The Gray Area

I think that the worst thing you could ever call someone is a bad person. Forgot all the curse words and "your momma" jokes, calling someone a bad person is one of the most offensive things you could say. It is so simple, and yet incredibly straight forward and to the point. Bad people go to Hell, or at least that is what a good amount of us are tough from a young age. So by saying someone is "bad" your condemning them to hell in your mind.
The question really is, how do we define what a bad person is? I mean there are the obvious morally wrong bad people that everyone knows. If you commit a senseless murder, your probably a pretty bad person. If you commit rape, your most likely a bad person as well. These extremes make it very easy for people to classify others and put them in to specific categories. However, most of us do not fall into either extreme. For us, there is a dark, murky, gray area, the likes of which we continue to wade through in attempts to sort out our lives every day.
Let me give you an example. A man sells marijuana, a very basic drug dealer. Is he a bad man? Yes, the drugs are illegal. However, legality is something that is man made. Who are we to decide if this makes this man a bad person. Furthermore, if marijuana becomes legal, is he relieved of all his wrong doings?
As I recall not so long ago, it was illegal for blacks to sit in the front of the bus. Yet for sitting in the front, Rosa Parks is considered one of the most powerful voices in the civil rights movement, although what she did was not legal. I know that was a bit of an extreme example but it proves the point that these man made laws should not be the deciding factor on if a person is good or bad.
Selling drugs is wrong, but what if you have lost your job in the recession and have no way to feed your children. Stealing is wrong, but what if your starving? Every action that every person will ever commit in his or her entire lifetime is based on set of circumstances and situations, and like snowflakes, no two are alike. I understand that laws are made to keep order, and they do. However, for every petty thief there is a man doing the same actions in an attempt to support his family. I truly believe that there are not as many "bad" people in this world as we place the title on. I am not saying that people who steal don't deserve to be punished, because they do. What I am saying is that although all arrested thieves will be punished, we should really take the time to asses each persons individual situation in our hearts. Really put yourself in someones shoes before you label them as bad. Know what its like to suffer before you condemn the suffering.

Finally, and this is most important, every man on this earth has the ability to change for the better, and we must never forget that.