RE: Free will/evil/punishment
June 14, 2015 at 12:44 am
(This post was last modified: June 14, 2015 at 12:45 am by JuliaL.)
(June 14, 2015 at 12:20 am)ILuvGorillas Wrote: I know this has probably been discussed alot on here but wanted to know your opinion on the way i view it
I was recently watching this very horrific serial killer case on YT where this guy tortured and killed kids and i see in the comments how he is evil and will burn in hell etc. Now being an atheist i obv don't believe in hell but I am still torn between just how things like free will/evil should be viewed. The way i see it is anything you do/how you act is predetermined by your genetics and environment and that even tho it may seem like you are in control of yourself, in reality that's not how it is.
Like yes, the guy was calculating and obviously knew it was wrong but something drove him to do it and I believe it all just comes back to nature and mental illness. anything you do good or bad shouldn't be attributed to your own 100x doing if im making sense? even tho yes it is you,....but its all luck.
If everything isl pre-determined, then the collective action of human society will condemn the serial killer and punishment will ensue.
But only if he's caught.
Religion gives a false, but pleasant hope that the tyrant and the murderer will see justice for their crimes. People like the pleasant, it's nice.
What I question is from where comes the morality that led the guy to "obviously" know his actions were wrong.
Morality is a natural, self replicating pattern subject to natural selection that occurs at multiple levels. Those societies in which the members had the sort of innate drives towards protecting their young and not killing anyone of their group prospered better and replaced societies where sociopaths were everywhere.
If it was a bear that killed children (e.g. for insulting a bald person) would the bear think its actions were wrong? I doubt it. We don't find humans killing bear cubs as bad as bears killing children I expect that bears don't find killing humans as evil as humans killing bear cubs.
So how, exactly, does God know that She's NOT a brain in a vat?