Why Do the Religious Reject Science While Embracing the Impossible?

[henry quirk]

what determinism actually entails

Mike, buddy, you don't know what determinism entails (hint: it ain't the compatibilism you've been promoting).

[BigMike]

I'd say that's already the practice in Europe. Not sure about the US.

You're right, Atla—many European countries have already embraced elements of this approach, focusing more on rehabilitation, prevention, and addressing root causes rather than pure retribution.

Are you insinuating that Euros are less inclined towards a a common-sense psychological view that humans are choosing agents than Americans are, or are you accidentally admitting that there is no need to change views on this matter to follow these more caring approaches?

There's still no sign that this change your are promoting makes any actual difference.

Flash, I’m not insinuating anything about cultural psychology; I’m pointing out the practical differences in how justice systems operate. European approaches tend to reflect evidence-based practices, focusing on rehabilitation and reducing recidivism rather than punishment for its own sake. Whether that stems from different views on human behavior or just policy priorities is up for debate, but the outcomes are clear: lower crime rates and better reintegration outcomes.

As for whether a deterministic perspective makes a difference, it absolutely does. Shifting from a blame-based mindset to one focused on understanding causation changes how policies are designed. Determinism isn’t about ignoring human agency—it’s about recognizing the factors that shape it and intervening effectively. The difference is subtle but significant: you stop asking "How can we punish them for what they did?" and start asking "How can we stop this from happening again?" That shift has a profound impact on outcomes.

[Atla]

You can use evidence-based practices to reduce harm and satisfy moral outrage at the same time. People who aren't "legally insane" should be personally blamed under determinism too.

Atla, under determinism, the concept of "personal blame" doesn’t hold up the way it does in a free-will framework. Blame implies moral fault for actions as if the individual could have chosen differently in the same circumstances, which determinism explicitly denies. Instead of blame, the focus shifts to accountability in a practical sense—addressing harmful actions and ensuring the safety of others while working to understand and mitigate the root causes.

You’re right that evidence-based practices can address harm and moral outrage simultaneously, but the difference lies in motivation. Determinism emphasizes reducing harm through prevention and rehabilitation, not moralistic punishment for its own sake. Holding someone accountable under determinism isn’t about personal blame—it’s about addressing the deterministic factors that led to their actions and ensuring they don’t harm again. It’s a more compassionate and effective approach, even if it challenges traditional notions of justice.

For the n-th time, you simply don't understand what determinism means. Even without free will, people could have chosen differently in the same circumstances, for all practical purposes (except the legally insane).

[FlashDangerpants]

You're right, Atla—many European countries have already embraced elements of this approach, focusing more on rehabilitation, prevention, and addressing root causes rather than pure retribution.

Are you insinuating that Euros are less inclined towards a a common-sense psychological view that humans are choosing agents than Americans are, or are you accidentally admitting that there is no need to change views on this matter to follow these more caring approaches?

There's still no sign that this change your are promoting makes any actual difference.

Flash, I’m not insinuating anything about cultural psychology; I’m pointing out the practical differences in how justice systems operate. European approaches tend to reflect evidence-based practices, focusing on rehabilitation and reducing recidivism rather than punishment for its own sake. Whether that stems from different views on human behavior or just policy priorities is up for debate, but the outcomes are clear: lower crime rates and better reintegration outcomes.

As for whether a deterministic perspective makes a difference, it absolutely does. Shifting from a blame-based mindset to one focused on understanding causation changes how policies are designed. Determinism isn’t about ignoring human agency—it’s about recognizing the factors that shape it and intervening effectively. The difference is subtle but significant: you stop asking "How can we punish them for what they did?" and start asking "How can we stop this from happening again?" That shift has a profound impact on outcomes.

The Euros are doing this without becoming determinists first. Am I lying to you? No I am not. So I ask... yet again .... why do we need to become determinists to do this thing that we already do without becoming determinists?

Will you finally rise to the challenge?

[BigMike]

You can use evidence-based practices to reduce harm and satisfy moral outrage at the same time. People who aren't "legally insane" should be personally blamed under determinism too.

Atla, under determinism, the concept of "personal blame" doesn’t hold up the way it does in a free-will framework. Blame implies moral fault for actions as if the individual could have chosen differently in the same circumstances, which determinism explicitly denies. Instead of blame, the focus shifts to accountability in a practical sense—addressing harmful actions and ensuring the safety of others while working to understand and mitigate the root causes.

