Even if that basis of morality, from the start, was always associated with religion? If the father said, "Don't kill people. God said not to," would the liberation from his beliefs let him kill someone then? I'm going to probably end up tweaking for the "I'm free" idea since it would probably make more sense. I might need to add a flashback to his childhood to make this work.
No. He still knows people, interacts with people, lives in the world, right? He's still a human being who has gone through relatively normal intellectual, emotional, and social development--his father didn't keep him locked in a garden shed every minute of his life, right? If so, then he's not going to be able to just kill people. The presence, then removal, of religion, doesn't turn people into psychopaths.
Replying to myself: There's nothing that says that your character can't be a psychopath; my point is that it won't be a situation of, "Oh, the poor thing, he lost his religion, so it's understandable."
Didn't you say you were an atheist, @Ulramar? Do you believe atheists have no morals? While morality is some parts nurture, the evidence is clear, morality is also some parts nature.
@Ulramar, if you want to know what I think about the whole morality/religion thing, just PM me, and we can discuss it there. Also, take a look at Camus' The Stranger if you ever get the chance. It deals with some of the same issues.
He's not supposed to be understandable. You're supposed to hate him for the second half of the book, and I make no attempt to justify the killing. He does, for some time, feel bad. He just won't show it. Atheists do have morals, but I've seen SOME who lack a little empathy after going from devout to godless. Maybe he could lose the empathy if it were tied into religion (or also beaten into him). I'll PM you later, I'm on mobile right now and this is painful to type. But I'll be looking that book up.
I don't see how losing one's religion has to do with losing one's empathy. Is there some reason why the loss of faith is being tied so directly to your MC's moral collapse? If your idea is that the religion was "beaten" into him as a child then it would make more sense that the root of the character's moral downfall would be tied to the childhood abuse rather than the religion or loss thereof.
It just seems to happen at the same time. His faith dies, now he seems to be capable of killing whoever he needs to. There's not a direct connection in the work. I can work around that and manipulate that to my will, adding or subtracting as needed. My main concern is his faith dropping now. Is that feasible? I've had people say yes and no.
There's a huge difference between "lack a little empathy" and "killing whoever he needs to." You're depicting a psychopath here. Which you can certainly do, but I can't see any connection to religion or the lack thereof.
OK, first - you can't "beat" empathy into someone (if anything I rather expect it to have the opposite effect. Second - it's fine if you want the reader to be horrified with your MC, but he also needs to be understood so that there is a believable mechanism to explain how he got that way. If I can't understand how a character's mind works, I lose interest. People who have empathy and strong morals continue to do so whether or not the adopt, drop or switch religions. Those who don't, manage to find rationalizations within their belief systems. It's your decision: either the killing is directly related to the loss of faith, or it isn't. Or they are both indirectly related coming from a third underlying factor. But I would recommend staying away from any suggestion that the loss of faith is somehow to blame for the character's moral downfall.
Yeah, the more I step away and look at it, I see you're right. i'll toss out that correlation. Thanks!
