Monday, April 23, 2007

Timely Video Preview to Watch

The Day They Kicked God Out of Schools

(With thanks to my friend Dran for sending this link via email.)
Posted by Christinewjc at 9:44 AM
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41 comments:

Christinewjc said...

WND has an article expressing the thoughts of some "experts" who believe that Meds are to blame for Cho's rampage.

Personally, I'm not so sure.

Granted, the list of perpetrators who used drugs and also carried out murderous rampages appear to be significant. However, aren't there thousands, if not millions more people utilizing similar drugs who did not become compelled to murder? This thought leads me to believe that something else must be at play here.

It was interesting to see the varied responses in the WND poll results.

The top response to the question, "Do you think psychiatric drugs played a leading role in the Virginia Tech massacre?" was:

It's very possible, since there are numerous cases of such drugs tied to violence 22.19% (503)
(at 10:00 a.m. PT)

The next three responses all had close to the same number of votes (at the time noted above)

There are numerous causes for the shooting, and drugs could have been a factor 16.72% (379)


No connection at all. The killer was just a purely evil guy 16.14% (366)


I highly doubt it. People are grasping at straws for an explanation 14.07% (319)

What do you think?

April 23, 2007 at 10:08:00 AM PDT
Christinewjc said...

More to consider from this email I received from Randy Thomason of Campaign for Children and Families:

[Quote]:

Virginia Tech massacre reveals crisis of leadership.

In the aftermath of the heart-breaking Virginia Tech mass murders, various schools and universities in California and the nation have received disturbing phone calls from deranged people threatening to do harm. I believe it's largely due to NBC's irresponsible publicity of the video sent to the network by mass murderer Seung-Hui Cho. What NBC started, and the other networks repeated, sent a clear message to America's deranged population -- that if they do something big like Cho, they'll receive the attention and power they crave. NBC got what it wanted, which was the highest ratings of the day. And America's going to get what it didn't want -- more mass murderers who will kill to be famous.

It seems that the campus and city police chiefs on the scene didn't care enough to protect the 32 people who were killed and the 15 other people that were wounded. After the first two murders were discovered at 7:15 a.m., campus police chief W.R. Flinchum said he assumed the killer had left the campus and perhaps even the state. Flinchum and university president Charles Steger didn't clear the campus and get everyone to safety, or even block the entrances to the university for the 11,000 students driving into campus that day. And why didn't Blacksburg police chief Kimberly Crannis provide decisive leadership to stop the carnage? What did they need to take this seriously -- five murders instead of two?

This nonchalance allowed the gunman -- who had his own dorm room on campus -- TWO FULL HOURS of "time to reload, restock his ammunition supply and walk across campus calmly to Norris Hall, where he chained all the doors shut and began systematically killing as many people as he could," writes Joseph Farah of WorldNetDaily.com. Thirty people would not have been slaughtered if the police had evacuated the campus right away. Instead, the authorities -- the campus police chief, the city police chief, and the university president -- took their time. Instead of taking bold action, the university decided to send emails advising students to be "cautious."

When the Norris Hall shootings began at 9:15 a.m., there were no police around the building. Why? Why didn't campus chief Flinchum order his 38 officers, and city chief Crannis order her 57 officers, to be stationed at every campus entrance and inside and outside every campus building? Thirty minutes later, at 9:45 a.m., campus police received a cell phone call from inside Norris Hall. It took a few more minutes for officers to get there and a few more minutes to break in, but the shooting had stopped. Cho killed himself last. It's a crying shame that police leadership didn't prevent, notice, or stop Cho from killing 30 people, and then killing himself instead of a police bullet doing the job.

Consider that if the campus police had put everyone on a REAL red alert, police officers would have been around and inside every building on campus. They could have stopped Cho, who had belts of ammunition strapped across his chest, from entering Norris Hall in the first place. They could have stormed the building early and saved most of the 30 people who otherwise died. What happened to the protect-and-serve ethic? Sadly, we didn't see any police heroics that day, and now a state investigation is underway. Why wasn't Cho, a mentally-unstable student, expelled from campus? Why did law enforcement respond the way they did? Lead investigator Gerald Massengill said Friday that "there are many questions out there that need answers."

Everyone should be appalled at the lack of leadership to protect students. It seems that the university's leaders were concerned about something other than doing their utmost to protect these young people. Jesus himself said what love looks like: My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. (John 15:12-13)

A similar type of paralysis happened in 1999 when 12 children and a teacher were shot to death at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado. Police had little time to save the students in the library. Yet the police chief, holding back horrified parents behind the yellow line, waited nearly three hours before allowing officers to enter the buildings and rescue the wounded, including a teacher who slowly bled to death.

Columbine was a wake-up call to many law-enforcement agencies across America. The old style of dealing with a shooter in a building full of people was to close off the perimeter and try to negotiate. But that no longer works. Too many young people have not been taught that their lives and others' lives are sacred in God's sight. As a result, there are wicked people who kill indiscriminately and then commit suicide.

