Fools and monsters

...while at the same time insisting that aborting them before they're born is murder.

Unfortunately, he's only human, and it is typical of people to attempt to define the undefinable and slap on a silver lining to any tragedy, however ridiculous and nonsensical such attempts may be.
I say we take him to go see a counselor. Or a psychiastrist.

Culture of death, anyone? It's not surprising that religious fundamentalists celebrate death rather than life. "Culture of life" is just a slogan for them, just like "freedom" or "equal opportunities."

No,strangling their kids probably wouldn't be God's "plan" (but these murders are, for some reason).

According to that phlosophy, everything that happens is God's plan. God is infallible. Whatever happens, "He is in control"... so even atrocities are planned..strange...

To put a less negative spin on the comment, quoting Whitman: "They themselves were fully at rest, they suffer'd not,/ The living remain'd and suffer'd, the mother suffer'd...

Stanton: agreed. One of the ways we try to console ourselves in the face of devastating loss is to try to "redeem" the tragedy by placing in some larger context in which everything turns out well in the end, or some kind of "good" is accomplished. One obvious manifestation of this is the construction of a blissful afterlife. It is not rational, but then few of the really important things in life really are. This guy's rationalization of it is somewhat clumsier than usual, but he's still in the midst of the trauma, so I'm inclined to cut him some slack.

I just can't seem to screw up the self-righteous attitude it would take to call this man an "old kook" for saying those things mere days after such a horrific event.

PZ was on target with Rohrbough, but this entry is unnecessary.

What really upsets me is some non-Amish fundamentalists (accent on mentalists) are going to go to these funerals and protest because they didn't like something the Pennsylvania governer said. (on a wholly unrelated matter) Sick just sick. I am sure they are doing it because the media will be covering the funeral.

If his claim were true, you'd have to argue that the murderer did a good thing for those children, and that parents ought to strangle their kids as soon as they're born.

I'm pretty sure the Amish aren't consequentialists, so "Thou Shalt Not Kill" would be compatible with "Being Dead is Great!"

Stephen Erickson - Are you really calling out PZ for being "self rightous" because he dissed the old kook? I call Pot-kettle-black!

I'd give the old guy a break. He's trying to make sense of something terrible the only way he knows how.

I know what you mean about respecting the Amish. I'll give the Amish props for this - none of them ever tried to convert me or take over my government.

"According to that philosophy, everything that happens is God's plan. God is infallible. Whatever happens, "He is in control"... so even atrocities are planned..strange..."

Not really. There is a lot of psychological comfort in accepting fate, either as pre-ordained or as god's will. After all, something like this is right out of your control. Having some mechanism for accepting it and being philisophical about it, is probably the best way to get over the anguish and continue.

So if this is God's plan, what kind of plan does he have in mind. Does he feel that the mothers and fathers of these poor girls didn't love HIM enough so he decided to have their children killed so they would focus more on him? Or perhaps he decided that he would use this as an object lesson to show everybody how consoling HE can be to the faithful in their grief. What kind of sick twisted bastard is this God?

To be fair to this poor fellow, he does have some evidence that this time God was involved, since the guy who did the killing did it at least partly because of his belief in God.

I just can't seem to screw up the self-righteous attitude it would take to call this man an "old kook" for saying those things mere days after such a horrific event.

Neither can I, and I see zero good purpose served in calling the grieving Amish man an "old kook" so soon after the murders. The guy should be cut considerable slack.

There's a large Amish population not too far from Cleveland, and I took care of a number of Amish patients when I was doing my residency there. I never failed to be amazed by their stoicism in the face of tragedy. Delusion or no delusion, it helps them deal with the tragedy. At times I envied them their ability to handle what life threw at them.

So if this is God's plan, what kind of plan does he have in mind?

That's the wonderful thing about an omnipotent, perfect God -- it doesn't matter... it's all good.

Of course, that's unless it was sinful human beings attempting to thwart God's perfect plan (with a little assistance from Satan, of course).

But then, God knew that was going to happen (he's omniscient too, remember!) so his plan already accounted for that, so it was still perfect.

But a guy just blew the brains out of a bunch of innocent kids!

Er... I'll get back to you on that one...

No, no they're not, and this old kook should know better.

Right, he's an old kook for not abandoning a life-long belief in an afterlife at a time when it's the only thought that might comfort him.

(Can you imagine what Morris would be like if someone had just shot every 6-to-13-year-old girl in town?)

This post by PZ is the equivalent of a vegan writing, I've long "respected" bovine spongiform encephalopathy, but it's still a disease.

