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Baron-Cohen, who is also director of the Autism Research Centre at Cambridge, has just written a book in which he calls for a kind of rebranding of evil to offer a more scientific explanation for why people kill and torture, or have such great difficulty understanding the feelings of others.
His proposal is that evil be understood as a lack of empathy -- a condition he argues can be measured and monitored and is susceptible to education and treatment.
http://af.reuters.com/article/southAfricaNews/idAFLDE7430U720110505?sp=true
Could there be mandatory "re-training" for those that insist that Jesus is the only way to God? Will that be seen as a lack of "empathy"? Maybe a new drug for those "lacking" in empathy?
Back to article:
Psychopaths, narcissists, and people with borderline personality disorder sit at the bottom end of the scale -- these people have "zero degrees of empathy".
But rather than labelling them as evil, Baron-Cohen says they should be seen as sick, or "disabled", and we should seek to understand why they have such an empathy deficiency and help them replace it.
Baron-Cohen shies away from saying that psychopaths can be "cured" of extreme behaviour, but he argues strongly against locking them up and saying there is nothing society can do.
"I try to keep an open mind. I would never want to say a person is beyond help," he explains. "Empathy is a skill like any other human skill -- and if you get a chance to practise, you can get better at it." (Editing by Mark Trevelyan)
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Probably a new version of the Bible will track this sociological development and "evil" will be replaced with "lack of empathy".
Rom 7:21 I find then a law, that, when I would do good, a lack of empathy is present with me.