1009208
If the ego (fear based 'self') can be transcended by one (micro), then it can, and I believe Will, be transcended by all (macro). I think those who develop beyond the ego into the higher levels of human functioning (agapic reasoning) have no doubts about an enlightened society. Egos can't relate to the concept of a world without egos. It seems far fetched, but then so did going to the moon a hundred years ago. :-)
1131842
Greed is what makes me want money.
1145461
Fear is natural and necessary to keep your dumba$$ alive!\nWhy don't you just walk out onto a busy freeway? Because of the fear of getting run over.\nWhy don't you jump over the fence of the tiger exhibit at the zoo? Fear of being tasty!\nWhy do we tell our kids "Don't talk to strangers"? Fear our kids will get stolen, among other terrible things!\nIf our ancestors hadn't had fear...we wouldn't be here now!!! We would have been dino food!
650184
Being afraid is an evolutionary trait to keep you away from things that are generally dangerous or that increase your exposure to danger
255246
Laziness,When one is willing to allow others to do their thinking for them.Not fear for fear has been known to be a great motivator.Not politics or religion as these are merely offshoots of the Lazy allowing others to do their thinking.When one quits being lazy that in itself is a form of learning,thus the road to eradicate ignorance.
602322
LOVE and HAPPINESS are most important in life.\n\nMoney and power can beget each other though:\nWith lots of money comes power\nWith lots of power you can probably easily amass money.\nPower is basically money because it can "buy" a lot of followers and possessions.
284831
From a Judeo-Christian perspective, God said he would bless the Jews in every way (and that includes economics).  Because of their success, it seemed to some that their sole activity was amassing wealth.  This could lead one to mistakenly label that as greed.\n\nAlso, stereotypes abound.  Who's to say what people will come up with in their racial prejudices?  There is no excuse for believing one race to be subhuman or greedy.  All of us are equally human, and all of us have an equal propensity for greed.
188909
We need to be willing to talk about spiritual and moral values in public, such as here.  Materialism is not the same as greed, however, although it can foster greed.  Materialism is the belief that only the material world exists, or at best, that only the material world matters.  It's what the Soviet Union formally espoused, and you see what happened to them.  The problem is, if nothing non-material is relevant, then morals, ethics, values of any kind are not only irrelevant, but foolish, in that they make a person vulnerable to the vultures.\n\nWe need to see real ethical and moral discussions that are not based on religion, or at least not dependent upon any particular religion.