Making Sense of Evil (Virginia Tech Massacre)

Again, I didn't say I believed this, did I? Hopefully the 'you' is hypothetical? I'll try and look back in your posts and find a single legitimate reason to mark a simple belief as irresponsible.EDITED INUp until I used the 'dark puppetier' example (which I admit jumped instead of stepped forward), you've got irrelevant, but no reason whatsoever to consider it irresponsible.I still say that if they're responding effectively in that instance then the responsibility is still being taken, even if the idea's un poco loco... but maybe I should've established that the 'irresponsiblity' of the simple belief itself is nonexistant before I opened my yap.Granted I already did this, but you don't seem to get it yet. Edited by One_Charred_Wing, : after looking back...Edited by One_Charred_Wing, : didn't mean to hit submit.

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I'm bent, bruised, broken, and a little lost. But you know what? I'm not so afraid as you are, who has never ventured away from the trail.

It is irresponsible to attribute mental illness to a supernatural puppeteer since when that was done we did NOT combat it through psychotropic drugs or therapy we used magical methods and didn't try to search further for the real causes.Drug therapy is very unlikely to be successful unless it starts from a presumption that there is some physical, chemical reason for mental illness and then attempts to find and treat that reason.Witch doctors and priests had centuries to show how well the supernatural presumption works. Since we dropped that we actually have started to make progress. To fall back to the old ways is now demonstratably irresponsible.And,as an aside, why bring up something you don't believe in? Seems a sure way to side track a discussion.

Okay, great point. I guess what I am trying to present with that example is that some people (my old church, for example) preached that, like God, Satan works through people and the natural world.Remember the saying that 'God doesn't have hands or feet, so he works through people'? No? Well, there it is. It's basically the realist interpretation of the Divine, and in the example I gave, it works in reverse.Is it relevant to the discussion? No and yes-- it is if we're branding such beliefs that don't call for, say, an excorcism or the like, irresponsible simply because they believe in something that may be irrelevant while they're still getting the job done. Say a (real) doctor perhaps believed in Satan? He might believe that mental illnesses originate from satan (which doesn't matter either way, yes) but still handles the problem the same as any other competent doctor. Correcting a statement that a simple belief=irresponsibility. You're the first post to make a real attempt to back that statement up, to be honest.Do I personally believe any of this? Meh... not exactly, but that's another thread. Edited by One_Charred_Wing, : Apparently I accidently reposted about half of Ned's post as my own. I am sorry; I'm multitasking with the computer and a Spanish book right now, and apparently doing a bad job.

Powerful enough to make you think he doesn't exist?

I'm really trying to understand this statement.If you are saying - "Sitting around blaming people rather than trying to save lives is irresponsible" then fine.But if you are saying "assigning blame after the fact is irresponsible" then I have to say you are crazy.It's EXTREMELY important to sort out the cause and try and fix it. Now in the VT case, causation is going to be hard to determine.But the "blame game" sound bite and the reference to Katrina makes me think that you are definitely NOT assigning blame to the people that sold him the gun.Ever read this headline - "Student at VT goes on a stabbing rampage! Nearly 4 are wounded."

in katrina, instead of following the already set up evacuation procedure the proper 48 hours ahead of the storm, the mayor of NOLA and the governor were already blaming homeland security and fema for tying their hands when they have school buses and city vehicles and all that. at that point, brownie started shifting the blame right back. this never stopped. and then someone blamed gearge w for hating black people and the fact that no one did their jobs at all was lost. if you had real the above posts, you would have seen that i was having an unnecessary discussion with a moron who thought it was okay to blame it on satan. oh and then he wasn't actually blaming on satan, just saying that satan exists. because clearly you can say that satan and evil exist and have sway on man but not blame them. as if that had anything to do with the discussion here.btw. if he bought the guns legally, then it's not the fault of the people who sold them. it's partly the fact that he was a fuck up and partly the fact of whoever abused him or whatever. we can fix crazy. and we must. we can fix abuse. and we must. we can fix racism. and we must. if someone acted illegally, then we can certainly give them some responsibility. but otherwise, there's no point in responding to this in any way but to increase the chances of being able to notify students of danger and to make sure that we have ways of dealing appropriately with students who demonstrate a psychological disturbance and finally to work to end child abuse and racism. that is what we should be doing. but instead we're fighting about gun control. it's not the guns. get the hell over it.

Good to know that you respect other peoples' arguements.

i have no respect for an argument that 1 has nothing to say at all and 2 has nothing to do with the discussion at hand.

