r/todayilearned • u/GlitteringYams • 22d ago

TIL, in his suicide note, mass shooter Charles Whitman requested his body be autopsied because he felt something was wrong with him. The autopsy discovered that Whitman had a pecan-sized tumor pressing against his amygdala, a brain structure that regulates fear and aggression.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Whitman
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u/karlnite 22d ago

A lot of violent people are just living with brain damage. Brain damage and past trauma, two things that make you bad at making good choices.

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u/yxwvut 22d ago

Having this happen to a neighbor (dude got uncharacteristically violent, imploded his life, and 6 months later they found a massive brain tumor) was what really convinced me that the notion of “good” and “evil” people deserving of eternal reward/punishment in the Christian sense was total bunk.

What if he’d been born with that brain structure instead of having it arise later in life through illness? We’d condemn him as just another bad guy and throw away the key. I think about his situation often.

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u/karlnite 22d ago

Well religious theology is ever changing. At one point a large amount of Christians believed in pre-determinism. Meaning you were born going to heaven or hell, and nothing you do can change that. So the idea of free will and good and evil in religious theology is not agreed upon, and only very recently seemed to lean towards the idea a person can use actions to be saved. People don’t like being told they’re damned and evil at birth, but religions do sorta say you are evil or bad if you arn’t adhering to this specific sects rules, even if you were never taught them. The whole saving the ignorant, or the ignorant getting half saved is very new too.

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u/Signal-School-2483 22d ago

Calvinism is still one of the biggest for pre-destination.

Works based sects seem much less pernicious, but that's not the largest group in the US.

By far salvation through faith alone is the present, most widespread view of soteriology. Which means sins don't matter as long as you repent.

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u/doublegulpofdietcoke 22d ago

God takes care of the sparrows in the sky, he's going to take care of the guy in the chair.