It'd be different if Mr. Stoltzfus was recommending vengeance against, I dunno, milkmen based on God's word. But if he's just trying to comfort himself in the midst of numbing horror, why not wait on the theological reeducation for a little while?

....The children are better off than their survivors.

No, no they're not, and this old kook should know better.

Im afraid in reality the 'old (...aehm...)' here who should know better is you, because once the things whose start is mentioned just in your previous post get really going, you, and most people here on this blog too, will suffer a fate far worse than relatively fast death by gunshot. :-(

A man who looks at dead little girls and says they're better off now than when they were alive is being treated charitably when he's called an "old kook".

Seriously. If I were grieving at the loss of someone I loved, and some gomer went on CNN and solemnly announced that my dead family member was better off now, I'd be off to the sporting goods store to get a baseball bat before paying a call on him.

Not surprising that a person would retreat to these aphorisms in the face of tragedy, but I don't see a reason for PZ to hold his tongue on his own blog.

Anyway the great thing about criticizing the Amish on the Internet is that you know they'll never read it!

I'm not so sure about the *benign* aspects of these patriachial societies after reading this from Legal Affairs 2005: The Gentle Amish by Nadya Labi: "Impressed by their piety, courts have permitted the Amish to live outside the law. But in some places, the group's ethic of forgive and forget has produced a plague of incest--and let many perpetrators go unpunished."

"I'd be off to the sporting goods store to get a baseball bat before paying a call on him."

As Freud might say, Sometimes a baseball bat is just a baseball bat.

But in this case . . .

As for the "old kook" comment:

1) PZ made this comment to his readers, to the readers of this blog, which readership makes it unlikely that the grandfather referred will ever hear of the remark. I strongly doubt that PZ, a moral being with empathy and sensitivity, would say that to the old guy's face.

2) Censoring oneself as a matter of habit is a dangerous thing, particularly when the attitude one is reacting to is fundamentally offensive to one's intellectual and emotional makeup.

I was brought up the son of a minister, and inculcated heavily with dogma for decades; and I am *deeply* offended when someone writes off the self-willed action of a human being who made a horrible moral choice as "God's will". It insults and goes against human nature to worship such a dark and cruel power at the expense of honouring one's family.

I could go on and on in various veins, but won't because this whole "God's ineffable plan which we cannot understand" arguement just drives me batshit, as it absolves human beings of moral choice and blunts our reaction to tragedy and forestalls effective action against future tragedies . . . there I go, I'd better stop . . .

And quess what kind of scum showed up this morning carrying his gawd-hates-fags signs. No other than Pfred Phelps and his klan. I actually kinda' wish for lightning bolts , plagues of frogs, and boils, when I think of this.

"and I like the fact that they are willing to let young members explore the life outside their communities."

That's a myth based on a misunderstanding of Rumspringa. See here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rumspringa

"According to widespread belief, Rumspringa, or rumschpringe is a traditional rite of passage in the Amish religious denomination, and describes a period lasting months or years during which adolescents are released from the church and its rules. The custom is said to be part of the Amish belief that only informed adults can "accept Christ" and be baptized, along with the belief that the unbaptized cannot enter heaven.

This conception contains some measure of scholars' folklore. Among the Amish (and the term is not universal to Amish culture), rumspringa simply refers to adolescence, when a certain amount of misbehavior is unsurprising, and is not so severely condemned (for instance, by Meidung or shunning) as it would be in the case of an adult who had made a permanent and public commitment to the faith. [...] As evidenced by the sources below, popular culture and the media have cultivated the idea that the Amish deliberately countenance adolescent rebellion. Perhaps the belief validates a cherished notion of Amish wisdom, but tolerance for deviation from norms is not counted a virtue among the Amish. In interviews, Amish have shown themselves to be aware of these misconceptions and are by turns bewildered and amused."

At the risk of taking a left turn here, I find it interesting that the right wing has looked at Mr Foley's emails and IMs as a result of our society's tolerance of gays; whereas a heterosexual abusing and killing of young girls doesn't seem to be a societal problem. A gay guy sends emails and it shows how terrible all homosexuals are; but the same bizarre sort of extrapolation isn't invoked here. Not that logic and right wing politics go hand in hand...

"I never failed to be amazed by their stoicism in the face of tragedy. Delusion or no delusion, it helps them deal with the tragedy. At times I envied them their ability to handle what life threw at them."

