Collective Religious Rituals, Not Religious Devotion, Spur Support For Suicide Attacks

ScienceDaily (Feb. 20, 2009) — In a new study in Psychological Science, psychologists Jeremy Ginges and Ian Hansen from the New School for Social Research along with psychologist Ara Norenzayan from the University of British Columbia conducted a series of experiments investigating the relationship between religion and support for acts of parochial altruism, including suicide attacks.

...This study indicates that religious devotion does not cause support for suicide attacks or other forms of parochial altruism. However, the findings suggest that regularly attending religious services may make individuals more prone to supporting acts of parochial altruism (suicide attacks). The researchers theorize that collective religious rituals and services create a sense of community among participants and enhance positive attitudes towards parochially altruistic acts such as suicide attacks. Although, the researchers note, the greater sense of community, developed via religious services, may have many positive consequences. They observe, "Only in particular geopolitical contexts is the parochial altruism associated with such commitments translated into something like suicide attacks."

Believers' Inferences About God's Beliefs Are Uniquely Egocentric

ScienceDaily.com
The researchers noted that people often set their moral compasses according to what they presume to be God's standards. "The central feature of a compass, however, is that it points north no matter what direction a person is facing," they conclude. "This research suggests that, unlike an actual compass, inferences about God's beliefs may instead point people further in whatever direction they are already facing."

But the research in no way denies the possibility that God's presumed beliefs also may provide guidance in situations where people are uncertain of their own beliefs, the co-authors noted.

Rare dementias rob personality, then life

CNN.COM
Life was good for Kenny Sparks. ... At 49 he had it all. But then he began to change....Kenny has a condition known as frontotemporal dementia, or FTD.
"Many patients will lose their inhibitions; they'll act totally inappropriately, leaving their families to wonder what is wrong," said Dr. Murray Grossman, a neurologist with the University of Pennsylvania. "Some patients will have no problem spending the family fortune, taking all their money and putting it into scams, get-rich-quick schemes, or going off and buying an expensive car or boat the family doesn't need. The patients lose their reasoning."
"What's particularly frustrating for family members is, the patients don't seem to have much insight into the difficulties they are having or causing for others," Grossman said.

FTD affects approximately 250,000 Americans -- about 10 percent to 20 percent of all dementia cases -- and misdiagnosis is common, according to the Association for Frontotemporal Dementias.

...When Kenny's children visit, it can be hard for them to see him slip away.

"When he has his bad days and he lashes out it makes it hurt more, and that's when you have to blame the disease," said daughter Alexandra.

Son Graham agreed. "You've got to understand your dad is actually gone, and it's the disease."

Cheryl looks at it differently.

"Our doctor says if we don't take this on with a sense of humor our family will be destroyed," she said. "In so many ways we've been blessed. So we've got to keep going with a good heart."

"There is no one hardest part," Cheryl said. "Well, for me, knowing that the man I thought I was going to grow old with -- I'm not, I guess."

Cheryl stopped, and with tears in her eyes, realized, "Yes, that's the hardest part."

Video, In Chile, Dog Risks Life To Save Another Dog.

Click "Read more >>" for access.

Video, Monkey Cooperation and Fairness

Cooperation and Fairness are expressions of logical relationships based on self-interest that even monkeys can understand. Click on "Read more >>" for access.

Yay, I'm under attack by Faith Based Thinkers! I'm somebody now!

Link to Faith Based thinking commenter
"you really need to add comment moderation to your blasphemy…"

"Please don't throw me in that briar patch!"
I'm going to feature you over in the sidebar. I'm even going to give a label for quick reference.
Please feel free to try your best to bring the blog down. You only make my case for me and drive my ranking up!
You silly person, you'll probably be the only one commenting.
*:O)
GOATS ON FIRE! YEE HAH!
And away we go!
thank you, thank you, thank you!

Direct Evidence Of Moral Behavior From Evolution

My working hypothesis is that Game Theory and simple rules derived from self-interest are sufficient to generate self-organized behavior that is labeled as "Morality". Here's more evidence to back that up.

Evolution Guides Cooperative Turn-taking, Game Theory-based Computer Simulations Show, ScienceDaily.com

"We published indirect evidence for this in 2004; we have now shown it directly and found a simple explanation for it. Our findings confirm that cooperation does not always require benevolence or deliberate planning. This form of cooperation, at least, is guided by an ‘invisible hand’, as happens so often in Darwin’s theory of natural selection.”

Morality Is A Category Of Acts Of Mutual Self-Interest

In my view debates about Morality derive from the tendency of people to attribute and misinterpret intent and intelligence in self-organizing phenomena. To me it is obvious that Morality fits in a category of phenomena that derive from self-organization. Self-organization is commonly spoken about, even by scientists whether they mean to or not, as having some kind of intent or intelligence behind it.

CONFUSING INTANGIBLES WITH TANGIBLES
I think we do this because we are used to talking and thinking about objects. So we use those common patterns of speech as pre-made patterns of phrases to express ourselves because it is convenient for the speaker and the listener. It's so embedded in the English language and culture, in the heuristics we use day to day, even skilled thinkers such as scientists speak as though processes have intent.

In a way Morality is like math.
It is a representation of concepts that have natural relationships that exist and must be discovered to appreciate. In fact, in the days of Pythagoras, math was considered mystical, even divine, being objective and having "forms", and "essence". Its legacy in philosophy can be traced to the concept of the "essence" of humans, or "the soul". But that's a topic for another article half-done in my Googledocs.

Math is the process of applying values to representations of objects and intangibles to manipulate the relationships between them to assess different outcomes. The rules of Math are not so much "invented" as discovered. The rules of math are observations recorded for re-use. In the same way that mathematical rules are recorded observations of the interactions of their properties, the interactions between self-interested agents that have common properties can be recorded and given the name "Morality". Does this mean that "moral" acts can be predicted or assessed mathematically? I think the fact that people are comfortable predicting what someone would do in a given circumstance demonstrates that it is done informally on a day to day basis, and should someone take the time to capture that process mathematically, then I think it could be done probabilistically, similar to Game Theory.

