Fatalistic Beliefs And Unethical Behavior

"It is well established that changing people's sense of responsibility can change their behavior. But what would happen if people came to believe that their behavior was the inevitable product of a causal chain beyond their control - a predetermined fate beyond the reach of free will?

[...]

Prior to the math test, Vohs and Schooler used a well-established method to prime the subjects' beliefs regarding free will: some of the students were taught that science disproves the notion of free will and that the illusion of free will was a mere artifact of the brain's biochemistry whereas others got no such indoctrination.
The results were clear: those with weaker convictions about their power to control their own destiny were more apt to cheat when given the opportunity as compared to those whose beliefs about controlling their own lives were left untouched.

[...]

As reported in the January issue of Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, this study shows that those with a stronger belief in their own free will were less apt to steal money than were those with a weakened belief.
Although the results of this study point to a significant value in believing that free will exists, it clearly raises some significant societal questions about personal beliefs and personal behavior."

Medicalnewstoday.com, 30 Jan 2008

These news will make people change their opinions I am sure, insha'Allah.

For British historian Robert Service, communism is a religion.

"British historian Robert Service, in Comrades: a world history of communism, goes further [than Hitchens]. For Service, communism is a religion, a "secular credo" complete with millenarian overtones (apocalypse followed by paradise), an emphasis on scriptural exegesis (each communist party "was a synod of hair-splitting political discussion") and a theory of historical inevitability that looks suspiciously like a doctrine of predestination. Marx and Engels, Service suggests, enthusiastically encouraged devotion, with the consequence that they were "treated as prophets whose every word had to be treasured"."

The Sydney Morning Herald, August 25, 2007

Christianity's sins against science

"Here's my quick list of objections to religion. Please note that I understand there will be individual variation, both between people in a sect and between sects themselves (Calvinists and Unitarians will have different views of destiny, for instance, and Buddhists seem less prone to the tyranny of authoritarianism). Also, the general public will embrace these sins a little less fervently than creationists and fundamentalists, but they're all there to some extent—while sometimes I'll mention creationists as extreme examples, that does not mean I am implying that all religious people are creationists."

Pharyngula, May 10, 2007

A good read!