The Virginia Tech and Blacksburg, Virginia police chiefs that didn't recommend clearing the campus and didn't station officers around buildings were apparently operating in a pre-Columbine world. They were out-of-touch with what other police departments had learned. After Columbine in 1999, many police departments had retrained themselves to "shoot to kill" urban terrorists. As Timothy Harper wrote in 2000 in his eye-opening Atlantic Monthly article Shoot to Kill, "Officers were traditionally trained to help the wounded and evacuate bystanders. Now they are taught to step over the wounded, push bystanders aside, and keep pursuing the shooters. In the past SWAT marksmen were expected to put a shooter down. Now every officer is instructed to 'take the shot if you have it.'"

The bottom line is that police departments and individual police officers must recommit themselves to be courageous and protect life, limb and property. They must assume the worst, take preventative action, and take even bolder action to intervene and capture or kill criminals. You can read more on this subject at www.savecalifornia.com and www.worldnetdaily.com. [End of Quote]

April 23, 2007 at 10:32:00 AM PDT
Christinewjc said...

Another really good article:

The lesson of Cho Seung-Hui

What a marvelous comeback in this excerpt:

Still, one celebrated response to D'Souza posted on Daily Kos, written by an atheist VTU professor, was well worth reading for the mordant humor to be derived from it.


''We don't believe in the possibility of redemption after our lives, but the necessity of compassion in our lives. We believe in people, in their joys and pains, in their good ideas and their wit and wisdom. We believe in human rights and dignity, and we know what it is for those to be trampled on by brutes and vandals. We may believe that the universe is pitilessly indifferent but we know that friends and strangers alike most certainly are not. We despise atrocity, not because a god tells us that it is wrong, but because if not massacre then nothing could be wrong.''

What eludes the VTU professor and makes his response so inadvertently amusing is the way in which he completely fails to understand the basic foundation of D'Souza's argument, which is that as an atheist, he has absolutely no grounds for condemning Cho's actions. His maudlin assertions are as touching as they are lacking in intellectual support; he rejects even the possibility of God's existence, (presumably due to the lack of scientific evidence), but fails to inform us precisely where ''complete and absolute'' pain or ''loss'' can be found, what they weigh and what elements they consist of. And even if we agree that the professor's morality is more perfect and beautiful than Jesus Christ's, because it lacks any claim to universal applicability, it has no more standing for you or me than do the moral sensibilities of the murderous Cho.

And the professor clearly senses this on some level when he writes: ''if not massacre then nothing could be wrong.'' But if human and animal history is reliable, massacre is as natural as sex. Therefore, in the absence of God, nothing is wrong.

April 23, 2007 at 12:03:00 PM PDT
Doug said...

Interesting video...

I've always found it fascinating that a breed of human being who thinks it's okay to throw a baby in the trash gets appalled when I catch and eat a fish, or deer, etc. **I wonder why?

(**Nominee for "Rhetorical question of the year)

Keep fighting the good fight Christine!

April 23, 2007 at 6:41:00 PM PDT
Jody said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
April 23, 2007 at 8:44:00 PM PDT
Unknown said...

So we can either worship God and he'll let us live, or we can not worship God, and either directly or indirectly, he'll kill us?

April 23, 2007 at 8:48:00 PM PDT
Christinewjc said...

Hi Doug,

I read your article at WND...you did a fabulous job exposing the hypocrisy of the pro-abortion crowd!

We'll keep fighing that good fight together!

April 23, 2007 at 10:14:00 PM PDT
Christinewjc said...

Jody,

I think that the problem is that you only look at life from your own preconceived notions and choose atheism; thus you only get a two dimensional view of it all. You are obviously not noticing (or recognizing) any portion of God's universal perspective(s), which can be found in His Word.

April 23, 2007 at 10:21:00 PM PDT
Unknown said...

Christine, I'm looking at 33 dead bodies here.

You raised the issue: God let people die at VT because he wasn't being worshiped....if he is worshiped then he won't let people die in such situations.

Your argument, not mine.

April 24, 2007 at 12:22:00 AM PDT
Christinewjc said...

No Jody. That isn't my argument.

If God was still allowed in schools, then perhaps the killer(s) would have been reached spiritually via the Gospel and thus have chosen not to kill others.

April 24, 2007 at 7:09:00 AM PDT
Mark said...

jody,
Nobody dies. We all spend eternity in one of two places. You a gambling man?

The fact that God desires a relationship with all of us, including the 'gunman', does not preclude the absolute living reality of evil. Evil will exist in eternity as well. It just won't be on the street Christ lives on.

April 24, 2007 at 9:40:00 AM PDT
Mark said...

Christine, I'm looking at 33 dead bodies here.

ahhh, how compassionate jody! Ever seen an aborted baby in a steel salad bowl? Oh that's right, it's not a human until it's in college. So those 4000 'lumps of tissue' can be ignored, eh.

Your argument, not mine.

April 24, 2007 at 10:15:00 AM PDT
Kingdom Advancer said...

There are so many potential contributing factors why this tragedy happened:

1.) Private Medical Records.
I'm not a gun-control advocate by any means. I'm a big believer in the Second Amendment. However, I do think weapon retailers should have access to a person's mental health records. That should not be considered a "right to privacy" issue. I don't know if this would've made a difference in this specific case, but still.