You’re right that evidence-based practices can address harm and moral outrage simultaneously, but the difference lies in motivation. Determinism emphasizes reducing harm through prevention and rehabilitation, not moralistic punishment for its own sake. Holding someone accountable under determinism isn’t about personal blame—it’s about addressing the deterministic factors that led to their actions and ensuring they don’t harm again. It’s a more compassionate and effective approach, even if it challenges traditional notions of justice.

For the n-th time, you simply don't understand what determinism means. Even without free will, people could have chosen differently in the same circumstances, for all practical purposes (except the legally insane).

Atla, I understand determinism quite well, but I think you’re confusing practical language with the deeper implications of a deterministic framework. When you say people “could have chosen differently,” you’re stepping back into the language of free will—suggesting a possibility that doesn’t exist under determinism. In the same circumstances, with the same inputs and conditions, a deterministic system always produces the same outcome. That’s the core principle of determinism.

For practical purposes, we can still talk about "choices," but determinism redefines them as outcomes of prior causes, not uncaused acts of free will. It’s not about dismissing personal responsibility entirely—it’s about grounding it in causality. Accountability remains, but it’s tied to managing behavior and reducing harm, not to assigning moral blame as if someone could have acted otherwise in the exact same situation. That's the distinction determinism brings to the table.

[Alexiev]

You can use evidence-based practices to reduce harm and satisfy moral outrage at the same time. People who aren't "legally insane" should be personally blamed under determinism too.

Atla, under determinism, the concept of "personal blame" doesn’t hold up the way it does in a free-will framework. Blame implies moral fault for actions as if the individual could have chosen differently in the same circumstances, which determinism explicitly denies. Instead of blame, the focus shifts to accountability in a practical sense—addressing harmful actions and ensuring the safety of others while working to understand and mitigate the root causes.

You’re right that evidence-based practices can address harm and moral outrage simultaneously, but the difference lies in motivation. Determinism emphasizes reducing harm through prevention and rehabilitation, not moralistic punishment for its own sake. Holding someone accountable under determinism isn’t about personal blame—it’s about addressing the deterministic factors that led to their actions and ensuring they don’t harm again. It’s a more compassionate and effective approach, even if it challenges traditional notions of justice.

In other words, determinism ignores justice in favor of results. The obvious upshot is to "recondition" individuals who have done nothing wrong or illegal, but who have a personal history predicting future crimes. Perhaps some people think the punishment (reconditioning) should come after the crime instead of before it.

Let's keep the neuroscientists away from the legal system! Leave my brain alone!

[BigMike]

The Euros are doing this without becoming determinists first. Am I lying to you? No I am not. So I ask... yet again .... why do we need to become determinists to do this thing that we already do without becoming determinists?

Will you finally rise to the challenge?

Flash, you’re absolutely right that many European countries implement effective justice systems without explicitly adopting determinism as their philosophical foundation. But the point isn’t that determinism is a prerequisite—it’s that adopting it makes the reasoning behind these practices more coherent and consistent.

When you understand behavior as the result of causation, not free will, it eliminates the moralistic need for retribution entirely. Without determinism, practices like rehabilitation can still work, but they’re often justified alongside contradictory beliefs in blame and moral fault. Determinism provides a unified framework: it aligns evidence-based practices like prevention and rehabilitation with a deeper understanding of why those practices are effective.

So, no, people don’t need to call themselves determinists to reduce recidivism or design better systems. But determinism helps us shed outdated notions of blame and punishment, creating a more rational, compassionate, and logically consistent approach. It’s not just about doing the right thing—it’s about doing it for the right reasons.

[Atla]

Atla, under determinism, the concept of "personal blame" doesn’t hold up the way it does in a free-will framework. Blame implies moral fault for actions as if the individual could have chosen differently in the same circumstances, which determinism explicitly denies. Instead of blame, the focus shifts to accountability in a practical sense—addressing harmful actions and ensuring the safety of others while working to understand and mitigate the root causes.

You’re right that evidence-based practices can address harm and moral outrage simultaneously, but the difference lies in motivation. Determinism emphasizes reducing harm through prevention and rehabilitation, not moralistic punishment for its own sake. Holding someone accountable under determinism isn’t about personal blame—it’s about addressing the deterministic factors that led to their actions and ensuring they don’t harm again. It’s a more compassionate and effective approach, even if it challenges traditional notions of justice.

For the n-th time, you simply don't understand what determinism means. Even without free will, people could have chosen differently in the same circumstances, for all practical purposes (except the legally insane).

Atla, I understand determinism quite well, but I think you’re confusing practical language with the deeper implications of a deterministic framework. When you say people “could have chosen differently,” you’re stepping back into the language of free will—suggesting a possibility that doesn’t exist under determinism. In the same circumstances, with the same inputs and conditions, a deterministic system always produces the same outcome. That’s the core principle of determinism.