A MECHANISM FOR MORALITY
- Mirror neurons,
"A mirror neuron is a neuron which fires both when an animal acts and when the animal observes the same action performed by another (especially conspecific) animal.[1] Thus, the neuron "mirrors" the behavior of another animal, as though the observer were itself acting." Mirror neurons have been shown to have a relationship to intentions, empathy and language.
Wikipedia. Wikipedia, 2008. Answers.com 04 Mar. 2009. http://www.answers.com/topic/mirror-neuron
- An observed event.
One agent observes another agent experiencing some event.
- A Change of State of the feelings of the observer
- The Feeling causes an Emotion
such as "compassion" or "empathy". Additionally, emotion can be stimulated by input from our senses or by artificial stimulation using probes and electricity, or in some cases mirror neurons.
- Desire
The emotion causes a desire
- Thinking
The desire causes thinking processes.
- How do we think about this stuff?
We use mental images, we use language, we use the processes in our brains, and we can only use what we've stored up to the moment. How we think about things is completely dependent on our inventory of thoughts and experiences up to the point. Additionally there is evidence that shows across cultures that people have some parameters for behavior hardwired into the brain. The Trolly Problem demonstrates that people across cultures and categories seem to have a biological algorithm for dealing with situations that distinguishes intentional and unintentional harm during a rescue.

A Theory of Moral Grammar
Harvard University's Cognitive Evolution Laboratory was established to study moral decision making and has a "moral sense test" set up for visitors to test their "moral sense". Marc D. Hauser, a biologist at Harvard, is testing a theory that people are born with a moral grammar wired into their minds by evolution. In his book, “Moral Minds”, he shows that instant moral judgments seem to be generated by the "moral grammar" which are inaccessible to the conscious mind partly because of the quick decisions that must be made in life-or-death situations.

THINKING ABOUT "MORAL" BEHAVIOR AS AN OBJECT
- How do we capture it for mental storage and transmittal?
We have to have a way to think about all the facets of the event, and how to describe it to some other mind.
- The "Moral" Act
The desire and the self-talk may lead to an action and if it does then the event plus the action could be observed by a third mind and then once its all over, some value ranking goes on, judgments are made, conclusions are drawn, and now there is something to describe, to judge, and store in an inventory of experiences, to share with another mind, and either endorse, reject or ignore.
- Organizing "Moral" Acts
Once there are more than one of these events in an inventory, a way to think about them that reflects their similarities is needed, so we classify them, and we call it "Morality".

MORALITY IS ANALOGOUS TO ECONOMICS
From what I can see, "morality" is a category of behaviors that result from the self-interest of many agents. It is a form of self-organization of these agents according to their mental capabilities into groups behaving according to implicit rules that will become explicit in humans and has an analogy in economics. Its like circumstances are being guided by an "Invisible Hand". "The Invisible hand" is "an economic principle, first postulated by Adam Smith, holding that the greatest benefit to a society is brought about by individuals acting freely in a competitive marketplace in the pursuit of their own self-interest."
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Houghton Mifflin Company, 2004. Answers.com 04 Mar. 2009. http://www.answers.com/topic/invisible-hand)

The difference between Self-interest and Selfishness
I see a lot of people make the claim that Adam Smith was endorsing "selfishness". Selfish is to Self-interest as Revenge is to Justice. While similar in concept, one is harmful and the other is not. Selfish and Revenge are about gaining an advantage, Self-interest and Justice are about maintaining an equilibrium.

Morality is really just a category of behaviors.
If we say that a behavior that fits in the category of morality is an action by an agent that requires an investment or risk to the benefit of another, then these behaviors can be observed to cross species boundaries and get more sophisticated with the sophistication of the species. All types of animals ranging from Apes, Whales, Dolphins, Birds, Elephants, have been documented exhibiting behavior that could be categorized as a rudimentary form of morality.

The real question is where does the behavior come from?
Lets trace it from its origins in an example taken from one of my experiences. I saw a person walking their dog on a leash. A stray dog attacked the dog on the leash and the person was struggling with separating them and not getting bit. It made me uncomfortable. I felt like I wanted to do something about it. From that feeling rose an emotion that caused me to start a process of thinking. My self-talk was something like "that's not right". I could relate to the person, and I knew how I would feel. I could relate to the dog, it was in danger from an aggressor and at a disadvantage. Through my emotion, self-talk, and narration creation process, I derived a strategy of dealing with the world. So it seems like the feeling came from the stimulus of a situation that was "unjust" or "out of place". The person was doing the right thing, the dog wasn't harming anyone and the stray was loose and aggressive. I made the choice to stop my car, get out and kick the stray dog to make it leave. But it had everything to do with visual and audible stimulus that came in through my biological receptors (eyes and ears) to set some biological process in motion that gave me the feeling, that caused the emotion, that caused me to derive a strategy for engagement with the world that I decided to take action on.

If God, then which God and how much is he involved in "Moral" behavior in non-humans?
If someone wants to inject God into that scenario then one has a lot of explaining to do. Since morality emerges in other species, other cultures and religions, then if God is injected into the situation above then he has to be injected into all the other situations including those of animals and Atheists. Why is God needed to explain it? Where does God Fit? Which god are we talking about? How does one know which god? How can someone else verify that it is being attributed to the proper God? If God has more to do with some situations than others, where are the boundaries for understanding when and how much God is involved and when he's not? Where is the tipping point or turning point when we can say that God is responsible for such and such moral event? And if the claim is "the bible says" then why should anyone trust the bible when the time of origin, the place of origin, the authors, the credentials of the authors are unknown, and there are is a lot of wrong data, even inconsistent data in the bible? The information in the Bible is of demonstrably poor quality when assessed using sound principles for information quality.

Consider these examples of moral behaviors derived from self interest
- I don't hit you because I don't want to get hit back.
- I grow vegetables well, Jill farms animals well, Harry is a good hunter, John makes good pants, and we all trade amongst ourselves for the things we need creating and equilibrium. It is not in our self-interest to allow one of the other participants to feel they are at a disadvantage by becoming selfish.
- I love Jill and when she is sad it bothers me so i try to cheer her up. Cheering her up makes me feel better.
- I trade with harry and he feels bad so he's not hunting, so I try to make harry feel better so I can get more meat
- Momma ain't happy so nobody's happy, so we try to make her happy.