2.) Should Cho even still have been in school? I'm not sure. It seems that allegedly setting fire to a dorm, allegedly stalking two young women, allegedly taking pictures of girls' legs, being kicked out of a class, writing disturbing plays, and having some mental issues would be enough to expel him.

3.) It seems that the school could've done more to lessen the gravity of the situation, but I'm not sure.

At a certain point, however, I think we have to look inside, at the run-of-the-mill teachings of public schools and colleges nowadays, which are:

Evolutionary...atheistic...relatavistic...narcisistic...nihilistic...secular humanist...pro-abortion...etc.

These are teachings that tell us we are just animals; that there is no God; that there is no absolute good and evil, right and wrong, truth and falsehood; that personal pleasure is the "chief end" of man; that man has no real purpose because there is no real God to give it to him; that mankind doesn't need God; and that the value of life is subjective.

When the teachings are these, what else should we expect? Granted, many kids learn this garbage and don't go out and do what Cho did. But, there's a point right there! The surprise shouldn't be that someone did this; the surprise should be that MORE DON'T DO IT.

And we see the effects manifested in other forms: rampant sexual immorality, rape, drunkenness, partying, etc., etc.

In response to your mini-debate with Jody:

Even if EVERYONE called themselves "Christians" and the schools were godly, we could still expect this sort of thing to happen occasionally. Evil--as a complete whole--is unavoidable until Jesus separates us (Christians) entirely from it. However, one needs only to look at the percentages of crime--after the Bible/Ten Commandments/prayer or whatever else Christian was taken out of schools.

And, though your statement of Christine's supposed argument, Jody, that "God let people die at VT because he wasn't being worshiped....if he is worshiped then he won't let people die in such situations" is not entirely accurate--or fully explanatory, anyways--it is quite an obvious deduction that God's blessings and cursings correspond to our hearts and actions. But we must also not forget His sovereign will, as well the fact that at least of few of the victims were likely Christians, meaning they experienced one of the best days of their lives the day they were murdered, while others experienced their worst.

April 24, 2007 at 1:46:00 PM PDT
Kingdom Advancer said...

As for mental health, Christine, I think that Romans 1 can be enlightening on that topic.

April 24, 2007 at 1:49:00 PM PDT
Doug said...

Mark said:

-----

"Nobody dies. We all spend eternity in one of two places. You a gambling man?"

-----

Ah yes, "Pascal's Wager." Excellent point.

For those not familiar with Pascal's Wager, check it out:

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/pascal-wager/

April 24, 2007 at 3:24:00 PM PDT
Unknown said...

If God was still allowed in schools, then perhaps...

Christine, you are still in a bind with that line of argument as well.

"Perhaps" makes your opinion no different than any other group who offered their pet suggestion on what might have made a difference. Case in point those who argued less gun control might have made a difference or those who argue more would have. You are on no more certain ground, and your idea doesn't stand any taller than any other.

We'll leave aside for the moment the fact that that which is omnipresent doesn't need to be "allowed" anywhere....

If you want to amend your point again to be a bit firmer and that -definitely-"allowing god" into schools would have made a difference, then you are right back at the whole "god let people die because he wasn't being worshiped" business.

It's really your call at this point.

April 24, 2007 at 8:50:00 PM PDT
Unknown said...

We all spend eternity in one of two places...

Mark, for the good of society everywhere, don't give up your belief in Hell. Since, implicitly, it appears to be the only thing that keeps you from the FBI's Most Wanted list, we're all better off.

Your argument, not mine...

Actually, my argument was about the Virginia Tech shootings and Christine's plea for more superstition to incur a beneficial outcome. Your argument regarding superstition influenced objections to abortion is something for another day.

----
KA said...

...These are teachings that tell us we are just animals...

KA, why is it that in Western Europe, Canada and Japan, where these teachings about us being little more than "animals" have taken hold with majorities of these countries not being religious, to the point of atheism, have, broadly speaking, lower crime, rape, poverty, abortion, STD, suicide and homicide rates --especially school shootings -- than we, the most religious Western country, do?

Why is it that in those American states with the highest levels of religiosity, where concepts like evolution are most frequently criticized, and "family values" like marriage and abstinence until marriage are strongly celebrated, and with the most stringent restrictions on abortion, again, broadly speaking, have the highest divorce, teen pregnancy, abortion, and poverty rates in the country?

If you are going to argue correlation as causation, the data isn't on your side.

April 24, 2007 at 8:57:00 PM PDT
Mark said...

jody,
The author of your second "data" source makes clear..And while I'm at it, perhaps I should make clear that of course I recognize that this is based on broad generalizations that don't hold true in every case, or anywhere close to it.

and then here is an objective approach...I'm just really tired of hearing how those arrogant blue staters look down on those good simple folk from the red states..

What country does this guy live in? Jody, you should know the difference between data and editorials by now.

That first 'study', well it's kind of like giving a reason why there's no taco sauce in a NY Deli and calling it research.

hey, good one on the FBI remark! :)

April 25, 2007 at 7:37:00 AM PDT
Mark said...

Ya know jody, you just made Chrisine's point! Mark, for the good of society everywhere, don't give up your belief in Hell. Since, implicitly, it appears to be the only thing that keeps you from the FBI's Most Wanted list, we're all better off.

Indeed! More God the shorter the FBI Most Wanted list. Works for me!

April 25, 2007 at 8:25:00 AM PDT
Christinewjc said...

Jody,

Your personal beliefs lead you to believe that the world doesn't seem so orderly and natural, but random and even heartless. Part of the reason for this is that because of sin, the "natural" man is unenlightened and unregenerate according to God's wisdom as revealed in the Bible.

Because you claim an atheistic viewpoint, you have to either believe that God does not exist or if he does, then he is heartless and brutal. Am I correct in my assumptions?

I ask you, as a current skeptic of God, the Bible and Jesus Christ, would you consider doing a brief Bible study with me? We can keep it right here in the comment section, or, I can start a new thread here, or, we can take it over to my other blog called The Way of God in Truth. We could even have the conversation privately, via email. It is up to you, of course, whether or not you want to participate.

I would like to study Romans 8 with you.

If you choose not to participate in such a study, then I will just share that Romans 8:28 tells us of the confident promise of grace.

The verse phrase And we know is a certain promise.

The verse phrase that all things is a comprehensive promise.

The verse phrase ...work together is a complex promise.

The verse phrase ...for good... is a comforting promise.

The verse phrase ...to those who love God to those who are the called according to His purpose is a conditional promise.

Jody, I think that most unregenerate people live within a blindness of self-absorption. When we have been released once and for all from that, believers marvel at the interconnectedness of one human life to another. On the other side of heaven, I believe that people will see clearly (for now, we see darkly) how God affected us through other people, and how He used us in the lives of others. Even the worst moments of our lives will be explained as to why He allowed them.

We will see that the many things in this world were truly evil. We will each have experienced them ourselves.

But when we stand in His presence and look back at this world, we will see just how delicately and how wisely He turned those evil elements for good; and used them towards His own good purposes. I am convinced that we will have no recourse but to fall on our knees and sing praises to Him.

Christians know this and we expect this. But what about now...you probably ask? The question becomes one of faith, true faith. Can we allow ourselves to be such total captives of His grace that we trust Him completely with life's most terrible moments?

Did you hear about the father of one of the VA Tech students who was killed? He and his daughter are devout Christians and this father was able to forgive the murderer almost immediately. This man exhibited no bitterness within after having just experienced terrible, mindless evil! He lost his precious daughter!! But he has the confident promise of grace that Jesus Christ gives us. That man answered "yes" to God's ultimate faith question:

"Can you thank Me for trusting you with this experience, even if I never tell you why?"

That's true, deeply held faith! That question penetrates to the depth of commitment to Christ.

Sometimes in this life we have the rare privilege of seeing just how God uses an evil event, setback or disappointment, for a larger, more ultimate good. We can feel the wisdom and strength that comes through the basic trials of normal living. But can we trust Him even when we don't know the answers?

I feel in my spirit that your adherence to knowledge, science and logic persuades you that religion is silly, useless, and even downright dangerous. Christianity seems to be the worst kind of faith in your eyes. So be it. But what if you are wrong?

You feel "safe" in your beliefs because it doesn't require utilizing faith in the supernatural or mysterious ways of God. This is where the complex workings of Almighty God work a pattern...a deeper one that we can't perceive right now. The fact that no mortal person can see all the patterns of God in this life is unsatisfactory to those who want answers for everything.

Isn't that true?

However, for the believer, even though some of God's ways are more mysterious than the depths of uncharted seas, His grace is clear as spotless glass. His grace is no mystery to believers in Christ. It is absolute, all encompassing, and as vast as the sky on a starry night.

Before I knew Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, life was strange. Now I know that even though life is still strange at times, God is good all the time. I, as an individual, must give Him my trust and harbor no anxieties about it. Yes. That's easy to say and hard to do. But because I know that he loves me, I count on Him.

Going back to the father of the VA Tech girl who was killed during the massacre. He holds to the hope and promise of these final verses in Romans 8 (NLT) -

Rom 8:35 Can anything ever separate us from Christ's love? Does it mean he no longer loves us if we have trouble or calamity, or are persecuted, or are hungry or cold or in danger or threatened with death?
Rom 8:36 (Even the Scriptures say, "For your sake we are killed every day; we are being slaughtered like sheep."[fn12])
Rom 8:37 No, despite all these things, overwhelming victory is ours through Christ, who loved us.
Rom 8:38 And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from his love. Death can't, and life can't. The angels can't, and the demons can't. Our fears for today, our worries about tomorrow, and even the powers of hell can't keep God's love away.
Rom 8:39 Whether we are high above the sky or in the deepest ocean, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.

April 25, 2007 at 10:15:00 AM PDT
Christinewjc said...

Hey Mark!

Welcome back to blogging! I have missed you!

Read your recent post at your blog about those who claim that Jesus affirmed gay behavior relationships.

*sigh*

When will they face the truth and stop making Jesus into their own image?

April 25, 2007 at 11:35:00 AM PDT
Christinewjc said...

Thanks for all that you shared on this topic, Kingdom Advancer. Through all of those examples you gave, we can see how sin affects the actions (and, in other cases, tendency to inaction) of otherwise intelligent and responsible people. Each terrible event shows us how unprepared we really are against the "wiles of the devil." Thank God for His mercy upon us otherwise we all would be doomed in the end.

April 25, 2007 at 11:53:00 AM PDT
Kingdom Advancer said...

First of all, I'm not sure how "broadly speaking" you are. Plus, while showing any type of "correlation for causation" or lack thereof, you have to be careful not to fall into a non-sequitur fallacy. My reasoning is based mainly upon common sense. The teachings I referred to have logical effects.

Secondly, I don't have to defend "religion" as a generalization, because religious teachings are so diverse and far-reaching. Secular humanism itself is a type of religious belief. Besides, even liberal and nominal "Christianity" has fallen into the trap of some of the teachings I've mentioned, including evolutionary theory.

Thirdly, as for abortion, I was not saying the rate of abortion, I was saying the ACCEPTANCE of abortion, and thereby the acceptance of the subjectivity of the value of life.

April 25, 2007 at 5:03:00 PM PDT
Mark said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
April 25, 2007 at 7:51:00 PM PDT
Mark said...

I'd give a High 5 to Kingdom Advancer..but I don't do High 5's anymore. Instead, I'll just say Amen!

April 25, 2007 at 7:53:00 PM PDT
Unknown said...

KA--

The teachings I referred to have logical effects.

They don't have the logical effects you say they do. See below.

----

Mark--

The data the editorialist and the study reference is rather clear.

That, in the aggregate, those American states with the highest professed religiosity, family values, and traditional outlooks, are also the poorest, least educated, most crime prone, and least healthy in our nation.

In the aggregate, relative to other secular, non-religious Western countries, the USA is more religious, more violent, less educated, has greater levels of crime and has greater levels of poverty.

To put it another way, the less religious a society is the healthier that society is. The less religious a state is, the healthier the state is.

While correlation isn't the same thing as causation, your argument, KAs argument and Christine's argument, that "more god," -- and by extension the fear of hell -- makes things better just doesn't hold true.

April 25, 2007 at 8:36:00 PM PDT
Unknown said...

Christine,

The issue here is not my beliefs about the world, but rather yours.

It is your blog, and it was your post in support of a YouTube video, as well as other related commentary, that "God," would have made things better, that I questioned.

You are free to believe that "unregenerate people live within a blindness of self-absorption." I've found the opposite to be true, that those who believe they've regenerated / saved / been born anew are far more myopic than the rest. The withdrawal into home schools, alternative communities, superstition supporting sciences, and dogmatic politics are creations of
bulwarks against the omnipresence of reality.

It's all well and good to think that platitudes prefigure pain and suffering, to think that you'll be rewarded for your personal travails in a land of milk and honey at the rainbow's end, and believing that singing "Kumbaya" is the secret sauce of salvation that people are too degenerate to consume.

But you aren't just thinking or believing that. You are offering those things up as a proof, a remedy to what ails.

When someone, me, points out not only the implications of your ideas, but that the current practice of them are demonstrably useless in the world we all share, you plead for special exemptions to the fairly obvious problems with your argument. That your ideas shouldn't be vetted because your ideas say they can't be. Over coffee with fellow travelers that might work, but out here, beyond your bulwarks, in the real world, that just doesn't cut it.

There are solutions to the tragedy at Virginia Tech, You just haven't offered any.

April 25, 2007 at 8:37:00 PM PDT
Christinewjc said...

Jody,

So...does that mean you are saying "no" to the Bible study offer?

April 25, 2007 at 8:42:00 PM PDT
Unknown said...

Christine,

What was your first clue?

April 25, 2007 at 11:21:00 PM PDT
Christinewjc said...

Jody wrote, "There are solutions to the tragedy at Virginia Tech, You just haven't offered any."

Can I assume that you meant there are solutions to any future tragedies like the one that happened at Virginia Tech? The carnage at VT is in the past now and no "solution" suggestion today could change it.

People who murder aren't going to be deterred by more gun laws. They typically ignore them. However, those who are allowed to legally carry firearms for protection have been prohibited from doing so on that (as well as other) university campuses. If the brave professor who used his body to shield the bullets from his students and gave them time to escape from the classroom out through the windows was allowed to have a concealed weapon, he could have ended the rampage right then and there and lives could have been saved.

That is a description of a physical solution. You probably won't agree with it. But it is an opinion of a solution none-the-less.

Personally, I think that changed hearts towards God and His love, forgiveness, grace, and mercy is the ultimate answer. It was my desire to share with you why I think this way and the Bible study invitation was my way of offering such a solution to man's problems on this earth. Obviously, you don't want to hear it.

So, I will just say that the Gospel has been instrumental in changing hearts away from evil. We can see examples of this in prisons all across this country. The recidivism rate of convicts who have embraced the Gospel of Jesus Christ decreases immensely.

Have you taken the time to read the latest News Roundup post that includes much more info about Cho's involvement with radical Islamic beliefs? The massacre at VT wasn't just a tragedy. It was a terrorist attack by one murderer whose choice of weapon may have been different, but intent was similar to the Beltway sniper attacks done by Muhammed and Malvo.

At that link, we read the following:

"In May 2006, after over 3 1/2 years of discovery of partial facts and widespread speculation, at Muhammad's Maryland trial, Malvo revealed many details of their three-phased plan, which was far more elaborate than had early been thought by many observers. If carried out, the pair would have recruited a small army of alienated youths, used Muhammad's U.S. military training to instruct and indoctrinate them in Canada, and then mount coordinated terrorist attacks on the entire United States."

They were terrorists here in America. Seung-Hui labeled himself as "Ismail Ax" and also was a terrorist here in America who chose to kill college students, then himself.

There is much more to this story than currently meets the eye (like the Beltway sniper one). When the documents about Cho are released, we will see, unquestionably, that radical Islam influenced his murderous rampage.

Evil can be overcome by good. But it requires individual change of heart. The Gospel of Christ and His Word, the Bible tells us how to achieve such a change of heart. Each soul that is redeemed is one less soul that will murder.

April 26, 2007 at 6:55:00 AM PDT
Kingdom Advancer said...

First off, I've just gotta address these:

"...withdrawal into home schools..."

As if public schools are better?

"...superstition supporting sciences..."

If you are referring to Intelligent Design or creationism as "superstition supporting sciences," you are way over your head in the atheism swamp and mire, Jody. Why don't you read the other side of the story every once in a while? Or, better yet, just have some respect for your own reasoning ability and denounce the Theory of Evolution right now.

Perhaps you don't know the scientific discoveries that Christians have made?

"...creations of
bulwarks against the omnipresence of reality."

Wow. That sounds smart. But really, it only is a true statement if God doesn't exist, if there isn't absolute truth, if the Bible isn't God's Word, if Christians can't know that it's true. Your argument is fallable because it assumes YOUR idea of reality IS reality. If those aforementioned things ARE true (which they are), then THEY ARE REALITY. Then YOUR reality is a "creation...against the omnipresence of reality." The door swings both ways.

April 26, 2007 at 2:53:00 PM PDT
Kingdom Advancer said...

As for our other debate:

This is difficult, I'll admit, because one has to be careful not to fall into a non-sequitur fallacy, or even a post-hoc-ergo-proper-hoc fallacy. You say statistics between the the non-religious Western world and "religious" America proves that my argument is false. However, your argument could be a non-sequitur. There could be other reasons why crime is lower somewhere else, or higher here. In fact, for instance, some of the secular philosophies I listed could lead in some cases to apathy and even wimpiness, rather than violence and crime.

As well, it should be noted that America, even if it is the most religious, is hardly a picture of the Kingdom of God right now.

I could point to the frequency--or lack thereof--of such things as school shootings in the past, before America had reached this point of moral degradation. But you could claim that this was a post-hoc-ergo-proper-hoc argument. It may or may not be.

There's also the "not-whole-story" element. It is surely possible that things like the Virginia Tech shooting happen because of a combination of factors. You seem to think that it doesn't have anything to do with what I said. I think it does.

The bottom line is that all three of these arguments/elements would likely have to be researched deeper than we can here. But I rest my argument on three things:

1.) The Bible: as the inspired, infallible, inerrant Word of God, I'm going to trust what it has to say.

2.) Common sense/Logic: there are natural cause-effect relationships that these philosophies and ideologies can be expected to have on those who have them ingrained in their minds.

April 26, 2007 at 3:09:00 PM PDT
Unknown said...

Can I assume that you meant there are solutions to any future tragedies…

Yes, Christine. I mean future tragedies. That kind of goes without saying...

Have you taken the time to read the latest News Roundup post that includes much more info about Cho's involvement with radical Islamic beliefs…

Have you taken the time to read about Cho's girlfriend, Jelly? She's was an invisible supermodel, who lives in outer space, and visted him frequently by space-ship? Her pet name for him was Spanky, a name he liked so much he used it as his internet handle.

When she came to visit, presumably leaving her space-ship parked in one of the commuter lots, he used to shoo his roommates out of the room so he could have some private time with her.

It's very likely Cho's childhood friend, Vladimir Putin introduced the two, during one of their many shared vacations North Carolina. Or Moscow.

The odds of him being a bonefide Al-Qaeda operative, a Muslim terrorist, or a revolutionary of any sort, are pretty even with Jelly giving him a lift on her spaceship to a reunion with Vladdy.

I doubt you have any experience treating seriously mentally ill people. I do. For a hint of what it's like, and to see why believing "Ismail Ax" is anything more than an expression of his deluded rage, check out this YouTube clip. Pay careful attention to how the one unmedicated patient-prisoner signs in his name during roll-call.

