Alan: The belief that free will is intrinsic to all human beings is as fanciful as the belief that overwhelming compulsions and irresistible obsessions do not exist.
It is not so much that conservatives are persuaded that Free Will is a universal endowment but that conservative Christians cannot survive without the pretense that Free Will is always sovereign.
One needn't probe conservative Christianity very deeply before the lineaments of a subtly self-serving egotism come into view.
I am increasingly convinced that Christianity's widespread need for "salvation assurance" -- and the corresponding need for "damnation avoidance" -- underlie this self-absorbed self-aggrandizement.
Runs in the Family
New findings about schizophrenia rekindle old questions about genes and identity.
BY SIDDHARTHA MUKHERJEE
The New Yorker
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