For practical purposes, we can still talk about "choices," but determinism redefines them as outcomes of prior causes, not uncaused acts of free will. It’s not about dismissing personal responsibility entirely—it’s about grounding it in causality. Accountability remains, but it’s tied to managing behavior and reducing harm, not to assigning moral blame as if someone could have acted otherwise in the exact same situation. That's the distinction determinism brings to the table.

No, you don't understand determinism quite well. What you are talking about is maybe called "hard determinism", which adds additional irrational views to what determinism generally means.

Your confusion about determinism is common, you have no sense of scale. You can't differentiate between the scale of say electrons moving around, and the scale of human decisions.

You don't understand that while ultimately yes, nothing could happen otherwise in this universe than how it is happening, the large-scale human decision making process was also part of this inevitable outcome.

People who aren't legally insane, are determined to go through a decision-making process, determined to make a conscious choice, and determined to act on that choice.

So yes, while in the ultimate sense, things couldn't have played out differently, that's just not relevant for all practical purposes. Personal blame, moral blame remain in determinism.

[FlashDangerpants]

The Euros are doing this without becoming determinists first. Am I lying to you? No I am not. So I ask... yet again .... why do we need to become determinists to do this thing that we already do without becoming determinists?

Will you finally rise to the challenge?

Flash, you’re absolutely right that many European countries implement effective justice systems without explicitly adopting determinism as their philosophical foundation. But the point isn’t that determinism is a prerequisite—it’s that adopting it makes the reasoning behind these practices more coherent and consistent.

When you understand behavior as the result of causation, not free will, it eliminates the moralistic need for retribution entirely. Without determinism, practices like rehabilitation can still work, but they’re often justified alongside contradictory beliefs in blame and moral fault. Determinism provides a unified framework: it aligns evidence-based practices like prevention and rehabilitation with a deeper understanding of why those practices are effective.

So, no, people don’t need to call themselves determinists to reduce recidivism or design better systems. But determinism helps us shed outdated notions of blame and punishment, creating a more rational, compassionate, and logically consistent approach. It’s not just about doing the right thing—it’s about doing it for the right reasons.

You pitch a hell of a lot of marketing talk but little by way of philosophical content. The European style rehabilitative judicial system can be achieved by basically caring about people, as can UK style gun control, Australian style health care systems and a bunch of other things that already exist elsewhere that you American types eschew.

No deterministic metaphysics is required for any of it, and most importantly, no arguments predicated on this altered understanding of human agency is required for them. If you are able to show an actual policy that would become possible only based on the determinism you are flogging, would you please get round at some point in time to telling us what it is?

Otherwise, once again, all we have is distinction without difference.

[Alexis Jacobi]

$6,000.00 by PayPal, BigMike, if you take me off ignore!

(Man, you are determined to drive a hard bargain!)

[Alexis Jacobi]

When you understand behavior as the result of causation, not free will, it eliminates the moralistic need for retribution entirely. Without determinism, practices like rehabilitation can still work, but they’re often justified alongside contradictory beliefs in blame and moral fault. Determinism provides a unified framework: it aligns evidence-based practices like prevention and rehabilitation with a deeper understanding of why those practices are effective.

A hot-headed man kills his wife. He had the choice. But, for various reasons, he did not choose to not kill her.

And you propose that moral blame and moral fault shall not be assigned?!?

“He was a victim of circumstances”, you’ll say, “and we must understand him.”

True, the man went to prison for 20 years. But what alternative is to be proposed? What rehabilitation?

The man himself, one hopes, will go through his own moral assessment. He will either realize what he did (is wrong, bad, evil) or he will not. But that is internal and personal, is it not?

What will “society” do for him? What could it do?

I suggest that when “blame and moral fault” are no longer understood by ourselves as totally relevant fields of consideration, and when “environment” and other causal chains are blamed, that through this deceptive sophistry we choose to deny our own agency in what we choose to do.

Your philosophy undermines the moral self.

[BigMike]

The Euros are doing this without becoming determinists first. Am I lying to you? No I am not. So I ask... yet again .... why do we need to become determinists to do this thing that we already do without becoming determinists?

Will you finally rise to the challenge?

Flash, you’re absolutely right that many European countries implement effective justice systems without explicitly adopting determinism as their philosophical foundation. But the point isn’t that determinism is a prerequisite—it’s that adopting it makes the reasoning behind these practices more coherent and consistent.