Cho was not well.

And that's what we are dealing with here -- "un-well" people inflicting savage violence. This is a rare occurrence. Mass shootings in schools and colleges don't happen that often. The system in place to watch for and treat such people generally works.

The reflection and review about VT should be about figuring out what went wrong with that system and what, if anything, can be done to prevent or mitigate something as tragic from happening again -- not fulfilling the "worried well"'s own paranoia.

In that light, sure, the professor having a gun could have made a difference. But so could having a security guard in every building, electronic door locks buzzed in by each professor in every classroom, or a panic button under the lectern. All of those things could make have made a difference, and they all have the added benefit of not increasing the number of (legal) guns on campus.

I'm not sure we need any of those solutions, from guns to panic buttons. As I said, this kind of thing doesn't happen that often. The trade off between the expense and inconvenience of door buzzers or drunk college students blasting each other with pistols doesn't seem worth it for something that just doesn't happen much.

Cho had come to the attention of authorities numerous times in numerous ways. His behavior had been escalating since he was in school. He'd even come to the attention of the Court system put in place to deal with mentally ill people who are a danger to themselves and the rest of us. Why didn't it work? Were there legitimate limitations that prevented anything from being done or are there flaws in the Virginia systems in place to deal with such people the main reason for such an event? We don't know yet. Maybe the panel the governor empaneled will tell us.

You are more than welcome to pray for the magical intervention of "...changed hearts towards God and His love, forgiveness, grace, and mercy."

I prefer something real be done.

April 27, 2007 at 12:00:00 PM PDT
Unknown said...

KA--
If you are referring to Intelligent Design or creationism as "superstition supporting sciences,"

I was. Intelligent Design is Creationism in fancy clothes. There's nothing scientific about it. ID hasn't contributed to our knowledge of the universe in anyway.

There isn't even a Theory of Intelligent Design. Don't get mad at me about that. Take it up with Dembski and Behe.

In fact, for instance, some of the secular philosophies I listed could lead in some cases to apathy and even wimpiness, rather than violence and crime.

I'm making no claims that lack of religion is the cause of the better health and standards of living in other Western societies or the cause of the same in the more secular states in the USA, only that they are strongly correlated. You though, many times, have said the exact opposite, that secularism causes "bad things" in a society.

Now, to explain away the healthy correlation, you've offered that secularism could cause societies to be apathetic or "wimpy." That's directly at odds though with your original contention.

Secular philosophies can't be both the cause of school shootings and the lack of them, the cause of abortion and the lack of it, the cause of poverty and the lack of it, the cause of crime and the lack of it, and so on and so on, depending on your needs for argument.

You are implying you have the more reasonable argument. Based on what you've provided so far? Eh. Not so much.

April 27, 2007 at 12:02:00 PM PDT
Kingdom Advancer said...

"There isn't even a Theory of Intelligent Design."

Well, technically, there isn't a Theory of Evolution either. It is just a hypothesis, and a bad one at that.

I don't know what "nothing scientific about it" means, other than that you've allowed yourself to be fed the evolutionists' panic propaganda. Intelligent Design proves--like we needed any more proof than our common sense--that EVOLUTION COULDN'T HAVE DONE IT, at least in any sort of way that Darwin and others thought it could have done it.

April 27, 2007 at 1:45:00 PM PDT
Kingdom Advancer said...

"I'm making no claims that lack of religion is the cause of the better health and standards of living in other Western societies or the cause of the same in the more secular states in the USA, only that they are strongly correlated. You though, many times, have said the exact opposite, that secularism causes "bad things" in a society."

You have implicated that because secular societies have better statistics, than my argument doesn't work. But I'm saying that other contributing factors could play into--even offset--such factors.

"Now, to explain away the healthy correlation, you've offered that secularism could cause societies to be apathetic or "wimpy." That's directly at odds though with your original contention.
Secular philosophies can't be both the cause of school shootings and the lack of them, the cause of abortion and the lack of it, the cause of poverty and the lack of it, the cause of crime and the lack of it, and so on and so on, depending on your needs for argument."

First of all, that's not what I'm saying. I am not saying that secularism is the cause "of school shootings and the lack of them." What I am saying is that secularism can have wide-ranging effects. Ironically, they are all generally sinful, if not criminal.

When someone is told they're just a highly-evolved animal, that information can either influence them to obey their sexual desires, or they could go out and murder people (with other contributing factors, obviously).

When someone is told life's purpose is all about their pleasure, they could spend each and every day partying, or they could go kill their ex-girlfriend.

When someone is told there is no God--no Judge--they could lie their way up the corporate ladder, or they could become a serial killer.

I'm not implying that other elements don't come into play. But I am saying that we are raising people on ideologies that are logically unsafe.

April 27, 2007 at 1:53:00 PM PDT
Christinewjc said...

Jody,

I have just a quick moment so I'll ask a few questions.

What is the difference between a psychotic person and a psychopath?

A psychologist who appeared on the O'Reilly Factor claimed that the evidence shows that Cho was a psychopath.

Are there other psychologists who disagree with that diagnosis?

I could be wrong, but my observation about this case leads me to believe the psychologist who claimed that Cho was a psychopath.

IMO, based on the evidence, in order to carry out such an elaborate plan as Cho did, he must have been influenced by more than just having a problem with girls and fantasies. So, the question is what exactly influenced him to enter into a murderous rampage?

April 27, 2007 at 2:37:00 PM PDT
Unknown said...

Main thing to keep in mind is that "psychopath" is not a clinical diagnosis. It's both a coloquieal term for a group of overlapping psychological problems as well as a label used by Law Enforcement for a variety of persons with psychiatric problems who commit crimes.

"Psychosis" itself is a very intense, and usually temporary, "mind flu" that someone gets. The lurch into a state where they can't discern reality from fantasy in any shape or form. There are mild psychoses and intense psychoses, psychoses with positive and negative symptoms (as with schizophrenia), chemically induced ones and reactive ones. Someone can be psychotic without being a psychopath.

Clinically, Cho's fits the the clinical diagnosis of Borderline Personality Disorder. Because he had some pretty active delusions (Jenny), he most likely had some other co-occurring mood disorder (scroll down the Wiki entry to "Co-morbidity", then click on both the clinical depression and bipolar disorder links.)

As a rather morbid aside, my best friend's fiance and I spent a few hours over dinner going over what we'd read and heard about Cho, trying to figure out his diagnosis and all the possibilities for his early life. She has a clinical practice that deals heavily with people like Cho, some with legal problems, some hospitialized, and some in a nebulous gray area, and spoke about what it's like to treat such people.

Since the bulk of my career was in social work dealing with children and families, I focused in on the early life of Cho, offering some possibilities for early experiences that, coupled with the priming of his genes, shaped him into the criminal he became. Sexual abuse is the most likely event. His plays are a big flashing light that he'd been abused regularly somewhere along the line.

While great strides have been made in understanding the brain and in treating some types of psychiatric disorders, the medical technology to cure someone as damaged as Cho just doesn't exist yet. Given the severity of the illness manifested in Cho, there's only two possibilities for treatment: life-long incarceration in a prison psychiatric ward or death.

April 29, 2007 at 12:48:00 AM PDT
Unknown said...

KA--

Well, technically, there isn't a Theory of Evolution either. It is just a hypothesis, and a bad one at that.

To paraphrase Inigo Montoya, "Those words and concepts, they do not mean what you think they do."


When someone is told they're just a highly-evolved animal, that information can either influence them to obey their sexual desires, or they could go out and murder people (with other contributing factors, obviously)

In the examples we've been discussing, secular Western nations have lower murder and violence rates than religious Western nations do. They also have less abortions, STDs, and sexual partner rates than religious societies do.

....they could spend each and every day partying...

I haven't seen a national or international comparison on the number of days people spend partying. If you have some data on this, by all means, share...

or they could go kill their ex-girlfriend.

Again, the correlation is between secular societies having lower murder rates than non-secular ones, not the other way around.

...they could lie their way up the corporate ladder...

There really isn't any evidence that Europe has a greater level of corporate problems than the US. I'd just like to point out that the Enron scandal occured in a company chartered in one of the most religious states in our nation and was led by a very out Christian chairman Kenneth Lay.

..they could become a serial killer...

Lower serial crime rates correlate with secular societies. Higher serial crime rates correlate with non-secular ones.

ut I am saying that we are raising people on ideologies that are logically unsafe.

The data does suggest that -- just not in the way you state.

April 29, 2007 at 1:25:00 AM PDT
Unknown said...

This is something that really will make a difference:

Governor Timothy M. Kaine of Virginia issued an order today requiring stricter reporting on the mental health background of individuals who are trying to purchase handguns. The move followed a review of the state’s gun-sale procedures, prompted by the killing of 32 people on April 16 by a student at Virginia Polytechnic Institute.

The executive order instructs agencies to start including the names of individuals who are found to be dangerous and who have been ordered to undergo involuntary mental health treatment, whether inpatient or outpatient, in the database that is consulted by licensed gun dealers before they sell firearms to consumers.

April 30, 2007 at 4:03:00 PM PDT
Christinewjc said...

Oh Jody...what is with the two paragraph long html links?

Anyway...

I heard about the VA Gov.'s new executive order today. I sincerely hope that it will make a difference and prevent anything like this massacre from ever happening again. Perhaps other states will follow suit.

The people in VA have been absolutely devastated by this. I was talking with my brother this weekend. He is a teacher at the HS where the killer attended 4 years ago. In fact, many VA Tech students attended that HS.

Two of his former students were killed. One was a senior in his class just last year. He was crushed over this.

Kids are coming back to the HS to visit former teachers, crying uncontrollably while they tell their stories of horror and grief. My brother has tried to console and comfort the students who visit him (and those in his classes this year) as best he can.

There are some really ignorant and despicable people who are mouthing off and calling that former HS "the murderer capital of VA." Just awful!! Some people can be so mean, vicious, and ugly!!

April 30, 2007 at 4:52:00 PM PDT

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