“Of course, there’s something reassuring about calling for government action in the wake of a crime like this; it helps lull us into the comfortable fantasy that, under the right conditions, horror and suffering can somehow be averted. But like water, committed evil will always find the path of least resistance; someone as depraved and malignant as Adam Lanza could have constructed a bomb or driven a car through the playground during recess. That’s the really frightening part — the idea that ultimately, we cannot completely protect even those we love best from someone who is determined to harm them. In the end, like all of life, parenting is an act of profound faith . . .
On Monday, I will take my twins back to school, and I will leave them there — powerfully reminded that there’s always a chance, every time we say good-bye, that I might not see them ever again. The only comfort I can take is in the sure knowledge that the twins don’t truly belong to me or my husband, anyway — they are gifts of God’s, and He loves them more deeply, knowledgeably and powerfully than I ever could. And I know that whatever happens, He is with them, even unto the end of the world, because He said so and His word is good.” – Carol Platt Liebau, The Newtown Tragedy [via townhall.com]
Sadly, we live in a world that glorifies violence in it’s music, television, video games, literature, and movies.
We honor these purveyors of violence with riches and awards.
Yet we chastise those who espouse values like integrity, honesty, diligence, patriotism, and honor. We view hard work as an antiquated relic from the past.
We hold our hand out and expect for something to be given to us. When it isn’t, we resort to violence.
We reward mass murderers with eternal fame and we illuminate them in our textbooks so our children will know their names.
The human fear of being lost to time in anonymity is compelling. For some very sick individuals, it is compelling enough to kill for.
+1
I do not think that the people who commit these crimes have the motivations and goals in their actions that we ascribe to them. They are sick, they view the world in a very distorted way, and their thoughts are broken and irrational.
The violent media, the glorifying of war and killing, and all the other nasty bits of society effect the healthy, and those who are ill but not as extremely so. Does the violence on your TV and in your games drive you to commit murder? Have I done so? Or others, who we know to be otherwise healthy? No.
It is not merely a phrase to say that these criminals have committed the unthinkable. Although we can comprehend that such actions can occur, we who cannot be driven to such acts do not understand the minds of killers enough to know what drives them. Our motivations are not their motivations. Our goals are not their goals.
There is an answer to prevent these attacks, but our understanding of the brain in psychosis is still limited. We have drugs that can adjust the function of these minds back towards rationality and clarity, and therapy can help teach these minds how to maintain balance and to think. How do we get the family and friends of the ill to take action and get help for the sick? That is the greatest challenge, I believe.
OK, Someone. Time for a little self-introspection then.
“Sadly, we live in a world that glorifies violence”.
Violence glorification is not only about movies and video games. Arguably, it can be found anywhere firearms are put on a pedestal, for firearms are an instrument of violence, even when used for a legal purpose. Unless you use rifles as tomato stakes, I suppose.
You can find the glorification of violence anywhere the right to self-defense is constantly debated, for even the exercise of self-defense and the justification of homicide (yes, a perp’s death is a homicide, albeit legally justified) is the justification of violence. Kudos to a “defensive gun use of the day” is kudos to violence, no matter how justified by self-defense.
Give it some thought.
America does not have a gun problem, we have a sin problem, we have turned our backs on God and told him to get out of our lives as a nation and as a result evil will continue to grow.
You are exactly correct. I’m afraid that this will not turn around since the people of this nation won’t change and will continue in their pride to ignore, mock, and blaspheme God.
Now I’m a strong Christian, and displeased with the popular culture’s moral depravity as much as the next guy, but this doesn’t make sense. Blaming a nation’s sins for the actions of a deranged madman on drugs is… stretching it a little.
Man is fallen and man is inherently sinful regardless of how perfect a culture he may be placed in. There is also free will to consider– a rather significant concept, no?
Just as I don’t blame this massacre on guns, I don’t blame it on the culture. This man did evil and chose to. He, and he alone, bears full responsibility for what he did.
Our culture has devolved since 1962 and 1963 when the Bible and the Ten Commandments were ruled unconstitutional by some guys in black robes. Everything good has declined and everything bad has shot through the roof since then. I recommend the video “America’s Godly Heritage” for your viewing pleasure. You can find it at wallbuilders.com or on youtube.com. National morality affects individual morality and vice versa. You just have to look at the history of Israel to see that. God Bless.
The worst US school murder, were 44 died and 58 were injured in a bombing attack, occurred in 1928 in Bath Township, MI.
There were other mass killings before that, and have been many in the decades since. There is no trend in society that is causing these attacks, although the increasing population density is making their impact felt more.
Most of the worst atrocities ever committed in Europe were committed in the belief that some part of society had strayed from God’s path. Hundreds of years of endless war were fought in the name of the same God on all sides. It was all for man’s narcissism, not for God.
BS on this. Religion has caused as many sins as anything else in history and more than most. Call evil for what it is, don’t blame lack of god for it.
Ross, you sound exactly like Osama bin Laden.
Frankly, if I had to choose between the “you had it coming” crowd and the atheists, I’d have to choose the atheists. At least they don’t presume to speak for god.