Not to go too far off topic but...The problem with Katrina was not that people didn't evacuate. That's always the case. There were people on Mt. St. Helens when it went up.The problem was that GWB didn't do a damn thing about helping people for a week afterwards. The fact that Sean Penn was there in a row boat while GW was STILL on vacation is what proved he hates black people.As for the gun. Yes, the specific person who sold him the gun didn't break any laws. It's not illegal to sell a crazy homocidal maniac a hand gun and a shitload of bullets.Perhaps it's the law that's to blame.But then again, guns don't kill people. People with easy access to guns kill people.

you know what. i hate bush as much as the next guy. but you can't put all the blame on him.
but the mandatory evacuations were not put in place and they KNEW the levees wouldn't hold. they could have easily bussed people out. but they waited until less than 20 hours before to even put out a suggestion of evacuation. the mayor didn't do his job. the governor didn't do her job. fema didn't do it's job. bush didn't do his job. no one did anything. it's not only bush's fault.and people with access to guns don't kill people. people with motive kill people. Edited by brennakimi, : No reason given.

Two problems with this:
1) "Accidental shooting" How many people are accidently shot and killed? There's no motive there. How many people are accidently stabbed and killed? Not quite so many.2) People with motivation and a pointy stick don't kill nearly as many people as those with motivation and a 9mm with lots and lots of clips.

we're not talking about an accidental shooting are we? how many people get accidentally run over by a car? how many people get accidentally drowned? accidental shootings are the responsibility of the person who failed to properly store or educate himself or his family on the weapons he owns. a properly stored weapon in the hands of a responsible and educated owner doesn't accidentally kill anyone.was it here that someone cited that story about kennesaw, georgia? look. guns can be dangerous. i don't like them. i don't own one or want to. but i also don't own a motored lawnmower because i think they're unneccessarily dangerous. likewise a chainsaw. chainsaws can kill people too!!! but, it is my personal opinion that the second ammendment doesn't go far enough in allowing guns. i think people should have the right to protect themselves and their families guaranteed to them. however. i think that everyone in a house with a gun should be required to attend age appropriate gun education classes with how to avoid guns for little kids and how to safely clean, operate and store them for 17 and up. why 17? because 17 year olds can join the military. i think the age should probably be 15, but that would never fly. but every time anyone is shot someone gets all huffy about gun control. as though that would solve all of our problems. stop worrying about gun control and start worrying about parenting classes to prevent these fucked up kids who become fucked up adults and kill people.btw. why don't you find me some statistics on how many people are really accidentally shot every year. since it's oh so many. do you really honestly think that if someone with a knife wants to kill you, they'll fail? there have been guns in my parents' house for years. i've held everything from a rifle to an old constitution pistol (original btw. it's sexy.). i've never accidentally shot anyone and we never went crazy and shot up a school. it's not a result of owning a gun.do i think people need automatic weapons? no. but killing people is not a function of owning a gun. btw. drugs are illegal. i've certainly never heard of anyone dying of an illegal overdose, have you? do you really think it's fewer than it would be? do you really think those with criminal intentions won't manage to find a gun anyways?

Typical conservative crap.You honestly want to claim that if you and I had a killing contest where you were using a knife, you'd kill as many people as quickly as I would with a machine gun.Either you don't know much about machine guns or you don't know much about knives.The fact of the matter is if this kid had a muzzle loader, like what was available at the time the 2nd A was written, we would have killed maybe 3-4 people - assuming people didn't either try to stop him or just ran away while he was reloading.If he had a knife, he'd have killed even less.If he had a uzi he'd kill even more.It sounds like you would be fine with every house having guns. I can only assume that you would likewise be fine with machine guns, armor piercing bullets, etc.The 2nd states "arms", guess what? A nuke is an "arm". Guess we should make it a free for all. AFter all, I bet the neighbor would damn sure clean up after his dog if he knew I was prepared to blow up the entire friggin' city with my nuke

...You know, I have a feeling that if I explained myself here, it'd just start the broken record all over again. If you or jar are up to it I wouldn't mind starting a separate thread, in which I'd explain what I'm trying to convey completely instead of in bits in response to questions/objections. Then again, this might be one of those agree-to-disagree situations. What do you think?

Sure even though that shows you are clueless what you are talking about.Hell, if the Virginia Legislature had passed the bill allowing defensive carry on campus it is possible not one person would have been killed.If you would like to actually learn something about guns, ammo and such, please start another thread on it and I will be happy to try to educate you on things like automatic weapons, semi-automatic weapons, armor piercing bullets, and some of the basics on such equipment and terms.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion