Terrorist incident in Colorado Springs

[sologdin]

i'd draw the distinction that bona fide lefties tend to be sympathetic to bona fide national liberation movements, but that in itself is not sufficient to make any particular national liberation movement a leftwing movement.  that said, agreed that some variants of the IRA, LTTE, and so on had specific marxist or lefty principles that they did not find to prohibit civilian targets.  gross.  

what would be the analogue to abortion clinic bombings?  maybe church bombing in the name of atheism? prison bombing? bank robberies are normally 'revolutionary expropriation' rather than 'terrorism.'  

[Shryke]

Yup, if you believe that fetuses have the moral status of human beings, then abortion is murder, and it's perfectly legitimate to use lethal force to prevent it the same way it would be legitimate to step in and shoot someone that was trying to kill your spouse or even your neighbor. The only real surprise is that this doesn't happen more often. 

Uh what?

Man, you don't see people blowing up prisons where lethal injections take place. Or people trying to murder those accused of murder all the time.

Most people can think something is wrong and not go murder people about it.

[ChillyPolly]

what would be the analogue to abortion clinic bombings?  maybe church bombing in the name of atheism?

The manner in which you frame the question is custom designed to obtain the answer you seek.  Atheism is not a cause, and it is virtually impossible to do anything in its name.  When an atheist acts out, he will almost always have separately-identifiable reasons.  Unless you want to count these various school shootings which look like they may have been motivated by some combination of nihilistic despair and egoistic pride.  

Chris Mercer, the Oregon Shooter, declared on his website that he was against "organized religion" and witnesses report he singled out Christians during the shooting.  Does that mean much?  Does it get to the core of his motivation?  I would not say so.   But is Mr. Dear any different?  Too soon to tell.

[sologdin]

it was a bona fide question, rather than merely rhetorical.  i suspect that the stalinists acted affirmatively for atheism as a matter of principle.  i wouldn't attribute acts of lumpenized antisocial nihilism to atheism or to leftwing doctrine & policy preferences--quite the contrary.  your oregon shooter may in fact be the golden ticket here.

[ChillyPolly]

Most people can think something is wrong and not go murder people about it.

One hopes so.  People on this forum are equating certain traditional moral views with responsibility for murder.  Are they loading up their AK47s right now, so they can head to their local churches to solve the problem?  Probably not.  But keep your fingers crossed and watch the news.

[Shryke]

 

The manner in which you frame the question is custom designed to obtain the answer you seek.  Atheism is not a cause, and it is virtually impossible to do anything in its name.  When an atheist acts out, he will almost always have separately-identifiable reasons.  Unless you want to count these various school shootings which look like they may have been motivated by some combination of nihilistic despair and egoistic pride.  

Chris Mercer, the Oregon Shooter, declared on his website that he was against "organized religion" and witnesses report he singled out Christians during the shooting.  Does that mean much?  Does it get to the core of his motivation?  I would not say so.   But is Mr. Dear any different?  Too soon to tell.

How doesn't it?

Atheism can most definitely be a cause. Though it's might more accurately be called anti-religious to various degrees of extreme or not extreme belief/action, even if they generally use the label.

They just generally don't go around murdering people, even the extreme ones, because unlike with abortion there's no one out there with a large platform talking about how going to church is murder.

[Gears of the Beast]

How doesn't it?

Atheism can most definitely be a cause. Though it's might more accurately be called anti-religious to various degrees of extreme or not extreme belief/action, even if they generally use the label.

They just generally don't go around murdering people, even the extreme ones, because unlike with abortion there's no one out there with a large platform talking about how going to church is murder.

I think that's a pretty significant distinction. What position has actually lead them to do such a thing? Their disbelief in god? I would wager that's almost never the case. You can get from "I hate religion" to killing religious people, while going from "I don't believe in gods" to killing religious people is a pretty difficult to demonstrate. Only one of these is the atheist position. To draw an analogy no-one simply blames theism for any terrible act that a religious person commits because you can't draw a causal link between the simple position "there is a god" and pretty much any act. 

[Wise Fool]

The shooter apparently made a comment: "no more baby body parts."

Baby body parts. Huh. Now where have I heard that phrase before? Baby body parts. I can't quite recall. Well, I'm sure it's irrelevant, just the crazy ramblings of a single crazy person who just happened to be in Planned Parenthood. I mean it's not like there's been some incendiary talk about "baby body parts" from, oh, every single fucking GOP Presidential candidate, right-wing pundit, extremist nonprofit organizations and internet forums. That would be ridiculous and terrible and would put this incident in a new and horrifying context.

Nah, he was just a lone nutter. Let's get back to talking about how Planned Parenthood are the Nazis, as Rep. Kinzinger is. Clearly no harm will come of that.

[Astromech]

i'd draw the distinction that bona fide lefties tend to be sympathetic to bona fide national liberation movements, but that in itself is not sufficient to make any particular national liberation movement a leftwing movement.  that said, agreed that some variants of the IRA, LTTE, and so on had specific marxist or lefty principles that they did not find to prohibit civilian targets.  gross.  

what would be the analogue to abortion clinic bombings?  maybe church bombing in the name of atheism? prison bombing? bank robberies are normally 'revolutionary expropriation' rather than 'terrorism.'  

I'd agree and my earlier post was more a question concerning the parameters of "leftist". The nearest I can draw of atheist attacking theist would be the anarchists attacks in the latter part of the 19th c. and early 20th, but even then any attacks on religion were more attacks against the state due to the entrenchment of the state and religion at that time.

An interesting outlier to this entire conversation of rightwing/Christian v. leftwing/atheist  would be rightwing/fascist attacks on the Catholic Church and liberation theology in Latin and South America in he latter part of the 20th c. Of course those attacks on religion were primarily motivated by the threats of liberation theology to the fascist state.

[Wise Fool]

Right wingers are suspiciously silent about this terrorist incident. Well, most of them are. There are a number of folks on twitter who are already praising the gunman. He's a right-wing terrorist martyr. I wonder if Trump will pardon him and give him a medal after he rises to power?

[SkynJay]

The shooter apparently made a comment: "no more baby body parts."

Baby body parts. Huh. Now where have I heard that phrase before? Baby body parts. I can't quite recall. Well, I'm sure it's irrelevant, just the crazy ramblings of a single crazy person who just happened to be in Planned Parenthood. I mean it's not like there's been some incendiary talk about "baby body parts" from, oh, every single fucking GOP Presidential candidate, right-wing pundit, extremist nonprofit organizations and internet forums. That would be ridiculous and terrible and would put this incident in a new and horrifying context.

Nah, he was just a lone nutter. Let's get back to talking about how Planned Parenthood are the Nazis, as Rep. Kinzinger is. Clearly no harm will come of that.

So you are saying that there are consequences to heavily editing interviews in order to inflame rhetoric?

[Wise Fool]

So you are saying that there are consequences to heavily editing interviews in order to inflame rhetoric?

What I am saying is there are consequences to the rhetoric and kind of thoughts that are propagated throughout national media and discourse, particularly when that rhetoric logically suggests that violence (against an ideological enemy) is justified and necessary. Those consequences are violence.

Not sure what you're on about w.r.t interviews.

[ChillyPolly]

The shooter apparently made a comment: "no more baby body parts."

Yeah.  If you believe an anonymous source, who tells the media what it wants to hear, and admits that his/her comment (if accurate) amounts to sabotage of an ongoing investigation.  Yeah.  I really trust that person.  This is journalistic click-bait with zero accountability.

How does "no more baby parts" even make any sense?  Did he kill anyone affiliated with Planned Parenthood?  But we don't know the context in which the comment was made.   If investigators kept asking him about Planned Parenthood, maybe he played free association said something about baby parts.  Or not!

Also, while nothing can be said with certain about the motivations of a crazy man, I cannot help assuming that anyone sufficiently opposed to Planned Parenthood to try to kill Planned Parenthood personnel would be opposed to killing the babies in the first place.  Whether their parts get sold afterwards seems a minor issue. 

 

[Shryke]

I think that's a pretty significant distinction. What position has actually lead them to do such a thing? Their disbelief in god? I would wager that's almost never the case. You can get from "I hate religion" to killing religious people, while going from "I don't believe in gods" to killing religious people is a pretty difficult to demonstrate. Only one of these is the atheist position. To draw an analogy no-one simply blames theism for any terrible act that a religious person commits because you can't draw a causal link between the simple position "there is a god" and pretty much any act. 

