Four Shot Outside Teddy Haggard's Church

[articulett]

Articulett, you might want to clear out your PMs. You just exceeded max cap. :3


Wait, there's an "atheist cause"?

Where did I sign into this, precisely?

Yes... and have they started the war on Christmas yet?


PMs below capacity once more.

They are to blame for the overflow.

I always get pm fan mail when I say what others are apparently holding their tongues about. (well that, and the fact that I'm lazy about deleting.)

If I can't support my head on my shoulders due to it's massive egotistical proportions, I will blame them for that.

 

[Darth Rotor]

Yep. So a Christian did the shooting. I wonder how much airplay that will get?

Front page of the San Antonio paper this morning.

DR

 

[Darth Rotor]

How could he not realize his kid was mentally ill?

What, you have no blind spot for your children? No parent does?

And what kind of neurologist is a fundie?

What is your problem here? Is your view of the world so narrow that you cannot fathom that people look at it differently than you do? Some people can reconcile their faith and their profession without losing their chili.

That doesn't compute. Incompetence on both counts.

I see, only perfect parents are not incompetent, and a 24 year old's actions are solely the responsibility of his father and mother.

Why would a neurologist be attempting to treat his son for a psychiatric condition? You think he might have been more prone to calling upon a psychiatrist? Here's a guess I'll make: being a medical professional, he might have figured that a referral to a specialist was in order, if he and his wife figured at all. (No idea if the kid was under a shrink's care or not.)

Jesus wept.

Part of the reason for those tears, it seems to me, is the human penchant for hard heartedness that leads to the sort of crap you posted. (Yes, I've walked a furlong or two in those boots.)

Here's one for you: guy was raised home schooled, and fundy, and one day, as an adult, he discards the faith he was raised in. He then gets on to the whole "blame my parents for my unhappiness" schtick, along with the standard emotional reaction to discarding Christianity for a more secular mind set, with blame as the core focus of his perspective.

Sound familiar?

DR

 

[The Central Scrutinizer]

Turns out that the christian who commited these murders was somewhat off his rocker: http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/12/11/shooter.youth/index.html

 

[ponderingturtle]

Yep. So a Christian did the shooting. I wonder how much airplay that will get?

Very little, it is not a good a story as the Secular War on Christ!

 

[Darth Rotor]

Turns out that the christian who commited these murders was somewhat off his rocker: http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/12/11/shooter.youth/index.html

Scrut, seems to me, from his words, that he had become an Ex Christian.

Matthew Murray wrote on an Internet message board of how he hated Christians between attacks on a mission center and church on Sunday, according to Denver-area media reports.


A former roommate took this photo of Matthew Murray performing in a December 14, 2002, Christmas program.

1 of 2 "You Christians brought this on yourselves," Murray wrote at 11:03 a.m. on Sunday, CNN affiliate KUSA reported on its Web site.

"I'm coming for EVERYONE soon and I WILL be armed to the @#%$ teeth and I WILL shoot to kill. ...God, I can't wait till I can kill you people. Feel no remorse, no sense of shame, I don't care if I live or die in the shoot-out. All I want to do is kill and injure as many of you ... as I can especially Christians who are to blame for most of the problems in the world," the KUSA report quoted from the final posting.

Thankfully, most people who discard their faith don't choose to go on a killing spree.

DR

 

[articulett]

...
Sound familiar?

DR

Yep. Line up behind Dann, Claus, assorted other self righteous blowhards and the apologists.

Same ol' self important nothingness. Very familiar indeed.

 

[Sefarst]

It says a counselor tried to talk to him but he wouldn't have it. We'll have to wait and see if there was any kind of abuse or alienation of the guy. Once they stop caring about their own lives and believing in collective guilt, there's really no stopping them.

 

[CFLarsen]

Yes, it's me, me, me. Feed my ego more please.

No. It's "articulett good, others evil":

And pssst, DANN, knocking belief systems is not knocking the believers. Logic can be your friend.

But you weren't knocking the belief systems. You were knocking the believers:

mocking the nutters to their face is rather tasteful given the regular blame they give to us for all the worlds problems--and not just on forums-- on the news-- to their parishioners. The pope just blamed atheists for all the worlds evils...

How is "mocking the nutters to their face" not knocking the believers?

 

[dann]

You sure as hell can't beat her feelings of confidence in her own abilities. It's true!

 

[articulett]

He heard voices.
He wrote hate male.
He was turned down to go on a mission because of mental health issues.
He had access to a gun.
The people around form their strongest beliefs via irrational means.

The facts are the same. But, oh, the various stories that will be told! God will always be the star and hero that saved the day and "lost faith" (certainly caused by the spate of atheist books) will get the blame.

