You have a problem with comprehension too? Yes, it’s a lack of belief in gods. But you can’t not believe in them until you know some people do. And besides, I thought you said God wasn’t a god?

Take up your quibble with the American Atheists, according to whom, “Atheism is not a disbelief in gods or a denial of gods; it is a lack of belief in gods.” By this criterion it is clear that everybody was an illiterate atheist once upon a time (and indeed for most of the time that the human race has been around).

You can’t be an atheist before gods are believed in. It’s like saying Neanderthals were anti-Trump. It makes no sense. And there were multiple other religions before the Abrahamic ones too, and many of the people who followed them were extremely civilized.

Besides, if the Bible is to be believed, there was an enormous amount of brutality in Biblical times, much of it perpetrated by God’s followers. In fact, there were occasions when God apparently told them they weren’t brutal enough and urged them to do a bit if extra murder after battles were won, and to follow that by raping the women and taking them as sex slaves. What a sweet guy your God is!

@HH: Maybe you didn’t get the memo about turning the other cheek, but all that “eye for an eye” stuff went by the wayside a couple of millennia ago. (And of course, “eye for an eye” was a big improvement over the unconstrained savagery that went on before, in the dark ages of atheistic prehistory.)

Because you do have free will, you are perfectly free to choose to deny it.

Hello John,

A couple of quick points to consider.

Per determinism we can “choose” to react to future events differently than we reacted to similar events in the past if in the intervening time we received new “input” that affects our brain’s “output”. Analogous to the way the output that a computer / program computes will change after the inputs that it uses to perform its computations change. Changing the inputs can’t, of course, change past results but it can change future results.

Also, regarding compatibilism vs incompatibilism, the formal position of both is that determinism is true and that it rules human behavior. Granted, not everyone that argues theses positions understands what the “formal” positions are so you certainly can find compatibilists denying that determinism does not rule human behavior. Where compatibilists and incompatibilists disagree is on what the implications of determinism ruling human behavior are and or which implications are important and which ones are not.

The problem with that bus talk is that it rings kinda true. A rich and famous guy often is allowed to just ‘grab the pussy’ (not to mention to let them insert the less savoury part of their anatomy into some intimate place). This kind of assault is difficult, on the one hand the victim acquiesces, but not always for ‘unduressed’ reasons.
What about, say, ‘groupies’?

“there is nothing new about any of this and it has been a very big problem for years”, I agree 100% . It would even be better if you replaced ‘years’ by ‘centuries’ or even ‘millennia’.
I think mammal males, by the simple fact that females have a greater ‘investment’ in offspring, have a strong incentive to copulate with as many fertile females as possible. Of course, this drive is not really dampened by unfertile females, or maybe only if very obviously so (toddlers, shriveled grannies, highly pregnant women, etc). Note, for all clarity, I do not think this is the only motive driving male behaviour, but it is always there in the background (or in case of Weinstein and others, not so much in the background).
It is well documented that males in positions of power have overwhelmingly used that power to get copulatory access to nubile females, be they despots*, war lords, slave owners, conquering soldiers, pop/sport stars, film directors or even teachers, or just rich ‘sugardaddies’ (nowadays called ‘blessers’ in SA).
*[does the ‘Ius Prima Nocte’ ring a bell?]
I think that “fixing the problem” (yes, it should be) will not be an easy endeavor, we’re up to a strong, instinctive driving force.

I think for a lot of people it’s easier not to be aware of reality. Others just put it in the “too hard” basket and ignore it. It’s not something most men suffer from, especially once they’re adults, so it’s off their radar.

It is obvious that at basic level determinism is true, the the thinking brain is a highly complex set of molecular reactions (life itself is a series of parallel chemical reactions). However, there are so many factors influencing that ‘will’ (whether ‘free’ or not) becomes some kind of ’emergent property’, backed by the strong illusion of “I could have done otherwise”.
It is difficult to know which molecular reactions are important or decisive in the end. How to translate eg. the prospect of punishment, self righteousness or Hamlet into molecules (not to mention quarks)?
The trope of the bat of a butterfly wing causing a storm across the ocean (no, I do not believe it really does) makes us think of the trillions and trillions of other insect wings trembling in nature’s dance. Not to mention their triple trillions of little legs.
And I think that is an ‘easy’ problem (I might be mistaken there, of course) compared to the trillions of reactions in our (and I would include non human animals, of course) brains.
In other words, determinism is true, I do not doubt that, but (the dreadful ‘but’) it is not a really practical approach, immo.

Yes, Looked more like Bus talk than locker room. That is an excuse that does not even begin to be one. The Federal agency in the U.S. that probably knows more about sexual harassment than any is the EEOC. It was from this office that our company was investigated way back in the early 80s. The two women who had initially brought the claim were eventually given one grade promotion and back pay for nearly two years since the complaint was made. The company was required to put a statement on all bulletin boards in the building (roughly 10) that stated the outcome of this case. The idea was to publicly humiliate the firm. It was not until several years later that our firm initiated the process that eliminated this thing.