We condemn antisemitism and violence of all kinds. Our prayers for the dead and injured in the Tree of Life Synagogue are offered and will be included in our Universal Prayer at our Sunday Mass.
Apart from mental illness and the compromised being radicalized by ideological and political hatred, one must question other aspects of our modern world that has made so many so violent and contemptible of human life.
1. The legal killing of unborn children even to the horror of partial birth abortion
2. The spreading legalization of euthanasia
3. Media glorification of violence in movies, television, video games and the like
4. Uncensored images of death and destruction in media coverage of violence and death
5. The sale or easy acquisition of assault weapons used in war
And I save the last as the root of it all:
6. The loss of faith in God, with the ideology of godless secularism, ultra individualism replacing true religion and spirituality to the detriment of law and Order, concern for the common good and the Golden Rule.
Apart from mental illness and the compromised being radicalized by ideological and political hatred, one must question other aspects of our modern world that has made so many so violent and contemptible of human life.
1. The legal killing of unborn children even to the horror of partial birth abortion
2. The spreading legalization of euthanasia
3. Media glorification of violence in movies, television, video games and the like
4. Uncensored images of death and destruction in media coverage of violence and death
5. The sale or easy acquisition of assault weapons used in war
And I save the last as the root of it all:
6. The loss of faith in God, with the ideology of godless secularism, ultra individualism replacing true religion and spirituality to the detriment of law and Order, concern for the common good and the Golden Rule.
26 comments:
Although I am opposed to abortion & euthanasia, there are many, many countries that have all of that along with violent movies & video games & more atheism & less Christianity & those nations have little to no firearm violence. America stands alone & what distinguishes us is easy access to weapons of mass destruction.
good point, but in those countries which have easy access to weapons of these kind, my talking points lead people to use them to kill others (especially the compromised radicalized by the pro-death culture we live in).
I would venture to guess if we were a pro-life culture with media and legal support, even in a country like ours with easy access to the "right to bear arms" there would be less of the kind of killings we are seeing here, to include young people doing it to themselves.
The idea that a violent act can be excused as a form of expression has been legitimized. Access to weapons is not even remotely an issue, it is access to permission that allows people to act on these impulses. The Morrow buidling in Kansas City was flattened by a hand made explosive, not a gun. The Twin Towers were destroyed by aircraft impact, not weapons. The tenuous self-restraints society expected people to employ have been conciously disproved and rejected. All of it is completely rational and everyone knows it. It is the fruit of the tree of knowledge.
You left out the acceptance of divorce/remarriage which undermines the family and, consequently, robs children and young people of a sense of 1) belonging and 2) responsibility to a family.
As to your #6 - it is not only "assault" weapons that are used.
With his typical lack of compassion and his strident failure to understand complex matters, the President has already blamed the shooting on the lack of armed people in the temple for their fate.
Said he, "If they had some kind of protection inside the temple, maybe it could have been a very much different situation,” he said.
Oh yes, give the cantor an Uzi and all will be well.
Daniel,
This issue is VERY complex.
I know from inside experience how much repeated and on going low, medium and high level gun violence, takes place, often and mostly unreported, in Australia and New Zealand etc with our alleged progressive and wonderful gun laws.
BCK.
I don’t know about the Suirrel Hill Synagogue specifically but the synagogues I have known have armed guards or other people in or nearby.
Apparently the Pittsburgh shooter was outraged by the “caravan” that he believed was funded by George Soros to destroy America by importing more Jews. But, hey, that doesn’t make him antiSemitic, right?
Millions of people watch violent movies or video games without murderong anybody. Many of them are atheists.
Nobody has ever gone into a church or a synagogue or a high school or an elementary school or a movie theater or an office building and murdsred dozens of people without a high-powered weapon.
aniel,
The evil, corrupt, left-wing, abortion loving media in the US hides mass killings in other countries because that does not fit the agenda. If you do a modicum of research you will find out there are mass killings in other countries which exceed those in the US:
https://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/sorry-despite-gun-control-advocates-claims-u-s-isnt-the-worst-country-for-mass-shootings/
Why would you accept the word of abortion droolers?
We've had violent games and TV for decades, and none of us dared think to actually do it in real life. The failure of loss between fiction and reality is one thing. In addition, the side effects of certain types of medications for mental illness are a problem in my opinion.
It always amazes me to see how supporters of abortion can also support a political platform that promises some sort of "paradise on earth". They are completely oblivious to the fact that as long as abortion remains legal, everything will only get worse.
Some of the violence is due to everyone feeling like they're a victim of someone or something. Something happens, someone gets blamed, someone snaps.