Self-Interest Related to Relations
- We have biological emotional attachments to our children, and families, these are documented in research. Our desires to benefit them are derived in part from our emotions. The initiation of an emotion is not controllable for the most part, but we can do things to reduce the likelihood of their occurrence, or calm down, or work ourselves up, or decide to behave under the influence of the desires brought on by emotion.

It Just Ain't Right!
I don't need the police to do anything with my son when he takes a twenty out of my wallet, and I don't need the church to teach my son that his behavior is unacceptable on many levels.

It Just Feels Like The Right Thing To Do
And what is the origin of the desire to help an "enemy"? An uncomfortable feeling. Helping the enemy helps to resolve that uncomfortable feeling. It just "feels like the right thing to do".

Examples of Aiding the Enemy
- Christmas Truce and Informal Armistice
- Americal Civil War had many reports of aiding the enemy
- The American Underground Railroad for rescuing slaves

Language: Naming, organizing, classifying and categorizing.
Once the agents observe a phenomena and identify what it is they want to talk about, they must give the phenomena names in order to communicate what is going on in their mind. For example they have to give "sharing" a name, give "empathy" a name then they have to define what it is that is going on. The have to capture the phenomena in language so it can be discussed, then they can take steps to refine it and make it better, to set some parameters and boundaries, make some rules. They have to create a mental object from an intangible in order to work with it in a discussion to manipulate it according to parameters to make predictions about it. It's like verbal math working out the details of a moral equation.

The Aggregate Sum Of The Values Of THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS
Over time, the Value of "Pride" has changed in the moral equation. Pride used to be a virtue during the time of the Illiad, then Pope Gregory listed it as a deadly sin, then it re-emerged relatively recently as a behavior with positive and negative characteristics. The process of classification of morality continues to this day. You can see it in the news stories about legislative debates, most notably of late, legislation about the rights of homosexuals. Its a kind of an "Evolution of Morality" similar to the idea of Evolution of Coorperation

Justification For Morality Without God
The Justification for how "morality" came about is its inherent utility. The explanation starts with the feeling that causes the emotion, that creates the desire to act, which causes the action, and the result is beneficial whether it is realized or not by the agent. If it is realized, by humans for example, then we can further organize and classify it as a moral act and manipulate it to create a rule that can be used as a "tool".

The study of "Morality" seems to me to similar to a few other fields of study that I've listed below. I endorse the reader to take some time to become familiar with them. I've used Wikipedia for the links below and throughout not because it is a highly reliable source, but because it is a good place to start.

- Evolution of Cooperation
- Spontaneous Order
- Emergence
- Self-organization
- Game Theory
- Economics
- Harvards Moral Sense Test
- Marc D. Hauser
- Link to all DC's articles on Morality

Anyone that wants to argue that god has anything to do with morality has a very narrow point of view and is ignoring a ton of disconfirming qualifiers.

Morality is just plain good Economics.
Morality is ultimately an act of self-interest.
It Just feels right, and logically creates better outcomes for all agents.

Measuring Morality, The Highlighter Test

Since Logic is necessary to understand God, we can apply sound principles derived from reasoning, using logic grounded in experience and evidence to other areas of our lives. We can derive a list of sound moral principles in this way. We can take our list of sound moral principles and apply them to other cultures, other time periods and stories in the bible to see if they meet, beat or break the principles.

In this way we can compare our list of sound moral principles to those displayed as evidence and compare them. In this way we can see what percentage of our list of moral principles are met, and then measure how much our morality matches another. I suggest we all take a highlighter and go to the bible and highlight all the verses that do not match our list of morals and see what we have at the end.

I think Christians will agree that their set of morals don't really come from the bible.

Fruit Of The Spirit And The Problem Of The Heap

This article discusses the Flawed Principle of identifying Christians by their outward characteristics.
The problem of the heap, sometimes called the problem of the Beard is stated something like this. When you drop one grain of sand on another, when do you have a heap? Or if a man lets his facial hair grow out when do you call it a beard?

The fruits of the spirit are love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness and temperance. They are the characteristics that sum up the nine visible attributes of a true Christian life. That's a nice pile of Rhetoric and very appealing to the ego and very convincing if we don't put much thought into it. But each of these in themselves suffer from the problem of the heap as much as they all do together.

Does everyone agree on exactly what love is? When is a person experiencing Joy? What if they drift out of Joy into happiness or just apathy? How much suffering is long-suffering? How much is gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness and temperance? If we say that these only apply to Christians, do we really believe that? Aren't there people out there that are not Christians that exhibit these? I think I exhibit them, and some Christian thinkers have admitted their crises in faith. How much faith do they have? Enough to keep their positions that's for sure.

What is the difference between them and me? In some cases they are dishonest to themselves, and sometimes to others, at least I don't profess to be a Christian. I would say that if I went back to church and avoided talking about God, nodded my head and smiled politely in a tolerant politically correct kind of way, no one would know the difference. My fruits would look fine to them.

In any case, if Christians make up a third of the population of the world, and these characteristics can be applied to all categories of people, then the defining characteristic must be Faith because in this context, it would be faith in God. So what we really mean to say is that "you will know them because they profess a belief in Jesus".

So now, back to the heap, how much faith in Jesus is enough? And additionally how much faith in Jesus and how much of any of the rest of the fruits are enough? It seems to me that I could disqualify most of the Christians in any given church I walk into using this criteria. So if those that have enough fruit to be called Christians are few, and you don't know how much is enough, then you don't really know if you are leading a true christian life or not.

All this uncertainty about being a 'true Christian' and not appearing like a Christian to other Christians seems to defy reason. I think we could say that using these criteria is meaningless and I wonder, with all things being equal, why be a Christian? Why participate in the protocol? Most Christians in that 30% probably aren't leading a truly Christian life and as a result are as lost as I am. Its a narrow road, many are called but few are taken, is that how it goes? So of the billions of people on the planet since god allegedly made himself known, less than 30% are chosen. What is the point in that? That's a lot of needless suffering for someone to permit, when he set the conditions ahead of time and knew the outcome before he started. That sounds like predestination to me, and in that case, no matter what you do, you are either saved or not, your name is in the book of life or not. So how much is enough, and are you really saved or do you just think you are? Would another Christian say you are a real Christian? How do they know? By your fruits? But don't your fruits seem fine to you? How do they look to your friends?

