I realize this response has taken on
incredibly hostile tones in places and that such confrontations
between the two of us on such topics have escalated into nonsense
before, so I will go ahead and lay that out before anything else. If
you wish to continue discussing this after you've read my response, I
am fully willing to to do so and do my best to maintain civility and
peace. If you prefer to let it go after this, whether you agree with
anything at all or nothing at all in this response, I accept that
decision as well.
Though it was a different post, I'm
addressing the gun-related bit first.
If half or more of the people in that
theater had been armed, there would have been a lot more people dead
at the hands of those trying to defend themselves. You can't just
throw guns into the population and assume they'll understand the fine
points of operation they require.
If there had been one or two trained
concealed weapon permit holders, sure, it could have ended a lot
quicker and with a lot less damage but the majority of people in the
world don't understand that you can't just throw a gun out in front
of you, pull the trigger and hit what you want to hit. Like
everything else in the universe, the path of a bullet is precise and
is extremely dependent on its trajectory when it exits the barrel of
the gun and that is a factor that any random untrained idiot with a gun would not be considering when they draw that gun to return fire. The casualties would increase almost exponentially for every armed moron with no respect for the weapon in their possession.
***
The Batman article.
Whoever wrote this article clearly has
no understanding of the concept of researching facts related to the
subject upon which they are writing, nor do they have any grasp of
how to actually write beyond a third grade level, if that. Sentence
fragments, redundancy, incorrect punctuation and using the wrong
words make this abominable compilation of text harder to follow than
should be possible, given the overall short length of it.
Comparing life making sense and having
moral values is apples and oranges. Nobody ever said you have to
believe that life makes sense in order to have morals, and for those
with no morals, those who commit the greatest crimes against
humanity, life makes perfect sense.
"We as Christians have a worldview
that allows us to see life as precious." Right, because NOBODY
else in the world but Christians see life as precious. There are
PLENTY of people beyond the Christian faith that hold life as
precious. "Life is valuable because God has given it to us and
we were created in his image to glorify Him." No, my parents
gave me life and the image I was created in was a result of combinations of
traits from each of them. There is nothing supernatural about
reproduction. "However in the age of secular humanism, one
cannot place any meaning or value on life. It has none." This is
just a direct contradiction to the claim that Christians have the
right to do exactly what was then said that nobody has the right to
do. But then, "Well obviously it's just referring to those
outside the church in the realm of secular humanism." It didn't
say that, it doesn't apply.
“All of matter is... floating in
space as the dominoes... continue to fall. That’s meaningless and
senseless. “ Again, no. Once the laws of physics regarding any
aspect of anything in the universe are understood, it makes perfect
sense. The author of this article clearly has no comprehension of anything real and not written in the bible and as such has no right to even try
to act like he knows what he's talking about.
“Over the next coming days there will
be a lot of talk regarding James Holmes worldview and what would lead
a man to do this. What would cause a man to do something so
senseless? What would cause a man to take the lives of people who
were simply trying to enjoy a movie? Let us remember that they are
using our worldview to even make such a claim.” Once again, no.
Anyone asking these questions is using the “worldview” of common
sense and decency, things that existed long before Christianity was
so kind as to grace the world with its presence.
“The secular humanists who destroy
life with abortion...” This has so much less than nothing to do
with abortion that I'm amazed the author's immense stupidity didn't
cause him to collapse into a singularity, but since it's mentioned,
do you know what a miscarriage is? It's a natural abortion, often due
to the mother's body realizing that the fetus is not developing
properly, and terminating its continued development. It is an
abortion without the medical procedure. “It's God's will.” It's
God performing an abortion. “God works in mysterious ways.” Then
you admit you do not understand his motives nor his mechanics, and that revokes
any privilege you had to speak on his behalf.
“... cannot suddenly become in favor
of it.” There is a MASSIVE difference between supporting a woman's
right to make her own decisions regarding an undeveloped fetus and
placing value on the continued life of a person who is actually
alive, living, interacting and contributing to the world.
“Only in the eyes of a Christian can
life be of immense value. There can be no value to life in their
worldview.” Every person I know, Christian or not, places “immense
value” on being alive. If nobody but Christians held life to be “of
immense value” then the world population would be much, much
smaller. And nobody, especially the clearly-uneducated brainfart who
wrote this shameful jumble of words, has the right to tell me what my
“worldview” can consist of.
“The correct question is 'What
restrains all men from doing this?' There is only one answer to
that…it is the Grace of God.” Life has survived for hundreds of
millions of years without “the Grace of God.” Just because
Christianity had not rolled around yet doesn't mean that the only
activity engaged in by every single living organism was running
around willy nilly trying to kill everything else. If that was the
case, life would have gotten nowhere. God is as necessary to
“restrain[ing] all men from doing this” as a hemorrhoid is
necessary for blowing your nose.
