morality is subjective and people don't have free will

[Catholic_Lady]

So how can you justify being angry at the person who rapes, kills, steals, lies, cheats, is conservative, is religious, likes Trump, IS Trump, etc etc? Am I missing something?

I'm guessing you already got the answer to these questions, and it seems like you have accepted the answers or at least have seen the other side's perspective better. But I have to say: what took you so long to get to this point? Why would you even find this confusing? You could have an utter lack of exposure to atheist thought, but you should still reason this out on your own, given you're an intelligent and educated person. Something to do with personality types then? I don't know.

I do understand and accept the responses given to me.

The reason I didn't know and had to ask, is because if humans don't have moral free will of any kind, I feel like I would kinda look at a human murdering someone in the same way that I'd look at a bear killing someone in the woods. I'd feel very sorry for the person and the sad situation. but I wouldn't feel anger towards the bear, bc I wouldn't hold him morally responsible for what he did. I guess I figure if i saw people as not being morally responsible for murder or whatever else, I would also not feel angry at them.

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Well that's not fair. I never said you're not justified I'm thinking it happens too much. One time would be too much.

Since you apparently missed my post #143, I'll repeat that there are nearly 4,000 Good News Clubs in elementary schools across the USA. Imagine how many Evangelicals there are who don't participate in Good News Clubs but teach their small children the same thing. One time would be too much, but I wouldn't think it was something Christians should own if it was one time. They're getting the idea that they should do this from the Bible, it's not like it doesn't have anything to do with their religion. There are at least tens of millions of children in the USA getting this kind of indoctrination. It shouldn't fall on the 3% of Americans who are atheists to bear the burden of being most of the ones willing to point out what's happening, or even acknowledge that it's both a real problem and a Christian problem.

I don't see how it compromises your Americanized version of Catholicism to acknowledge that there are child-rearing practices that are not uncommon among evangelical fundamentalists which are very problematic and should be opposed by Christians who don't think a modern understanding of child development is a scheme cooked up by the devil to trick good Christians into spoiling their children with all this 'spare the rod' newfangledness.

And maybe acknowledge how often children get beaten with the 'spare the rod, spoil the child' quote from Proverbs as a justification. And how it is used to justify a continuum of punishment from mild spanking to this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Lydia_Schatz

The deaths of three homeschooled children in different parts of the country have been linked to the book How to Train up a Child by an evangelical couple named Pearl as a biblical guideline to child-rearing that sold over half-a-million copies. I'm sure most of the parents who adopted the guidelines outlined in the book on whipping children with plastic tubing did so correctly without causing fatalities.

I don't knowingly hang out with people who mistreat their children either, but I wouldn't, would I? I'm glad you don't either, but you've got to take off those rose-colored glasses that let you think it's because it's rare. There are large segments of our society who think preaching hellfire to six-year olds is not only fine but important. They're not a majority of Americans or Christians, but a majority of fundamentalist evangelicals would say 'yes' to 'teach small children about sin and hell' and there are over 40 million of them in this country. It's far from rare. Way too far.

Yes, it is horrible. All of it. Any bit of it is too much. No disagreement there, as im sure you all know.

But my issue is this: are you trying to say then that these acts/belief represent mainstream Christianity? Because thats the impression im getting, and the generalization is the only thing ive objected to. (EDIT TO ADD: I reread your post, and sorry... you did indeed acknowledge that this isn't mainstream behavior in Christianity, but might be mainstream in evangelicals specifically. Are you trying to say I should be more vocal about it? Raise awareness, etc?)

There are more than 2 billion of us world wide. I just don't like being put into a box with the most horrible people out of the group. I also find irony in so many people being quick to say "not all Muslims ________", and being super quick to shut down any generalization or criticism of Islam, yet have no problem doing it to christians. No one wants to be generalized or put into a box. Not Muslims and not us Christians either.