Creationist Fatally Stabs Evolutionist

The life of a Scottish backpacker and Evolutionist was cut short by an English Fundamentalist Christian Creationist. The Creationist took a stab at dissecting the evolutionists argument earlier in the evening, however, failed by his rapier wit, the Creationist decided to drive his point home the only way he could. Evolutionists everywhere should be more cautious as the the debate is getting dicier as time goes on.
Link

A bizarre row about evolution versus creationism led to an English backpacker fatally stabbing a Scottish backpacker during a fruit-picking trip to earn money for their travels.

Alexander York, 33, from Essex, was sentenced to a maximum of five years in jail yesterday for the manslaughter of Rudi Boa, 28, a biomedical student from Inverness.

Children Are Targets Of Nigerian Witch Hunt

Where's the Holy Spirit when you need it?
Link to the news story
This is what happens when you base your beliefs on weak evidence and appeal to tradition and appeal to authority. This is what happens when you don't have firm criteria for good evidence. This is what happens when you don't think for yourself and weigh the evidence. This is what happens when you put your faith in the supernatural. This is the nature of The Beast.

Evangelical pastors are helping to create a terrible new campaign of violence against young Nigerians. Children and babies branded as evil are being abused, abandoned and even murdered while the preachers make money out of the fear of their parents and their communities.......

The rainy season is over and the Niger Delta is lush and humid. This southern edge of West Africa, where Nigeria's wealth pumps out of oil and gas fields to bypass millions of its poorest people, is a restless place. In the small delta state of Akwa Ibom, the tension and the poverty has delivered an opportunity for a new and terrible phenomenon that is leading to the abuse and the murder of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of children. And it is being done in the name of Christianity.

Almost everyone goes to church here. Driving through the town of Esit Eket, the rust-streaked signs, tarpaulins hung between trees and posters on boulders, advertise a church for every third or fourth house along the road. Such names as New Testament Assembly, Church of God Mission, Mount Zion Gospel, Glory of God, Brotherhood of the Cross, Redeemed, Apostalistic. Behind the smartly painted doors pastors make a living by 'deliverances' - exorcisms - for people beset by witchcraft, something seen to cause anything from divorce, disease, accidents or job losses. With so many churches it's a competitive market, but by local standards a lucrative one.

But an exploitative situation has now grown into something much more sinister as preachers are turning their attentions to children - naming them as witches. In a maddened state of terror, parents and whole villages turn on the child. They are burnt, poisoned, slashed, chained to trees, buried alive or simply beaten and chased off into the bush.

Click here to read the rest of the story

"When Our Vices Get The Better Of Us"

This article weakens the claims regarding Gods Justice, Mercy, freewill and Human Accountability.

As humans, we have limited resources to control ourselves, researchers say; all acts of control draw from one source. So when using this resource in one domain, such as dieting, we’re more likely to run out of it in another domain, like studying hard.

www.world-science.net

Inzlicht and Gutsell asked participants to suppress their emotions while watching an upsetting movie. The idea was to deplete their resources for selfcontrol. The participants reported their ability to suppress their feelings on a scale from one to nine. Then, they completed a Stroop task, which involves naming the color of printed words (i.e. saying red when reading the word “green” written in red), yet another task that requires selfcontrol.

The researchers found that those who suppressed their emotions performed worse on the task, indicating that they had used up their selfcontrol resources while holding back their tears during the film.

An electroencephalogram (EEG), a recording of electrical activity in the brain, confirmed the results, they said. Normally, when a person deviates from their goals (in this case, wanting to read the word, not the color of the font), increased activity occurs in a part of the brain called the anterior cingulate cortex, which alerts the person that they are offtrack. The researchers found weaker activity in this brain region during the Stroop task in those who had suppressed their feelings. In other words, after engaging in one act of selfcontrol this brain system seems to fail during the next act, they said.

If we are expected to make moral decisions and are going to be held eternally accountable for them, we have a poor mechanism to do it with. Our brains design is such that it is more likely in any given situation that we will make an error in judgment.

Schizophrenia Candidate Genes Affect Even Healthy Individuals

This is an article providing information about Biological Bases for Behavior.
It is intended as evidence to weaken the doctrine of punishment for sin as a result of freewill and the concept of an absolute freewill.

ScienceDaily.com

In the largest study of its kind to date, scheduled for publication in the October 1st issue of Biological Psychiatry, researchers sought to examine the impact of a few particular genes, known to be associated with a diagnosis of schizophrenia, on a healthy population.....
.....
In other words, they found that the healthy individuals who possessed the risk variants within the DNTBP1, NRG1, and DAAO genes exhibited small reductions in their cognitive performance and had atypical experiences that might be associated with schizophrenia.....
.....
Dr. Stefanis, explaining the importance of this study, comments that "these findings support the notion that even at the general population level, the genetic liability to psychosis may be expressed as minute and 'undetected to the naked eye' alterations in brain information processing capacity and behavior." Dr. Krystal adds, "Consistent with a growing body of evidence, this study suggests that there may be subtle cognitive impairments that are present when these common risk gene variants are present in the general population." Clearly, these findings will have an important impact on the future genetic work in this area.

I couldn't have said it better.

This casts doubt on the principle of punishment for sin is a better principle than nurturing remediation. Where is god when you need him? Oh yea, everything happens in gods time.
And the check is in the mail.

References
Sciencedaily.com: Mind and Brain
Scienceblogs.com: Brain and Behavior

Brain Atrophy In Elderly Leads To Unintended Racism, Depression And Problem Gambling

This is an article providing information about Biological Bases for Behavior.
It is intended as evidence to weaken the doctrine of sin as a result of freewill and the concept of an absolute freewill.

ScienceDaily.com

excerpt
"Science Daily — As we age, our brains slowly shrink in volume and weight. This includes significant atrophy within the frontal lobes, the seat of executive functioning. Executive functions include planning, controlling, and inhibiting thought and behavior. In the aging population, an inability to inhibit unwanted thoughts and behavior causes several social behaviors and cognitions to go awry.

In a study appearing in the October issue of Current Directions in Psychological Science, University of Queensland psychologist, Bill von Hippel, reports that decreased inhibitory ability in late adulthood can lead to unintended prejudice, social inappropriateness, depression, and gambling problems."

Peoples behavior, decisions, choices, attitude, temperament, etc are shaped by many factors. Some of the more important ones are Genetics, Environment and Physiology.