I don't think this "I'm a victim" mentality was as prevalent a generation or two ago.
Dan, a generation or two ago, blacks could not attend school with the likes of you or me, could not work in the same jobs or live in the same neighborhoods, fought in a segregated military, could not vote in much of the country, and were liable to get lynched if they spoke up about it. Women were second-class citizens in the eyes of the law. Jews were subject to rampant discrimination & “America First” types helped to keep Holocaust refugees out of the country. Native-born Japanese Americans got put into camps. There isn’t enough bandwidth on the Internet to explain to you about Native Americans. Everything wasn’t peachy a generation or two ago. People like you and me could ignore it because people weren’t supposed to talk about it.
How do we account for the fact that so many mass shooters self-identify as conservative so-called Christians and they are more likely to occur in the Deep-Jesus states (where guns are easy and plentiful)?
A couple weekends back, New York City did not experience a shooting for the first time in recorded memory. The world’s most diverse city, a magnet for immigrants, the so-called capital of liberal secular culture, is one of America’s safest big cities. That tells us something important, me thinks.
Daniel, I never implied anything about blacks, native Americans, or any minority. "Victim mentality" crosses all borders.
Dan, which group or groups has a "victim mentality" that is resulting in violence? Perhaps if you say what you really mean, nobody will misunderstand you.
Because, in the context of this discussion about some specific acts of violence, it seems like you "implied" a great deal.
Unless you just decided to drop in a random non-sequitur observation about, I don't know, Albanians or the Amish.
The key phrase in your number 6 seems to be “true faith and spirituality.” There has been plenty of violence throughout human history, and not least in the so-called “Age of Faith” when Christianity was dominant. So, we must ask ourselves what a life of "true Christian faith and spirituality" involves. The historical record since the Church (and “Christians”) gained access to the levers of political power beginning with Constantine has been less than inspiring.
In other words, once the Church and Christians became part of the temporal power structure, with all the temptations that resulted from such integration, wasn’t there a great risk (often realized) that the practice of “Christian faith and spirituality” would become corrupted?
I never said group or groups!.. it is typically an individual who goes on a rampage... often because they feel victimized... social media feeds these feelings... college campuses promote it. You read too much into my comments.
By the way, shouldn’t the following be added to the list?:
The exponential growth of social media enabling the creation or reinforcement of tribal communities of alienation, false narratives, mutual demonization, and even hate
"Nobody has ever gone into a church or a synagogue or a high school or an elementary school or a movie theater or an office building and murdsred dozens of people without a high-powered weapon."
Seung-Hui Cho, an undergraduate student at the university and a U.S. resident of South Korean origin, shot 49 people on campus with two semi-automatic pistols (a Glock 19 and a Walther P22), killing 32 and wounding 17.
Two pistols.
Kavanaugh pretending to be not Kavanaugh,
The last big mass murders occured in Las Vegas and a Gay Night Club in Florida, hardly Christian meccas, and were NOT commmitted by Christians but left-wing loons.
TJM thinks I’m Kavanaugh said... "The world’s most diverse city, a magnet for immigrants, the so-called capital of liberal secular culture, is one of America’s safest big cities."
http://nymag.com/nymetro/news/features/15248
"Thirty-five years later, New York has the highest abortion rate in America. In 2000, the last year for which good data are available, 39 out of every 1,000 women in the state ended a pregnancy, for a total of 164,000 abortions that year. In America, one of every ten abortions occurs in New York, and in New York, seven of every ten abortions are performed in New York City. In absolute terms, there are more abortions performed on minors, more repeat abortions, and more late abortions (over 21 weeks) in New York City than anywhere else in the country. In parts of the city, the ratio of abortions to births is one to one."
Discussing issues is complicated, so when over your head, not matter the topic, always change the subject to abortion.
Right, New York is a big, big city, so they have more of pretty much everything than anywhere else. There are probably also more Catholic churches in New York than anywhere else, more baptisms performed, more people attending confession, etc. etc. etc.
Anonymous said... "Discussing issues is complicated, so when over your head, not (sic) matter the topic, always change the subject to abortion."
Better yet, when discussing any issue, ignore the biggest holocaust in the history of humanity, and label cities as "safe" where this holocaust is occurring in numbers that are staggering beyond belief (millions since 1970s).
False statement about New York City: "The world’s most diverse city, a magnet for immigrants, the so-called capital of liberal secular culture, is one of America’s safest big cities."
True statement about New York City: More murders happen in New York City than any other city in the U.S. It is the least safe city in the U.S. for human beings.
And unborn children ARE human beings.
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