(October 3, 2017 at 11:16 am)Catholic_Lady Wrote:(October 2, 2017 at 9:27 pm)drfuzzy Wrote:
Of all the attacks and murders that happen each year, you pulled out a handful from the past few decades to prove that Christianity is a primary motive, equating it to Islam? Less time ago than any of that, an atheist shot up a church, and another one killed 2 (or was it 3?) Muslim kids in a parking lot. The Columbine kids were atheist and shot a girl in the face after she admitted to believing in God. The atheist Soviet Union murdered millions of religious folks less than 100 years ago. You see, I can play this game too, and if i wanted to i could scour google and find more... those are just off the top of my head. My point is, you can find instances of people from all groups using their ideology to do awful things, including Christianity. But when attacks like these happen, no one thinks "oh it was probably motivated by Christianity", because it very very seldom is. Calling it a "primary motive" for random civilian attacks now a days is inacurate and uncalled for, especially putting it side by side with Islam. Im not a fan of Bill Maher, but he talks about this fairly often. Equating the 2 IS dishonest.
I actually agree with you, mostly. "Wrong thinking" of various types is the problem. There is a tendency, right now, to blame terrorism on Muslims - mostly due to ISIS - which is incorrect. Most of the acts of terrorism in the US in the past decades have been committed by white males, most of those were Christian. But because most of the US is Christian, their religion wasn't even considered to be part of their problem - they were just insane loners. Violent Muslims and violent Christians, though, all tend to be of a similar stripe - fundamentalists who take their Holy Book (Koran or Bible) literally. Their ideology comes from a literal reading of their holy book. Christians don't want to own up to the fact that for centuries, the Church made ISIS look like 8-year-olds playing "gang member when I grow up". Christ's words "I come not to bring peace but a sword" have been throughout history, and still are a literal call to arms for many.
My Catholic friends don't want to think about the bad old days. Things are better now. They like to sing about "we are the light of the world". I get that.
But equating the two is not dishonest, because a slavish literal following of the Bible OR the Koran leads people to slaughter unbelievers. God orders it. THAT's a problem.
Other problems? Violence in video games. Training young men (mostly) that killing is a game. Violence in movies. Did you see John Wick? Good movie, but wow. Huge body count because a thug stole his car and killed his dog. Loner, unstable, angry young men without sufficient counseling or support systems.
There are lots of issues here that need to be addressed. And I happen to think religion tops the list.
"The family that prays together...is brainwashing their children."- Albert Einstein
