The Oregon Shooter Wasn't Out to Kill Christians

Описание: The Oregon Shooter Wasn't Out to Kill Christians

Hemant Mehta (http://www.friendlyatheist.com,   / hemant   ,   / friendlyatheist  )


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Recently, in Oregon, we had another horrific school shooting, this time at a community college. 9 people died. Many more were injured. And as I'm making this video, we still don't know exactly what caused the shooter to do this, so I'm not going to speculate on that.

But that hasn't stopped other people from speculating on his motives. And the reason I keep hearing over and over is that this killer was out to get Christians because he was an atheist.

Now, where's that idea coming from? Well, some students who witnessed the shootings and survived said later that that the killer asked people about their religious beliefs. If they said they were Christian, he said they'd be seeing God in just about one second and then killed them.

Let's all admit that's just another level of tragic. The shooting is bad enough, but to add this religious aspect to it? That is some scary shit.

If it turns out to be true that this killer was an atheist who was motivated to kill because of his lack of faith somehow, we would have to deal with that. We couldn't just brush it aside.

But the last time an atheist committed a mass shooting, in Chapel Hill earlier this year when three Muslims died, it turned out his atheism had nothing to do with the murders.

That guy had a lot of other problems. That's what led him to kill people. It wasn't a religiously motivated attack.

I'm not in denial. That's what the experts and journalists said.

So with people jumping to the same conclusion about the Oregon guy, we should all be asking: Was this guy an atheist and was he out to get Christians because of that?

And from everything I've read so far, the answer to both questions is no.

Was he an atheist? Well, on one dating website, he called himself "not religious, but spiritual." He also belonged to a group called "magick and occult." He said he was looking to date a Pagan or Wiccan.

He also described himself as a conservative Republican. Maybe that was a joke, I'm not sure. But these are not exactly things that scream atheist. They suggest he believed in the supernatural.

So if this guy was an atheist, he was hiding it well.

Now, was he out to get Christians? Well, one of the survivors of the shooting gave a very different interpretation of what went down in the classroom. He said that, yes, the shooter did ask people about their faith, but only so he could make small talk.

If they said they were Christian, he said he'd be seeing them in Heaven soon. (By the way, that also suggests he believes in Heaven, which atheists don't. Just sayin')

If they weren't Christian, though, he still killed them.

In fact, a few of the victims, if you look at their social media profiles and see what people who knew them said about them, appeared to be pretty non-religious.

So far, the evidence does not point to some sort of anti-Christian shooting. It's a tragedy, no doubt. I'm not suggesting otherwise.

But every time there's a tragedy, people are very quick to put the killer into whatever mold fits their personal narrative.

No one ever says, "That killer was just like me." No. The killer always inhabits whatever world you're fighting against.

All I'm saying is we shouldn't jump to conclusions here when there's so little evidence.

If he's an atheist, and he did this horrible thing because, I don't know, he was inspired by Richard Dawkins, then we'll have that discussion.

But right now, that evidence is nowhere to be found.

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