*snip*

After reading this comment, I started wondering if there is any sort of evolutionary component to a belief in god. I'm at the edge of being able to actually express this idea properly, so forgive me if I mess it up a bit-- is there something about these beliefs that would give an advantage to the believer.. evolution-wise? Although I personally try to aim for "sensing" reality, I don't see why "sensing" something unreal might not be positive. My idea needs help. Anyone?

I think this post is a little nitpicky. The man just endured a terrible tragedy. Does it really matter what anyone thinks about his beliefs?

I don't agree with him, but come on.

"After reading this comment, I started wondering if there is any sort of evolutionary component to a belief in god."

Bingo.

Thanks, Stephen, you really cleared that up for me. *smirk* I was serious with my comment, and was hoping someone intelligent would be around to bounce it off of.

One possible advantage is that it might be a mechanism for accommodating empathy. If you're a social animal who identifies strongly with your fellows, death could be highly traumatic...but if you've got a rationalization to displace that feeling, by pretending that he isn't really dead, you've removed one barrier to tight-knit social cohesion.

Here's Dan Dennet's presentation at the TED conference.
It's his response to "the Purpose Driven Life".
http://www.ted.com/tedtalks/tedtalksplayer.cfm?key=d_dennett

I agree with PZ. To say they life you live is less important than your death is twisted.
And on top of that to consolate yourself that it's God's plan?

Daephex, I was being serious.

The reason god-belief persists is because it, in a manner of speaking, works.

By way of illustration, I've been rereading Vice Magazine's "Do's and Don't's" book, and there is a great caption in which the author bemoans how intelligent, smartly dressed people never seem to hook up, while mullet-wearing clods can't seem NOT to. Wish I had the book in front of me, would quote it chapter and verse.

Thanks, PZ! I was just washing some dishes and thinking about it further before I came back and refreshed my screen. I thought of two other ways it could have helped, at least in early history. Very early on, maybe a belief in something "greater" (and I'll leave that belief vague) could have acted as something like an extra amount of paranoia-- doing the "right" thing, even if you personally can't muster up the strength, must have conferred some benefits on social groups. Secondly, being able to believe, or wanting to believe would have allowed natural leaders a greater chance to actually direct a group of humans. If bees direct each other with pheremones etc., it occurs to me that maybe religious belief was humanity's substitution. In an early time where simply surviving was undoubtably a huge issue for individuals, a belief in a greater power would have been a useful thing to exploit if a leader realized the necessity of a "great works" type projects. Or he could waste it on a pyramid, I suppose. Perhaps these are simple thoughts, but I've never heard them expressed. Comments?

and that parents ought to strangle their kids as soon as they're born.

No. The parents couldn't get to heaven that way. They can wish for a murderer though.

Were the remarks about censoring PZ directed at me? Because I'm disinclined to believe it possible to censor someone on their own blog. (In fact, that's a large part of their charm.)

Seriously. If I were grieving at the loss of someone I loved, and some gomer went on CNN and solemnly announced that my dead family member was better off now, I'd be off to the sporting goods store to get a baseball bat before paying a call on him.

Apples and oranges. These are his loved ones and that's how he handles his grief; moreover, it's likely that his feelings are shared, more-or-less, by the rest of the affected community, so they're probably not offended. And clearly, he's trying to be comforting, to them and to himself.

However, in the scenario you describe, the opposite would be true; since your views in these matters are well-known, it's safe to figure that anyone who presumed to start yammering about how your loved ones were with Jeebus or whatever was deliberately trying to make you feel worse.

And the really ugly part is, while the event is hypothetical, if anything like this ever did happen, you could pretty much count on this response from some godbag or other, and with the malicious motivation.

In which case, let us know; we'll all get baseball bats.

I've always wondered why religious types don't celebrate when someone dies instead of weeping about it.

The Amish, by the way, aren't quite the saintly types their PR kits describe. They are the biggest puppy millers on the continent. That's likely the will of their divine overseer as well, no?

"I've always wondered why religious types don't celebrate when someone dies instead of weeping about it."

Many "religious types" do. Catholic wake and New Orleans second line are just a couple of contemporary examples of ritual celebration at a funeral.

In theory, you are weeping for yourself and the others left behind, and celebrating for the person shuffling off this mortal coil. Even we atheists can appreciate that a dead person no longer suffers.

One possible advantage is that it might be a mechanism for accommodating empathy. If you're a social animal who identifies strongly with your fellows, death could be highly traumatic...but if you've got a rationalization to displace that feeling, by pretending that he isn't really dead, you've removed one barrier to tight-knit social cohesion.

