Godless Killers?

Godless Killers?

I wrote this in response to a former student and Orlando resident who essentially blamed the Pulse shootings and those like it on "Godless" persons and the lack of "God fearing" people who don't tell their children the difference between right and wrong.  There are so many things wrong with this that one hardly knows where to start, from a kindly, benevolent God who requires that you "fear ' him, and in whose name you are willing to kill, to the imbecilic assumption that mass killers truly don't know the "difference  between right and wrong" when in almost every case it is their religious belief which guides them to their evil acts.  I decided to address the most ludicrous claim.  

     "Godless? Do you ever even listen to yourself?"  The worst mass killings in our history have been committed by persons who professed belief in a supreme being. Just because it isn't your flavor doesn't make them, any less devout. Tell me how many mass killings have been committed in this nation by professed atheists.  I'll give you a hint - none.

      The soldiers who slaughtered 150 Sioux at Wounded Knee were, no doubt, professed Christians. The Ku KluxKlan is estimated to have killed 3,446 persons, all in the name of White Protestant muscular Christianity.  The 1949 King David Hotel bombings (96 dead) were carried out by extremely devout Jewish terrorists. Remember, they invented God as you know Her! Of course they had historical precedent, and were guided by Moses, at whose command either 3,000 or 30,000 Hebrews, depending on translation, were slaughtered in that little Golden Calf incident.

      Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols were both professed Christians when their Oklahoma City plot killed 168 and wounded over 600. James Holmes (Aurora shooter) killed 24 and tried to kill 124 more. He was raised a good Lutheran boy.

       And the Orlando shooter and for that matter most Islamist radicals are devout in their belief. I believe them to be grossly misguided, but then I believe the same of Mormons, Catholics, Baptists,etc. 

     In the last 30 years of the 20th century devout Catholics and equally devout Protestants in the UK (specifically Ireland) killed 3,568 people, of whom 1,879 were civilians, and well over 500 were children. were they Godless? Hardly. Try as I may, I can't think of a non-believer who has personally committed this kind of carnage, so why blame them?   

      Of course the immediate response is "well, I'm not 'that kind' of Christian!" Really? Then act like it. Use the brain that you allege God gave you, engage in critical thinking and, if that works, revise and redirect your kneejerk animosity.  If you are in, some alternate really, rationalizing that the easy access to assault weapons isn't in large part responsible, not for the act, but for it's scope, you are delusional. 

      And for the record: If anyone in this nation has incited others to violence by their rhetoric in the last 30 years, it is the far right Christian Mullahs like Robertson, Falwell, Fred Phelps, Huckabee,  Santorum, Giuliani and their rabid co-religionists.