I do not believe that God is punishing us, God is good he does not punish but instead lets us feel the consequence of our action (or perhaps inaction) Ralph, I would have to agree with you even though I am very religious. It seems pessimistic to say that God will punish you for every sin you commit, there are atheists out there that are very stand up people and there are very horrible Christians as well. To say that a good man who happens to be Atheist “has it comin to him” just because he doesn’t believe in a God is horrible. Who is Man to judge? Who am I to judge just because I sin differently. There can, however, be something said about Religion creating an environment where good things can happen (and I admit some bad things) but the morals taught by religious groups (and some non-religious groups, actually quite a few) bolsters a community and can make society a better place.
I grew up during the so called “cold war”. I remember one of my sixth grade teachers saying that there is no doubt America will prevail because we are a God fearing people.
I doubt she would say that today.
She’d be pilloried in the town square for saying it today.
I don’t claim a relegion, but I was drug to church on Sunday mornings as a kid. I learned not to steal. Or to kill without just cause.
If I messed up at school I got my but beat there and at home. I’ve got grandkids now and I’ve yet to spend my first night in jail.
Maybe it’s time we got back to the basics once more.
your teacher was correct. at the time it was true. now…we have no morals and it is starting to show. they had hi-cap mags in the 60’s and this stuff rarely happened, but as society gets more twisted…well its pretty obvious.
I could find 8 instances of spree killings in the US during the 1960’s, including schools, workplaces, intentional airline crashes, and bombings.
While shootings seem to be the modern trend, there have been trends of other methods in the past, particularly bombings and intentional airline crashes have occurred in groupings. A likely explanation is that as the sale of materials for bombs started being monitored, spree killers switched to easier targets. When the security around airplanes became tighter, potential spree killers again switched to easier targets. Now it is malls, workplaces, and schools with small children that are the easiest targets, and guns are used because that is what is in the popular conscience. In the absence of guns it would go back to bombs, or knives, or poisonings/gases, or some other method that I can’t conceive of.
I mourn the death of these innocent people, but I am bolstered to believe that those children are now in the loving arms of their Father who is in Heaven. Continue to have hope, this country leads all other first world countries in religiosity and is in fact increasing, I hope the Mission I will soon be leaving on will help at least some find God and remember where our rights and freedoms truly come from. Our Founders may not have been perfect but I believe they were inspired in writing the Constitution by a higher power and this nation will continue to be blessed.
+1,000
you nailed it!
“In the end, like all of life, parenting is an act of profound faith . . .”
The truth, indeed.
Sadly, we live in a world that doesn’t believe in absolute truth. Most people make up their own truth. Hence the “lifeboat mentality”. Death, and the means of its avoidance, must be obsessed over. So we have the TSA and “gun control”.
“Now on the same occasion there were some present who reported to Him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices.2And Jesus said to them, “Do you suppose that these Galileans were greater sinners than all other Galileans because they suffered this fate?3“I tell you, no, but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.4“Or do you suppose that those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them were worse culprits than all the men who live in Jerusalem?5“I tell you, no, but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.”
This life isn’t the end, and it’s a vapor. People need to take responsibility for their own safety and move along.
Thinking in absolutes does not lead to absolution. It is better to get all of the facts, and not rely alone on your truth being absolute. Plenty of atrocities and wars occurred with both sides believing that they were supported by absolute truth. In Christianity, first the protestants were the upstarts who strayed from the absolute truth of their time, and then the Catholic Church followed. Neither grouping, in all their fragmented splinters, follows what was believed to be absolute truth just a few centuries ago. That too was not the same as what was held to be absolute truth in the centuries prior to Martin Luther’s 95 Thesis.
I’ve heard more than one policeman say that out of all the things they see, crimes involving young children, especially violent ones are the hardest. I can certainly believe it.
So in remembering our prayers for the living, please include all the officers, fire and EMT, and all those whose job involves responding, serving, and ultimately putting this mind-bendingly and heartbreaking case away and behind them. If that’s ever possible.
Carol could not have said it any better.
In general I feel that most of the world has become morally bankrupt. It has become a me first or me only society and if it doesn’t go someones way they are enraged by it. I see it every day. 50+ year old men acting like children. Younger people bitch and moan about every little inconvenience but demand you respect and cater to them. I’m only 31 but I wish I had been born 100 years ago. A person walking down the street in new York can try to intervene a mugging and gets stabbed and left to bleed out as people turn a blind eye and keep on walking. Then the security footage gets put on youtube for the world to see. We are all just floating on a turd that’s spiraling down the toilet. God or the concept of him was turned away a long time ago. I wish I were Adam and my wife was Eve and I would chop that forbidden fruit tree down. I may seem to be negative, but I prefer the term realist.
The main “problem” with any religion is that it can’t leave other religions in peace.
If the Founders were truly inspired by god, then you must approve of the separation of church and state. Why do the two need to be separated? Because religions simply cannot be trusted.
While I appreciate and respect all the religious comments on this thread, I hope you’ll forgive me for regarding them also as dangerous and potentially deadly. The corollary of blaming the murder of children on the lack of religion is killing other peoples’ children because their parents don’t share yours. This has been true since man worshipped the sun.
I agree. I’m not blaming lack of religion but more of a lack of moral responsibility and lack of the concept of respect for others. Its shocking to go from the shelter of your parents and learning a certain moral code. Then you are thrust into the world and realize its not how this world works and its all a sham. There are good people out there but sometimes it feels like they are the minority. Maybe I’m cynical and jaded.