Oh, please PZ. That's exactly the sort of pop science nonsense that is accurately described as a "just so" story. Just as the only meaningful way to study the evolution of genes is to find homologs in different organisms, the same is true for behavior. For example, parental care can be studied in an evolutionary context because lots of different organisms (including humans) care for their young. If we discovered that dolphins or chimps had religions, we could perform a meaningful evolutionary analysis, but not without other data points. As other social organisms appear not to have religions, there is little reason to suppose that religion is genetic and has evolved in any other way than in a figurative sense.

I sorry to see you also criticizing the luddites. They have gotten a bad rap. Rather than being against technology per se, they were against the economic effects of a sort of globalization of their day.

They were defending workers' rights to receive decent pay for their work. The early industrialization of the time was a way for the capitalist owners to seek the lowest common denominator for their wage rates for their workers.

The luddites simply wanted to have decent pay for their labor. They were a sort of early workers' collective, or union you might say. We need more luddites today, especially with their courage.

A similar workers' movement existed in Lyons, France. They were called the Canutes.

It is far past time to rehabilitate the luddites and the canutes.

Point of clarification: there's no indication that Sam Stoltzfus is family to any of the murdered kids. His qualification for being quoted seems to be simply that he lives somewhere close to the schoolhouse. He's Some Guy a reporter spotted near the scene.

a community that consciously deliberates over the effects of technology on social interactions, and limits those effects

The thing which I found most interesting is how PZ said the Amish aren't Luddites after assigning to them the definition of a Luddite.

Hhmm... Luddites were actually less Luddittee than the Amish.

And that kindly old kook ain't never did know better, nor shall he ever. Gods are nothing more than easy, compfortable excuses for some of the stupidest of human behaviors and beliefs.

Poor kids... {shakin'head}

Yes, Jonathan, that was what we call a "hypothesis". You can spot it by the "ifs", "mights" and "maybes" in it.

Also, there's nothing about any kind of genetic predisposition to religion in it at all. I don't think there is such a thing, myself. I'm proposing that a learned response, such as defusing death with a religious rationalization, could be a useful attribute to assist in maintaining social cohesion.

I also don't think it's the only possible way to handle loss. Atheists cope in other ways. I don't think it's because we're missing a god gene.

Also, there's nothing about any kind of genetic predisposition to religion in it at all. I don't think there is such a thing, myself. I'm proposing that a learned response, such as defusing death with a religious rationalization, could be a useful attribute to assist in maintaining social cohesion.

Well, sure. That's pretty much the typical objective explanation for the attraction of religion. It was more the generalization to social animals as a whole that I found unsupported.

Is there a truly meaningful distinction between "learned" and "genetic" predispositions in such a social animal as humans?

AFAIK belief in god(s) is pretty universal among human tribes. So even though I don't believe in god, I don't try to explain away god belief as some sort of hideous disorder.

Why has nobody mentioned that the unbalanced type with the gun was specifically gunning for girls? All the victims were female, just like all the intentional victims of the 1989 Montreal Massacre. Very few of the US media reports seem to mention it, although the stuff on it from outside of the US puts it more or less front and centre.

This has less to do with godbaggery than a free-floating, generalised hatred of women, albeit likely reinforced and countenanced by godbaggery (in which the Amish are no less exempt).

I've read plenty that said he was targeting the girls. He had freed the boys and women.
It also looks as if he intended to molest them before killing himself. It's very sad.

"In an early time where simply surviving was undoubtedly a huge issue for individuals, a belief in a greater power would have been a useful thing to exploit if a leader realized the necessity of a "great works" type projects. Or he could waste it on a pyramid, I suppose. Perhaps these are simple thoughts, but I've never heard them expressed. Comments?"

It is an intersting question to think about. On the genetic side there is some evidence that parts of the brain have to do with spiritual experiences. These are feeling for oneness with the universe, or feelings of godliness. Drugs can also help induce such states.

I sometimes think we need such states because of the huge step we made when we digitized our minds by evolving a symbolic language, which tends to put words (in thoughts) between us and reality.

Religion is of course a learned behavior. It is hard to say to what extent genetics gives us a tendency to learn such behavior, but there could be good reasons for it. Group cohesiveness and group control would have been major factors in the success of societies. Such groups would have been able to dominate and displace weaker groups. So the success of people who were persuaded to believe and obey would have been greater than non-cohesive groups of independently minded people. You can see something like it today with the huge sway the Christian religious right have.

I haven't read it, but isn't this exact question the central question of Breaking the Spell? Anyone care to recommend (or disrecommend) it to people interested in the issue?

