Interview with Ryan Whitley

When it came time to do my interview I decided to talk to Ryan Whitley, the pastor at Crosspoint Church in Argo, AL. My interview was awesome from my aspect. I really enjoyed talking to him, I really learned a lot. I began to ask him what his beliefs are on the issue of 'good' people doing 'bad' things. I aspected him a series of questions trying to find out one last view of this question. He believes that 'good' people can do 'bad' things. He made me realize that to properly answer that question I needed to define 'good' and 'bad'. So for part of my time with him we discussed how I could define the two things. We at first decided that like most we would consider ourselves 'good' and that only the ones in prisons and such are 'bad' people. So we came to the conclusion that a 'good' person is one who is looking out for someone else and if they need help they will gladly do so. Now on the other side of the spectrum a 'bad' person could be as simple as saying a cuss word or as awful as murdering another human being. For this purpose I am going to say that a 'bad' person is one who is doing something to hurt another person, whether it be emotionally or physically. So after defining the two he told me he believes completely that all good people can do bad things. I continued even further to ask what he believes makes good people do bad things. Three things can influence your choice, circumstances, character, and past. When it comes to if doing 'bad' things is 'contagious' he says yes with two examples; Adam and Eve made one choice and it influenced the rest of man kind introducing sin into the world, the other is the 'group effect' meaning one person can have 'bad' thoughts and when you are in a group it can easily spread to everyone else.

Davidson, Katie C. Personal interview. 04 May 2010.