Observations and inanities by a second-shift assistant supervisor in the Puppy-Grinding division of the Evil Atheist Conspiracy® (our motto: "Sure it's cruel, but think of the jobs!"), your host, Brent Rasmussen.
The wrong reasons for violence.
You may already have heard about the massacre in a Lancaster school house earlier today, so before I start my rant I would first like to offer my condolences to the families of the victims.
Recently CBS news has added a new segment, titled "Free Talk" to their nightly news. This segment allows someone to express their opinions on current events. Sometimes the speaker has some interesting insites, sometimes they don't. Today's speaker was chosen specifically because he was the father of one of the kids killed during the infamous Columbine Massacre, in order to share his feelings on why the number of school massacres has increased. This person basically said that massacres in public schools are on the rise because we have kicked God out of our schools. Because we refuse to teach creationism and instead teach evolution our public schools are operating in a moral vacuum. He made the usual argument about how atheists have no respect for human life and how abortion has cheapened life.
This was about the point when I hit the ceiling, you see I was bullied in high school and have a pretty good idea of what goes through a kid's mind when he/she is being picked on constantly and when no one seems to come to his/her defense, the difference is that I was never desperate enough to throw everything away. By now probably everyone knows that the gunman had some sort of grudge against young girls in general, ever since he went to that school house 20 years ago. I have no idea what his reasons might have been, nor do I know why he apparently held this grudge for 20 years. However I do know that flying off the handle and killing people is not related to a lack of religion in schools. Using the deaths of innocent girls as a platform for pushing your religion is beyond tactless, it's down right despicable.
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its digusting that the media
its digusting that the media is over looking the fact that the killers hated women - this wasn't because of an atheistic movement or whatever - they hated girls. Why all the whispers and tiptoes over the misogyny, it should be screamed.
Seems to me, the last time i checked, most of the killing going on in the world has been because of religious values clashing.
Good link.
Good post on Echidne. Thanks. Feministing has something else to add.
Jim Downey
"Sometimes I think we're alone. Sometimes I think we're not. In either case, the thought is staggering."
- R. Buckminster Fuller
Great Post
Great Post Cat.
This reminds me of one of my great consternations with American broadcast media. In CBS's "Free Speech" segments, one of the main premises is that there will be no rebuttal. It therefore allows one person to make statements, that no matter how far removed from reality, will receive no challenge. On the other hand, during the "hard news" section of the program, they will present both sides of an issue without feeling it necessary to present the differences in the weights of the evidence between them (think evolution v ID or the realities of global warming).
It seems so absurd to me that I don't think I'll ever get my head around it. I wonder if a study has ever been done to determine if journalistic empiricism really hurts ratings that bad. Oh well, in the mean time I still have Lehrer.
All too typical.
Yeah, this is the sort of opportunism we see from the Shamans (Brent, I really like that term!) at every tragedy, whether it's some nutcase with a gun or a hurricane which is blamed on gays. And how many times have you attended a funeral for a friend or loved one only to have to listen to some completely inappropriate tirade about how their death is a warning to us to change our ways and get right with Sky Daddy?
Jim Downey
"Sometimes I think we're alone. Sometimes I think we're not. In either case, the thought is staggering."
- R. Buckminster Fuller
how true
I haven't really attended anyone's funeral where their death was made into a warning from the Eternal Idiot. Fortunately I seem to live in a fairly liberal area so that the most I tend to get is how that person is now wrapped warmly in Sky Daddy's eternal embrace, which while I may think it's silly I don't really need to add more stress to the family by pointing this out.
Granted
Granted, that would be unconscioncable. But I have witnessed the Shaman using the occasion for such behaviour - had it done to family members, as a matter of fact, when everyone in the family walked away sort of stunned by the rampant stupidity (facing left, in sable) of the whole thing. Amazing.
Jim Downey
"Sometimes I think we're alone. Sometimes I think we're not. In either case, the thought is staggering."
- R. Buckminster Fuller
Did he care?
The reports said the event happened at this school because of its convenient location. The nut case most likely did not know what went on inside the school. Considering the grade level, I hardly think evolution was being taught.
In my high school, 35 - 40 years ago or so, we did not have class prayer, class bible-reading, pledge of allegiance, no ten commandments on the wall--and no shootings, either by students or by outsiders. We did, however, have to keep our shirts tucked into our pants. That must be it; today's school violence is due to the current lackadasical attitude toward tucking shirts in!
"Today's speaker was chosen
"Today's speaker was chosen specifically because he was the father of one of the kids killed during the infamous Columbine Massacre, in order to share his feelings on why the number of school massacres has increased."
"On May 18, 1927, 45 people, mostly children, were killed and 58 were injured when disgruntled and demented school board member Andrew Kehoe dynamited the new school building in Bath, Michigan out of revenge over his foreclosed farm due in part to the taxes required to pay for the new school."
We forget how long it's been going on.
I just ask two thing when someone says something this idiotic.
1: Have you actually listed all incidents of school violence resulting in deaths?
2: Can you provide documentary evidence that the perpetrator was inspired by "Darwinisim/Atheism"
This is a strong counter-example...
...to the idea that lack of religion causes school violence. This was an AMISH SCHOOL - I guarantee no evolution was taught there, and that they had daily prayers right in the classes.
This statement is based on an Amish friend's description of his school experience, and he grew up not far from there. He is deceased now, alas.
Excellent Point
Excellent point Cat. It is despicable and disgusting, but it's also amusing in a way. The tactics of opportunity and adaptability are classic ones for an organism or a meme that wants to survive and further itself. The meme of religion, while not a biological organism, follows recognizable survival patterns predicted by evolutionary theory.
It's a carrion-eater, in other words.
The amusing part is that in using the tragic death of these girls to claim that evolution does not exist is evidence for the opposite, because of the reasons given above.
The only way to stamp out this pest, this meme of creationism and religion in schools, is to continue to breed the more powerful predator meme called critical thinking and it's siblings, evolution and the scientific method.
Same to you
You've got some good points.
I've also noticed that although religion isn't genetic it follows the same sort of survival patterns as DNA and the organizms it codes for.
Another meme we could breed is the competative meme, being able to accept death as a natural part of life. The main problem is that as long as there's an unknown people who are either too stupid or too lazy to try to figure it out will always turn to some form of god for comfort and "higher knowledge" and then accept that that "higher knowledge" is the truth reguardless of what science may tell them.