If we cannot do what we prefer because the brains cognitive mechanism can be influenced externally, then freewill is impeded. If we do things that we would prefer not to, or would not normally do if the cognitive mechanism supported it, then we should not be held culpable by a God on the basis of freewill. I think this can be extrapolated proportionally from the extreme to the average person.

At what point would be "convicted of sin"? Would it be better to kill ourselves when we think we are at our most "righteous" and hope for the best?

I am going to continue to post these types of news articles as I find them.

Reasonable Doubt about The Atonement: Psychopathy

This is intended as the first of a series exploring Biological Bases of Behavior and its implications for Christianity. The focus of this article is on Psychopathy and its implications regarding the Atonement.

It explains that psychopathy is regarded alternately as an emotional disorder and/or a genetically selected sub-population of people that cannot feel love, empathy or remorse. It shows that it is inherited and likely has a genetic component. It discusses the correlation with differences in amygdala function between this population and the mean. Considering Matt. 22:37s commandment to love God with all your heart, soul and mind, the question becomes, what happens to the psychopath in this process? According to the explanation of the Atonement, it may cover their sins, but they cannot meet the requirement to love God, and repent.

This link provides a great overview of Evangelical views of Atonement. It was written by John W. Loftus to show how viewpoints of Atonement are linked to the cultural values of their period. And here is a different article from another blogger with a similar topic to this one. It argues that modern cognitive science leaves little room for the existence of a "soul."

Christianity depends on the belief that Christ died for our sins. From the perspective of the Evangelical all the sins of all of the people in the world past, present and future went onto Christ and when he died, he died as atonement for the sins of the past, present and future people of the world. People are predisposed to sin rather than follow Gods law. People are predisposed to behave in a way that is not consistent with Gods law.
How did people get that way? Was it the original sin of disobeying Gods law in the garden of Eden or was it something that happened as a result of the way we are made?

Allegedly Jesus died for us so we won’t have to, yet people are predisposed to sin for biological reasons as much as for “moral” reasons. For God to have gone to the trouble to become Man and go through the crucifixion it seems like he should have eliminated biological bases for behavior that make it likely that people will disobey Him. If he had done that it would have become purely a moral question.

God created humans along with the world. So it follows that he made us this way. To say that he didn’t infers that something changed the initial state of our nature. If something changed, what was it? If we stipulate that Adam and Eve were real, and if we say that the decision to eat the Apple was made by Adam and Eve, how did the thought even arise in them to disobey God unless it occurred naturally? If it would not have occurred naturally but it was the result of a deception by Satan, then either they had no clue what they were doing and we are suffering the problem of evil for their stupidity or they had the mechanism built in to disobey God. The circuitry was in place to entertain the idea of disregarding the importance of obeying God. I’m sure if they had more life experience or had a concept of what the implications would be they would not have done it, but that is an argument for another time. So it appears that we had the propensity to disobey God built in. Let’s call it freewill.

To say that Humans choose to disobey God infers that we know what God wants in the first place. I will stipulate for the purpose of this article that we should be able to understand how God wants us to behave from scripture.

What does God want from us?

"Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. 38. This is the first and great commandment." Matthew 22:37

And some others follow.
Love one another as we love ourselves, to act justly, to love mercy, to keep the commandments, obey God, believe God, trust God, know God, seek God, repent, strive to overcome our nature and have faith.

These words were written by people that did not understand the properties of the brain. These words were written before the discovery of principles that demonstrably affect behavior such as not being able to process emotional information or being genetically predisposed to disease. Severe mental disorder was thought to be the result of spirits. These words were written before anyone knew that the emotional disorder of Psychopathy was possible.

If we know that mental processes can be affected by influences other than internal thoughts, then that casts doubt on the whole concept of absolute free will. If we stipulate that there is a non-absolute type of freewill available to everyone, then we can see that there is a varying degree of freewill accessible by everyone. What degree of freewill does a Psychopath have? What degree of free will does a Sociopath have? What degree of free will does a person with depression have? What degree of freewill does a person have that has a tumor that affects mental processes? What degree of free will do you have? The functioning of the Brain can be altered by chemicals and trauma as much as it can by a persons internal thought processes, environment and culture. Decision making processes including those relating to morality can be handicapped by the structure of the brain itself. One aspect of freewill is accessibility to options. When your options are limited by the environment or by your cognitive abilities, your freewill is limited proportionally.

If you can force a Psychopath to behave according to Gods Law, you can’t change his "heart" (motivation), because he is born that way and there is no known therapy to counteract it. There is no way to get him to feel love or loyalty to God so from the start, the biblical mechanism for redemption for the psychopath is flawed. There is no scriptural mechanism for the salvation of the psychopath.

A popular rebuttal to this problem is that God can save anyone he chooses to through his grace. He will save those that are incapable of understanding that allegedly Jesus sacrifice on the cross was their way to salvation. There are several problems with that view.

First, typically Evangelicals, believe in the Doctrine of Original Sin, that we are born into sin such as described by David in Psalm 51:5. We do not need to learn how to sin, it comes naturally through Adams sin. Only learning about Jesus and believing saves you. Jesus was the Second Adam. Non-Evangelicals will point to an interpretation about Davids baby and a belief that god will do the right thing. However nowhere is this problem specifically addressed in the Bible. Scriptural evidence better supports the assertion that they are not saved.

Second, non-Evangelicals believe that passages such as 1 Cor 7:14 can be interpreted that children will be saved if they die before they can understand the Gospel. But the Evangelical understanding of that passage does not mean saved. It means being made ritually clean in the sense of Jewish law in the case that an believer marries an unbeliever. They are made ritually clean, and the marriage and children are acceptable to God, which is not the same thing and significantly less important than salvation.

Third. Romans 2:14 - 15 talks about the law written on our hearts. Commonly called "the law of conscience". It is a type of Universal Moral Law written on our hearts as a result of being made in Gods Image. It is independent of the saving grace of Jesus, it is enough to condemn however, and it supports the view of Original Sin.

Fourth, allegedly Jesus as the "the perfect sacrifice" was ultimately pleasing enough to god to forgive everyones sin and give them a fresh start. They are still born into sin but they the get the chance at salvation because of His sacrifice on the cross. Psychopaths are incapable of repentance or loyalty to God. However, since psychopaths exist, then that means the sacrifice while maybe technically perfect, wasn't effectively perfect.