When you understand behavior as the result of causation, not free will, it eliminates the moralistic need for retribution entirely. Without determinism, practices like rehabilitation can still work, but they’re often justified alongside contradictory beliefs in blame and moral fault. Determinism provides a unified framework: it aligns evidence-based practices like prevention and rehabilitation with a deeper understanding of why those practices are effective.

So, no, people don’t need to call themselves determinists to reduce recidivism or design better systems. But determinism helps us shed outdated notions of blame and punishment, creating a more rational, compassionate, and logically consistent approach. It’s not just about doing the right thing—it’s about doing it for the right reasons.

You pitch a hell of a lot of marketing talk but little by way of philosophical content. The European style rehabilitative judicial system can be achieved by basically caring about people, as can UK style gun control, Australian style health care systems and a bunch of other things that already exist elsewhere that you American types eschew.

No deterministic metaphysics is required for any of it, and most importantly, no arguments predicated on this altered understanding of human agency is required for them. If you are able to show an actual policy that would become possible only based on the determinism you are flogging, would you please get round at some point in time to telling us what it is?

Otherwise, once again, all we have is distinction without difference.

Flash, the distinction isn’t without difference—it’s foundational. Determinism reframes justice by removing moral blame entirely and focusing solely on prevention, rehabilitation, and harm reduction. While compassionate policies can exist without determinism, they’re often undermined by residual retributive impulses rooted in free-will thinking. Determinism isn’t about making policies “possible”—it’s about making them coherent, consistent, and unshackled from outdated notions of moral fault.

[FlashDangerpants]

Flash, you’re absolutely right that many European countries implement effective justice systems without explicitly adopting determinism as their philosophical foundation. But the point isn’t that determinism is a prerequisite—it’s that adopting it makes the reasoning behind these practices more coherent and consistent.

When you understand behavior as the result of causation, not free will, it eliminates the moralistic need for retribution entirely. Without determinism, practices like rehabilitation can still work, but they’re often justified alongside contradictory beliefs in blame and moral fault. Determinism provides a unified framework: it aligns evidence-based practices like prevention and rehabilitation with a deeper understanding of why those practices are effective.

So, no, people don’t need to call themselves determinists to reduce recidivism or design better systems. But determinism helps us shed outdated notions of blame and punishment, creating a more rational, compassionate, and logically consistent approach. It’s not just about doing the right thing—it’s about doing it for the right reasons.

You pitch a hell of a lot of marketing talk but little by way of philosophical content. The European style rehabilitative judicial system can be achieved by basically caring about people, as can UK style gun control, Australian style health care systems and a bunch of other things that already exist elsewhere that you American types eschew.

No deterministic metaphysics is required for any of it, and most importantly, no arguments predicated on this altered understanding of human agency is required for them. If you are able to show an actual policy that would become possible only based on the determinism you are flogging, would you please get round at some point in time to telling us what it is?

Otherwise, once again, all we have is distinction without difference.

Flash, the distinction isn’t without difference—it’s foundational. Determinism reframes justice by removing moral blame entirely and focusing solely on prevention, rehabilitation, and harm reduction. While compassionate policies can exist without determinism, they’re often undermined by residual retributive impulses rooted in free-will thinking. Determinism isn’t about making policies “possible”—it’s about making them coherent, consistent, and unshackled from outdated notions of moral fault.

If you are able to show an actual policy that would become possible only based on the determinism you are flogging, would you please get round at some point in time to telling us what it is?

[Atla]

Morality is also a large-scale mental phenomenon, that occurs in about 96% of humans. And it has been with us for hundreds of thousand of years or more, in this deterministic world.

[accelafine]

if behavior is determined by causes, the rational response is to address those causes. It’s not about what anyone “likes”—it’s about what works to reduce harm and create a safer society. If you see a better alternative than evidence-based solutions, feel free to share it.

I'd say that's already the practice in Europe. Not sure about the US.

You're right, Atla—many European countries have already embraced elements of this approach, focusing more on rehabilitation, prevention, and addressing root causes rather than pure retribution. The results speak for themselves: lower recidivism rates and safer societies. The U.S., on the other hand, often clings to a punitive model rooted in outdated notions of free will and personal blame. It’s time the U.S. caught up with evidence-based practices that prioritize reducing harm over satisfying moral outrage.

So you are saying here that because some European countries changed their approach then people are now choosing not to commit crimes that they would otherwise have committed? That doesn't sound very deterministic to me. I'm sceptical about any alleged lowering of crime rates anyway. There are many factors to take into account if that is indeed the case. I can't find any reliable statistics on this-- only conflicting ones.