It's as significant a difference but both are still atheists and identify as such. That doesn't mean you blame them for it, anymore then you blame every person who believes in God for religious extremists, but that wasn't the point.

[TrueMetis]

It's as significant a difference but both are still atheists and identify as such. That doesn't mean you blame them for it, anymore then you blame every person who believes in God for religious extremists, but that wasn't the point.

No I don't think they are, there are theist anti-religious people.

[peterbound]

Goddam religion.  

 

Well, everyone I know that I know on the job down here is alright, so that's good.  My best friends wife (he himself is a fire fighter) was the second patrol car on scene.  I was hoping to get more info from them, but as it's still under investigation she couldn't say a whole lot.  She's pretty shook up, but seems to be under the impression (from info passed down her chain of command) that she/they did the right things with regards to the incident.  

Christianity, just as bad as every other system that relies on imaginary friends in the sky.  Seems like this place where I live is a bit more on the crazy side of it's beliefs though.  I wonder how the vast majority of those that live here will react to this?  I'm sure with a  shaking of the head and a moving on, maybe thinking deep down that it was god's punishment on those evil PP workers?  

 

[Gears of the Beast]

It's as significant a difference but both are still atheists and identify as such. That doesn't mean you blame them for it, anymore then you blame every person who believes in God for religious extremists, but that wasn't the point.

And...? You can note that someone who killed a bunch of religious people was an atheist but you can't demonstrate how that position can be considered a cause of their actions. Identifying that their hatred of religion was a cause is not the same as their atheism being the cause of their actions. Just like the fact that a Christian blew up a stem cell research center because of their religion doesn't mean you can claim that their theistic position was a cause. 

[A Horse Named Stranger]

It's as significant a difference but both are still atheists and identify as such. That doesn't mean you blame them for it, anymore then you blame every person who believes in God for religious extremists, but that wasn't the point.

Though this is a bit splitting hairs, only the "I don't believe in God crowd" are identified as atheists.

The "I hate religions" itself does not make a clear cut statement on the matter. To make my point a bit clearer. 

"I don't drink alcohol." versus "I hate booze." Only one statement indicates abstinence (since on another thread someone seems to be obsessed with communism, I could not resist making that small play on the Marx quote: "Religion is opium for the masses.")

Anyway. To go back to the original notions.

I could still believe in the existence of some deity, while considering religions (organized worshipping of one or more deities)  total hogwash. Of course in practice, it's more likely that people who hate religion, would also identify themselves as atheists.

To go back to the planned parenthood shooting.

I am quite sure the shooter will identify himself as Christian, like the guys who bomb abortion clinics or killing doctors performing abortions.

[Wise Fool]

Yeah.  If you believe an anonymous source, who tells the media what it wants to hear, and admits that his/her comment (if accurate) amounts to sabotage of an ongoing investigation.  Yeah.  I really trust that person.  This is journalistic click-bait with zero accountability.

How does "no more baby parts" even make any sense?  Did he kill anyone affiliated with Planned Parenthood?  But we don't know the context in which the comment was made.   If investigators kept asking him about Planned Parenthood, maybe he played free association said something about baby parts.  Or not!

Also, while nothing can be said with certain about the motivations of a crazy man, I cannot help assuming that anyone sufficiently opposed to Planned Parenthood to try to kill Planned Parenthood personnel would be opposed to killing the babies in the first place.  Whether their parts get sold afterwards seems a minor issue. 

 

The source is unknown but NBC says it's a law enforcement source that says the guy was rambling about Obama and baby body parts as he was being taken into custody. Not much trust is required here. That doesn't sound cray cray it sounds like right wing talking points. No quotes yet from the gunman as far as I know, alas. But the whole profiting from baby body parts thing is the Orwellian nightmarish dystopia that certain people are prone to believe is real. We are getting to the point where right wing rhetoric and psychological delusion are indistinguishable..

[Shryke]

And...? You can note that someone who killed a bunch of religious people was an atheist but you can't demonstrate how that position can be considered a cause of their actions. Identifying that their hatred of religion was a cause is not the same as their atheism being the cause of their actions. Just like the fact that a Christian blew up a stem cell research center because of their religion doesn't mean you can claim that their theistic position was a cause. 

No, that would be exactly the claim by definition. Since, you know, your example says they did it because of their religion. Your example's setup assumes the conclusion you are attempting to dismiss.