 

[CFLarsen]

He heard voices.
He wrote hate male.
He was turned down to go on a mission because of mental health issues.
He had access to a gun.
The people around form their strongest beliefs via irrational means.

The facts are the same. But, oh, the various stories that will be told! God will always be the star and hero that saved the day and "lost faith" (certainly caused by the spate of atheist books) will get the blame.

How is "mocking the nutters to their face" not knocking the believers?

 

[Sefarst]

I really don't think this had anything to do with religion or lack of religion. More than likely, I'd say it's a matter of one alienated guy with low self-esteem or mental illness striking back at those he perceived to be his oppressors. The same way the Columbine killers became obsessed with killing "jocks" and "preps," so too did Murray probably become obsessed with killing Christians. Similar situation with Virginia Tech. If Matthew Murray had felt alienated and maligned while working at a shoe store, he probably would have attacked every Payless Shoes in the Midwest.

 

[boooeee]

What do the members of the dead family members feel when they hear this stuff:

"I was just expecting for the next gunshot to be coming through my car. Miraculously — by the grace of God — it did not," she told ABC's "Good Morning America."

Yeah... cause if the gun shot you, you'd be the dead one instead of the one claiming grace from god. Dead people don't get to tell us about how god saved them. Of course they're partying in heaven, so there's a consolation, eh?

They probably couldn't care less. Because they most likely understand the intent behind that statement, which is NOT "Ha ha, God likes me better than your dead brother", but rather just an expression of how lucky they feel to have escaped the incident without harm.

A lot of the responses to this thread, including the OP, look like gloating. And I don't doubt that there would be lots of gloating on some Christian forums if tragedy befell a group of atheists. That doesn't make it right.

 

[bokonon]

It's actually more offensive that the woman praised the grace of god for sparing her out loud in the media knowing that god didn't give that same grace to the dead folks. What are their loved ones to think?

Couldn't think out a prayer fast enough?

 

[BPSCG]

Originally Posted by the article you linked
Matthew Murray wrote on an Internet message board of how he hated Christians between attacks on a mission center and church on Sunday, according to Denver-area media reports.


A former roommate took this photo of Matthew Murray performing in a December 14, 2002, Christmas program.

1 of 2 "You Christians brought this on yourselves," Murray wrote at 11:03 a.m. on Sunday, CNN affiliate KUSA reported on its Web site.

"I'm coming for EVERYONE soon and I WILL be armed to the @#%$ teeth and I WILL shoot to kill. ...God, I can't wait till I can kill you people. Feel no remorse, no sense of shame, I don't care if I live or die in the shoot-out. All I want to do is kill and injure as many of you ... as I can especially Christians who are to blame for most of the problems in the world," the KUSA report quoted from the final posting.

Thankfully, most people who discard their faith don't choose to go on a killing spree.

DR

Lady I know was raised as a Southern Baptist. She ended up rejecting her faith not so much because she saw the irrationality of it, but because she found herself being rejected by the pretty, cheerleader-type girls in her parents church, because she was shy and bookish. She decided the "we all love each other" mantra was hypocritical, and left.

Fortunately, she's emotionally a strong person and was able to live with the rejection. What would have happened had she been a little unstable, and angry after years of frustration at being an outcast?

I can understand how this could have happened. And the grim satisfaction that some here seem to be taking is abhorrent in the extreme.

 

[articulett]

How is "mocking the nutters to their face" not knocking the believers?

In the same way that typing "mocking blowhards to their face" is not knocking blowhards. The nutters and blowhard never recognize that they are the nutters and blowhards. If you aren't a nutter or a blowhard, it means nothing to you. It's a skeptics forum, remember.

I'm not walking into churches shouting, "Do you guys really believe this crap?"

You confuse reality with your strawmen all the time. You should get that checked out.

 

[BPSCG]

People who say stuff like that are creeps, and they need a dose of reality to get their ego and arrogance under control.

Got what they deserved, hey Joe?

And they call me a ...

 

[articulett]

Got what they deserved, hey Joe?

And they call me a http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/imagehosting/440475dd716aed3e.gif...

Strawman inference. He was referring to the ghastliness of a woman thanking god publicly for sparing her in front of equally fervent believers whose loved one's god didn't spare. Nobody thinks that shooting people is good or right. And most skeptics don't fall for straw men either.

The women in question thanked god for helping her kill the perpetrator. Your comments strawman would suit her better.

 

[Cainkane1]

A woman with a gun stopped him.

Oh, come on, be a little bit tasteful. Whether these people are deluded in their belief in God or not, they are still people. It was a horrible event that shouldn't have happened.

I agree. The gunman was stopped by a lady volunteering as a security guard. The lady pulled out her gun and shot that lunatic. Not into religious people myself but I don't want to shoot them.