Now with these premises in mind, lets discuss some outcomes.

If say that we don't know what god will do with babies and the psychopath, then we have fundamentally weakened the concept of the Atonement and Original Sin. It was supposed to be the way to salvation for everyone, a reconciliation with god.

So if Non-Evangelicals are right and we are qualified to say that God will do the right thing and save the 'incapable', it raises the question of "the right thing" by whose standards? Ours or His? I see this view as contradicting the Christian "Test" solution to the Problem of Evil/Suffering; that even the rape and murder of children work out for the greater good but we can't know how that happens, and also that good is defined by god and we can't understand that either, and that is why so many acts of god look evil to us. It undermines the idea that the Evil in the world is a test for us. If God can save anyone he wants, and the Psychopath, or the criminally insane can run around and do hideous things with no remorse and still get saved, then this view of salvation is terribly unfair. The freewill of the innocent, or not so innocent can be undermined by a sub-group of people that can do anything and still be saved. If we say that god will do the right thing in principle by saving babies and the psychopath then we have set a precedent to say that we are competent to judge when god would do the right thing. Using that warrant I will say that raping and murdering children is not the right thing and does not lead to the greater good therefore the Problem Or Evil cancels God out because a benevolent God should not permit that.

If we are going to say that god will not save the psychopath or baby, then most people would find that unconscionable, we can add to our list of Problem of Evil grievances, and we have fundamentally weakened the concept of the Atonement and Original Sin because it was supposed to be the way to salvation for everyone, a reconciliation with god.I think the problem of unsaved babies, and the psychopath, is an unhandled exception that halts the system.

Through research in psychology, psychiatry, neuroscience and genetics it is becomingly increasingly clear that behavior is not only a matter of wanting to do the right thing, it depends on having an internal mechanism that supports it.

I used a podcast by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation as a basis for this article. The podcast was called “Inside the Mind of a Psychopath”. The reason I chose Psychopathy as the first topic for this series was because Psychopathy is clinically considered an emotional disorder that disrupts empathy. Psychopaths are not able to Love and therefore not able to follow the First Great Commandment from Matt. 22:37.

In the synopsis of the interviews that follow, the various researchers give their perspectives on Psychopathy.

Dr. Robert Hare says the psychopath is not what the media portrays. They are individuals that are intact but at the core, lack emotional concern or empathy for other people. They don’t understand that other people have rights. They don’t feel remorse or guilt. They lack a conscience and this can’t be explained in intellectual deficiency, psychosis, mental illness or brain damage.
Traits that make up a Psychopath are shared with Psychotic and Sociopathic personalities but some traits make them distinct from each other. Psychotic personalities are considered delusional, and Sociopathic personalities have the ability to feel remorse or guilt.

Psychopaths know exactly what they are doing but they just don’t care. Psychotics are not aware that what they are doing is wrong. The term Sociopath describes the “hardcore” criminal. Some psychopaths are also sociopaths, or hardcore criminals, but they don’t feel remorse.

Traits that collectively describe a Psychopath are a shallow emotional life, they are fairly superficial people, they use deceit to intimidate and control other people, they tend to be fairly dominant in controlling people, they have enormous sense of entitlement (they believe everything is due to them), they are fairly impulsive in a controlled sense, they lead a nomadic lifestyle, they commit a lot of irresponsible behavior, promiscuity, lying and they have a need for excitement. None of these traits individually warrant the diagnosis of psychopathy, but collectively they do. All these traits make up the personality of a person that would find it easy to violate social norms of behavior but not necessarily to the degree of criminality.

Dr. James Blair believes that psychopathy is an emotional disorder, comparable to depression and anxiety. He is convinced that their behavior is a result of the difference in how their brains work. Types of emotional learning are impaired. They don’t process emotional information properly. The way that emotions interact with attention to process objects in the environment, and the way that emotions interact with decision making is interrupted. They are not as good at recognizing facial expressions as non-psychopaths.

Some children exhibit psychopathic tendencies. Dr. Blair is performing MRI studies on them to see the differences in their brains. Children are less likely to have had strong environmental influences in their behavior. One of the tests is to recognize facial expressions. Children with psychopathic traits show a reduced response in the amygdala compared to children without psychopathic traits. The amygdala are also important in feeling fear. So it may explain why psychopaths are not afraid of getting caught if they commit a crime, and their apparent lack of conscience. If a person has trouble interpreting how someone else feels, it would be almost impossible to have empathy, and learn the difference between good and bad behavior.

Dr. Blair believes that since psychoapthy is an emotional disorder, and since emotional disorders respond well to pharmacological treatments, once the systems that cause psychopathy are understood, it is likely that it can be treated pharmacologically.

Dr. Essi Viding says that children with psychopathic traits differ from children with anti-social behavior. They lack empathy for people they offend and rarely feel bad about what they’ve done. Children with psychopathic traits will deliberately hurt other children especially if they are perceived as being weak or needing protection. Sometimes they will hurt other children for amusement and not feel bad about it. If they feel bad, they feel bad about getting caught. They usually blame others for their own actions, they can be cruel to animals and they seem to have a slightly odd emotional profile. They are superficially charming in an attempt to manipulate people to their own ends but don’t actually show sincere affection and can change their loyalties quickly. She conducted studies on twins that show that the traits are largely inherited. She and her colleague are planning to look for genetic markers in DNA to identify risk factors for psychopathy in the same way that certain gene combinations identify risk factors for heart disease.

Dr. Marnie Rice believes there is a genetic basis for psychopathy and believes that it was evolutionarily selected for. While she acknowledges that psychopathic behavior is outside the mean for average human behavior, she sees it not as a disorder but as a natural variation within the human genome. In some ways it made for an evolutionarily “fitter” person. She thinks psychopaths have evolved to fill an evolutionary niche. The only required behavior to make evolution work is to successfully pass on your genes. Promiscuity and lack of empathy are traits of psychopaths and this leads to mating and reproduction. They tend to start having sex earlier, and tend to move between partners frequently. Barring any inhibiting factors, psychopaths are likely to have more offspring than non psychopaths. Dr. Rice’s research into psychopathic sexual preferences show they are selectively interested in post-pubescent females. They are not as likely to be interested in the same sex or children. Psychopaths are most successful in environments where they can remain anonymous and jump from mate to mate. The city is a perfect place for that behavior.

Changing the behavior of psychopaths using typical therapy doesn’t work. Some traditional therapy makes them worse. After treatment they have a higher likelihood of repeating the offending behavior. They use what they learn in therapy to gain an advantage to increase the successful outcome of their subsequent behavior.

In summary, I repeat, if a psychopath can be forced to behave according to Gods Law, his motivation (“heart”) can’t change, because he is born that way and there is no known therapy to counteract it. There is no way to get him to feel love or loyalty to god so from the start, the biblical mechanism for redemption for the psychopath is flawed. There is no scriptural mechanism for the salvation of the psychopath.

REFERENCES

Atonement Theories and Cultural Understandings.
The Soul: A Rational Belief?
CBC Radio: Inside the mind of a psychopath (scroll down to the bottom of the page when you get there)
Wikipedia on Psychopathy
Dr. Hares webpage
Dr. Blairs webpage
Dr. Viding’s webpage
Dr. Rice’s book on this topic
The Society for the Scientific Study of Psychopathy
Dr. Porters Webpage

Study In "Journal of Religion and Society" Finds Societies Worse Off With Religion.

More morality news (albeit from Sep. 2005!), thanks to recent commenter "The Alpha".
"Societies worse off 'when they have God on their side'" from the online edition of The Times.
The original study is here. Thanks Prup!.

Enjoy.

[Revision 1. Placed another link to more news like this after the article]
An update on research into morality as an evolutionary adaptation. I'm just waiting for the old "God wrote it on our hearts..." rejoinder....

The problem with that claim is the following.

As a general principle, if god exists, then he wrote it on our hearts just as the bible says.
But the problems are
* there is no credible evidence that God had anything to do with the Bible
* there is no credible evidence that God exists
* it would suggest that if god did write it on our hearts, then he 'hedged' the freewill question
* and this type of morality is not sophisticated enough to be considered some type of divine manipulation.

Enjoy!

Science Daily

Humans hard-wired to be generous

WASHINGTON, May 28 (UPI) -- A study by government scientists in Washington indicates humans are hard-wired to be unselfish.

Neuroscientists Jorge Moll and Jordan Grafman of the National Institutes of Health say experiments they conducted have led them to conclude unselfishness is not a matter of morality, The Washington Post reports.

Rather, the two say altruism is something that makes people feel good, lighting up a primitive part of the human brain that usually responds to food or sex.

Grafman and Moll have been scanning the brains of volunteers who were asked to think about a scenario involving either donating a sum of money to charity or keeping it for themselves.

They are among scientists across the United States using imaging and psychological experiments to study whether the brain has a built-in moral compass.

The results are showing many aspects of morality appear to be hard-wired in the brain, opening up a new window on what it means to be good.

Copyright 2007 by United Press International. All Rights Reserved.

Here's another related link with more information on this type of research. On that page, on the right hand side are even more links to this type of research news.

A Double Standard for Morality?

This started out as a response to a commenter but I thought it was important enough to use as a post for an article. I noticed in the recent Loftus-Wood ‘cross-fire’ debate on the infidelguy show, that Wood seemed to be using the argument that God has a different standard for morality than us. I seem to see this argument a lot. In fact, a recent commenter seemed to be using it against John, and then when I countered it, a different commenter defended it. I wonder how can it be justified that the Abrahamic God should not be expected to adhere to the same rules that we are expected to adhere to with respect to morality.

A father that smokes and tells his son not to smoke creates a problem in his credibility. While it is true that smoking is not healthy and the son is not justified in disregarding that advice, the fact that it can be shown empirically that smoking is unhealthy supports the fathers claim and weakens the effect of the charge of inconsistency. I don't see how anyone can support the claim that God should not be expected to adhere to the same rules that we are expected to adhere to with respect to morality. I don't see how anyone can support a double standard for morality. My argument is an argument from ignorance intended to show that it is more plausible that there should not be a double standard for morality.

The only way that I can see for the believer to refute it is to say something like God is a mystery and that we can not expect to dictate what God can do. This would be a mischaracterization and an appeal to the supernatural, specifically God, but the presumption of God and the supernatural is controversial. In the case that the believer says that God is a special case, for whatever reason, would be a case of special pleading, and they would have to show why morality rules for us don't apply to God. In the end, their presumption is still that God exists and as I said before this is a weak premise in that it is controversial on two, maybe three, points.
1. that there is a god
2. that it is the Abrahamic god
3. Possibly irrelevant, but that he had anything to do with scripture.

In the case that they choose that strategy, it would be an argument from ignorance as well, but weaker because its premises are controversial. I am not suggesting that I have authority to decide or dictate what God can or cannot do, I can only say what he should or should not do using informal logic and defeasible reasoning schemes.

The exchange in the forums went as follows.

Commenter1: have you ever stopped to realize how infinitely gracious God is to not have annihilated the entire human race?

Me: Would you say that my dogs should be infinitely grateful that I don't kill them when I get up in the morning?

Commenter2: I cant see the dog analogy as a viable one…Its an argument of proportion.

My point was that that there is a strong presumption that God shouldn't kill us therefore it doesn't follow that we should be grateful that he doesn't. For him to kill us would be immoral or criminal. There is a weaker presumption that I shouldn't kill my dog. It would be more immoral for God to kill me than it would be for me to kill my dog. I think this argument should expose the 'double standard' for morals that I see being argued by believers for humans and God. What follows is a 'dizzying' defense of that claim.

Most analogies are flawed, that is why they are a defeasible form of argument. But when analogies can be shown to be similar enough to a situation, they can be used to increase the plausibility of a position.
The dog analogy is not similar in the fact that I am not a God and my dog is not a human and I didn't create the dog.
The dog analogy works because of the relationship, not because of the proportion.

When a Christian says that we should be grateful that God lets us live, that sets up the relationship. In theory, God created us, he is more powerful than us, he has control of whether we live or die, we should thank him for our daily bread (which creates the presumption that he has some control over it), and we should thank him that he lets us live.

When I say that my dog should be grateful that I let him live, In reality, I did not create him (negative analogy), I am more powerful than him (positive), I am in control of whether he lives or dies (pos.), he should thank me for his food (pos.), and he should thank me that I let him live.

The discrepency in my analogy (that I did not create the dog), is actually a negative for the believers argument. Here's why. I should have used my son instead of my dog, because it would have been more appropriate but I didn't think about it. In a way, I created my son, or at least I was a catalyst for his existence.

Here is the rough hierarchy for that analogy, dog < son < me < God. For me to kill my dog is less criminal than for me to kill my son, therefore, I should be expected to be less likely to kill my son than my dog. Therefore, to say that my dog should be happy that I let him live has more force than to say to my son that he should be happy that I let him live, and it should have less force to say that I should be happy that God lets me live. It should be less likely that God would kill me than I would kill my son. Therefore, if God were to kill me, it would be more criminal / immoral than if I were to kill my son, or my dog.If I injected God into the equation, it would have more force to say that I should be happy that God lets my dog live, less force to say that I should be happy that God lets my son live, less force to say that I should be happy that God lets me live. I know that in reality, my son and I should be equal in Gods eyes, but like I said, analogies are defeasible.So for me to kill my dog would be less criminal than for God to kill me, and therefore it would be more criminal for God to kill me than for me to kill my dog, therefore there is a stronger PRESUMPTION that God shouldn't kill me therefore it can be EXPECTED that God shouldn't kill me, therefore it doesn't follow that we should be grateful that God doesn't kill us because there is a strong presumption that he shouldn't kill us because it would be criminal or immoral, more so than if I were to kill my dog.

A Double Standard for Morality?

This started out as a response to a commenter but I thought it was important enough to use as a post for an article. I noticed in the recent Loftus-Wood ‘cross-fire’ debate on the infidelguy show, that Wood seemed to be using the argument that God has a different standard for morality than us. I seem to see this argument a lot. In fact, a recent commenter seemed to be using it against John, and then when I countered it, a different commenter defended it. I wonder how can it be justified that the Abrahamic God should not be expected to adhere to the same rules that we are expected to adhere to with respect to morality.

A father that smokes and tells his son not to smoke creates a problem in his credibility. While it is true that smoking is not healthy and the son is not justified in disregarding that advice, the fact that it can be shown empirically that smoking is unhealthy supports the fathers claim and weakens the effect of the charge of inconsistency. I don't see how anyone can support the claim that God should not be expected to adhere to the same rules that we are expected to adhere to with respect to morality. I don't see how anyone can support a double standard for morality. My argument is an argument from ignorance intended to show that it is more plausible that there should not be a double standard for morality.

The only way that I can see for the believer to refute it is to say something like God is a mystery and that we can not expect to dictate what God can do. This would be a mischaracterization and an appeal to the supernatural, specifically God, but the presumption of God and the supernatural is controversial. In the case that the believer says that God is a special case, for whatever reason, would be a case of special pleading, and they would have to show why morality rules for us don't apply to God. In the end, their presumption is still that God exists and as I said before this is a weak premise in that it is controversial on two, maybe three, points.
1. that there is a god
2. that it is the Abrahamic god
3. Possibly irrelevant, but that he had anything to do with scripture.

In the case that they choose that strategy, it would be an argument from ignorance as well, but weaker because its premises are controversial. I am not suggesting that I have authority to decide or dictate what God can or cannot do, I can only say what he should or should not do using informal logic and defeasible reasoning schemes.

The exchange in the forums went as follows.

Commenter1: have you ever stopped to realize how infinitely gracious God is to not have annihilated the entire human race?

Lee: Would you say that my dogs should be infinitely grateful that I don't kill them when I get up in the morning?

Commenter2: I cant see the dog analogy as a viable one…Its an argument of proportion.

My point was that that there is a strong presumption that God shouldn't kill us therefore it doesn't follow that we should be grateful that he doesn't. For him to kill us would be immoral or criminal. There is a weaker presumption that I shouldn't kill my dog. It would be more immoral for God to kill me than it would be for me to kill my dog. I think this argument should expose the 'double standard' for morals that I see being argued by believers for humans and God. What follows is a 'dizzying' defense of that claim.

Most analogies are flawed, that is why they are a defeasible form of argument. But when analogies can be shown to be similar enough to a situation, they can be used to increase the plausibility of a position.
The dog analogy is not similar in the fact that I am not a God and my dog is not a human and I didn't create the dog.
The dog analogy works because of the relationship, not because of the proportion.

When a Christian says that we should be grateful that God lets us live, that sets up the relationship. In theory, God created us, he is more powerful than us, he has control of whether we live or die, we should thank him for our daily bread (which creates the presumption that he has some control over it), and we should thank him that he lets us live.

When I say that my dog should be grateful that I let him live, In reality, I did not create him (negative analogy), I am more powerful than him (positive), I am in control of whether he lives or dies (pos.), he should thank me for his food (pos.), and he should thank me that I let him live.

The discrepency in my analogy (that I did not create the dog), is actually a negative for the believers argument. Here's why. I should have used my son instead of my dog, because it would have been more appropriate but I didn't think about it. In a way, I created my son, or at least I was a catalyst for his existence.

Here is the rough hierarchy for that analogy, dog < son < me < God. For me to kill my dog is less criminal than for me to kill my son, therefore, I should be expected to be less likely to kill my son than my dog. Therefore, to say that my dog should be happy that I let him live has more force than to say to my son that he should be happy that I let him live, and it should have less force to say that I should be happy that God lets me live. It should be less likely that God would kill me than I would kill my son. Therefore, if God were to kill me, it would be more criminal / immoral than if I were to kill my son, or my dog. If I injected God into the equation, it would have more force to say that I should be happy that God lets my dog live, less force to say that I should be happy that God lets my son live, less force to say that I should be happy that God lets me live. I know that in reality, my son and I should be equal in Gods eyes, but like I said, analogies are defeasible. So for me to kill my dog would be less criminal than for God to kill me, and therefore it would be more criminal for God to kill me than for me to kill my dog, therefore there is a stronger PRESUMPTION that God shouldn't kill me therefore it can be EXPECTED that God shouldn't kill me, therefore it doesn't follow that we should be grateful that God doesn't kill us because there is a strong presumption that he shouldn't kill us because it would be criminal or immoral, more so than if I were to kill my dog.