My views on objective morality

[bennyboy]

Show me a criminal that doesn't have something bad in his past, his DNA, or his brain chemistry that mediates his behavior.  Even where one plans an evil act for months, why is it that some people do this, and others do not?  It is because their natures, which they did not originate, and whose environmental influences they did not dictate, led them to be that kind of person.

Science can now show that things like brain development affect mood and behavior.  So people who commit acts you consider "evil" are actually dysfunctional: they have an inability to feel properly, to control behaviors properly, to understand consequences properly, etc.  And their reward for having to suffer through a life of dysfunction?  God (who either caused or at least allowed the dysfunction) either turns his back on them, or causes them to suffer for all eternity.

If culpability can be lessened for a predisposition to do evil, than all evil-doers must go to Heaven, since none of them are responsible for their predispositions.

In my opinion, God should go to Hell, because he's the only sentient entity that we might argue cannot be intrinsically dyfunctional, and who can therefore be considered fully culpable for the many evils he either commits or allows to be committed.

I said it can be lessened. I didn't say it was entirely mitigated, all the time, for every case. Every case is different. Furthermore, a predisposition to do bad things doesn't mean a person will do bad things. There are many people who were abused and neglected as children and never grow up to rape and kill others. It's not automatic, and people still have a choice. What happened to the likes of Hitler, Stalin, etc after they die is still a mystery to us though, as it's not our place to judge who's in Hell.

Who says it can be lessened?  God?  Did God tell you this?  Did Catholic leaders tell you this?  What happened to your "objective morality" (remember the OP?) in which things are either right or wrong, just because they are and not because of context or circumstance?

As for the many people who were abused but didn't grow up to rape and kill others-- this argument was expected, but it is weak.  WHAT, exactly, differentiates those who do flip out and those who don't?  Is it brain function?  The degree of trauma with which they remember the rape?  Was it a spiritual condition?

EVEN IF it is the spiritual quality of a person which causes them to fail the test and commit evil where others do not, what person chose his own spiritual quality?  The prime causal event which led to that person being in a state in which he commited evil was not in that person's control-- it was in God's control. So the person hasn't really failed God's test; God has failed the person, in not giving him the same spiritual qualities that you or others were fortunate enough to be born with.

I'm expecting you to answer, "I don't know," and leave the actual rationale to God.  But if you don't know anything about morality and the consequences of moral and immoral decisions, I wouldn't say your position is a very useful one.  Your instincts to do good are much more useful than your ideas.