***
The followup.
This did not happen because of sin.
It's not like those people were having a Babyrapefest and the hand of
some all-powerful being came down and crushed them. This happened
because of a mentally unbalanced piece of trash taking his problems
out on innocent lives, not because God said “Hey, crazy guy, on
this night in this movie theater I will gather a bunch of sinners. Go
color your hair red, booby-trap your apartment, kill as many as you
can and then when they arrest you, tell them you're The Joker. That
will make me proud of you.”
Nothing I do is good in and of itself?
So the fact that I haven't drowned my children or beaten them to
death with a video game controller is a bad thing? By feeding them to
keep them alive and taking them for medical attention when they're
sick, I'm not doing good? This is just an illogical statement.
Animals in the wild tend to their young because that's what you do.
Balanced, sane, sensible humans tend to their young because that's
what you do and because they love them. There is no God involved.
Just look at any non-Christian parent, especially those in secluded
areas of other countries who have been lucky enough not to be
bothered by Christianity yet. They tend to their children, keep them
alive and well and they do it without God. If God was so necessary
for people to do good, then, like I said, every population in the
world except Christianity would be completely gone.
The reason we have a working society is
because of what began as the barter system. Goods for goods. Trade
what you can produce for that which you can't. Over time, currency
systems were established and certain values of certain goods began to
become associated with certain quantities of currency. If the
“wickedness in man's heart” (implied by the word use that you are
referring to all of humanity) were being suppressed, by God or
whatever other force, then we wouldn't have leeches like Pat
Robertson or Jerry Falwell (good riddance) polluting the face of the
planet. There would be no multi-billionaires sitting in 300-room
mansions that matched their other 9 properties. There would be no
tax-free churches adding building after building to their real estate
while they do nothing but bow their heads and offer pointless and
fruitless prayers to starving and suffering people worldwide. There
would be no Vatican, no Pope sitting on his golden throne, no
religious harassment at your front door twice a month, no collection
plates. There is no suppression of any wickedness except that which
comes from within each individual. These megachurches with their
gold-plated televangelists, these brand new churches that are being
built everywhere all the time to give people a place to gather and
compare clothing instead of giving any of that money wasted on the
construction and maintenance to someone who could actually use it,
THAT is wickedness. Give a man a fish and he'll eat for a day. Plus,
you've saved yourself time and effort and you know that eventually
he'll die of starvation and you will have less competition.
***
There is nothing remotely difficult
about the process of looking at a subject from a view that differs
from that of your own, yet all I ever see Christians doing in any
situation is refusing to even consider the possibility, as if merely
thinking about looking outside the box will melt your face and bring
a thousand angry pelicans down to consume your flesh. Any point that
differs slightly from that of Christians, no matter how important or
not it may be, is met with gnashing teeth and hateful poison spouted
in the name of God. Part of actually using the brain in your head is
being able to think beyond that which you observe. “The bible is
true because it says so.” or “This is true because it's in the
bible.” are just as logical statements as “Twilight is true
because it takes place in this world and this world exists, so it has
to be true.”
There were religions well before
Christianity rolled around with its brand of evil, full of points and
concepts stolen from other religions. You yourself are all the time
bad-mouthing Pagans and yet Pagans were performing their ceremonies
and living happy, joyous lives together, without God suppressing any
wickedness, long before the king of Jews was nailed to a tree, and
contrary to “the only thing keeping everybody from killing
everybody else is God,” they survived because, guess what? They
didn't run around killing each other all the time. Even without God
and the teachings of the bible.
“All mankind knows the Law of God,
and those in rebellion hate it.” All mankind was continuing to
survive well before any Law of God was laid down by men. Not all who
know and put faith in the Law abide by it and not all who deny it as
God's Law are evil. There have been both violent murders and acts of
decency from both Christians and non-Christians alike, as well as in
the name of God and on behalf of simple human motives.
You claim “the world just shouldn't
be using words it doesn't understand.” Compassion is the empathy
for the suffering of others. I have been filled with nothing but
compassion toward the victims of the incident that spawned the
diarrhea of words in that article, and it comes from my own being
able to think, to consider points beyond myself and my own opinions,
to imagine, though not fully understand, just how terrible the event
had to have been for them. My compassion does not come from a
supernatural force or source, it comes from within me, myself.
Neither religion nor gods of any sort
are necessary to continue living a good, happy and peaceful life, no
matter how many times the stories say so. I hate beyond hate getting
into religious debates when the person I'm talking to will do nothing
but keep their head buried in the sand and spout off cookie cutter
responses, and I realize you didn't bring this to me and slam it down
on my table, but it just rubbed me all kinds of the wrong way and put
me into one of those moods.
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