I don't think you can draw a clear line between learned and genetic responses, though. There are obviously some genetically programmed responses that don't require any learning (they're exhibited at birth), but what would it even mean to say that a given learned response wasn't affected by genes? Any learned response is learned by a brain that has developed under the influence of its owner's genes. Any organism that learns X has the capacity to learn X, and it's hard not to see that capacity as genetic at some level (when compared with, say, another species that can't learn X).

The most you could say is that for a specific species and behavior, there is no observable *variation* in the capacity to learn X that can be ascribed to genetic variation in the population of the species. So maybe there are genetic differences in religion-susceptibility among humans, and maybe all humans have the same genes regarding religion-susceptibility; but the fact that religion is seen in humans and not in chimps means that some of the differences between humans and chimps are important to the acquisition of religion.

Unless, of course, you think that Skinner's superstitious pigeons really *were* superstitious, and then "religious" belief could potentially be common to quite a large group of animals, with humans just having the most complicated and socially-transmitted religions. This is as much a question of semantics as anything else, I think. Did pigeons really believe in a Great Food-Pellet-Giver, or not? How would we know?

One more thing: I see a lot of group-selectionist just so stories being floated on this thread. Such an argument can't be taken seriously without addressing the success of free riders who get the societal benefit of everyone else doing as they're told (assuming arguendo that that is in fact a benefit to society and not just to its leaders; cooperation is good, but ideally it should *follow* a good collective decision-making procedure, not substitute for one) but are still free to act in their own interest when it suits them.

Actually, I guess the religious do that anyway, so we're back at square one. Religious belief doesn't seem to have any noticeable behavioral effects other than advocating the religion itself, and it's hard to see how that could be selection-positive.

That's why I incline more toward Dawkins's parasite metaphor: religion is exploiting a weakness of human brains that developed as a side effect of something rather important, like the ability to communicate abstract concepts: while very valuable, it necessarily includes the ability to communicate lies and delusions. Religion-susceptibility has no survival benefit of its own (although in a society where most people burn heretics at the stake, you'd better at least be able to convincingly fake it).

I think the world would be a lot safer if all our priests were pigeons. It would really cut down on pedophiles in the ranks.

I've got three points, the first of which has only been alluded to and the second two not mentioned.

1) Charles Roberts, the killer, was a bible toting Christian. If the right wing, e.g., Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council, thinks Congressman Foley is the result of encouraging tolerance and diversity in American society, maybe he also thinks we should ban Christianity now. The contradictions in the screeds from the religious right are beyond the pale.

2) I live in Chester County PA, the county that lies between Philadelphia and Lancaster, where the murders took place, and about 25 miles from the school. I have neighbors who are Amish and Mennonite and have hired Amish to do renovation on our house, an 18th century stone farm house. Both Amish and Mennonite come in many flavors with some eschewing modern conveniences totally (Old Order Amish), some who selectively accept a few modern inventions, and others who accept nearly all. Each church, none of which have pastors, decide their own path. As for behavior, they are like most of us, far from saints. I had to watch the crew on our house because of sloppy workmanship and indifference to doing a good job; I'd not hire them again. Others have had mixed experience when employing them. In short they're just like everyone else. I've not met any who were outriight dishonest, but I'm sure they exist.

3) Amish religion is essentially fatalistic. Whatever happens is God's will. So they are very accepting of events and without malice toward those who harm them, like Charles Roberts. Forgiveness is central to their faith. Thus you won't find them marching off with a shot gun to kill someone who wronged them. But with that fatalism they leave themselves very vulnerable to things they could avoid. For instance, every year we have accidents where a buggy collides with a car, a decidely unequal encounter. The Amish always lose. But they continue to drive buggies in heavy traffic and on open highways (not limited access roads), despite the danger. Their children also begin using heavy and dangerous farm equipment when they're not yet out of school. And they employ young men, from 14 up, in their woodworking shops (one of their favorite occupations) where losing fingers, or worse, to saws is much too frequent. They regret the accidents but just seem to see them as God's plan, and do very little to avoid them. Accidents are a way of life. In fact, just a week before the murders in the very same community a 12 year old boy, was killed by a wayward car while he walked along the road on his way to milk cows for neighbor.

And while I've heard of rumors of incest, I never heard of a bonafide case. More common is their inbreeding. The Amish descend from the same half a dozen families who migrated here in the 18th century. The do not marry out of the faith, so most are related in some way, with resulting expression of lots of recessive genes. Hence the rumors of incest. Incidentally, because of this geneticists have studied and continue to study them to learn about a whole raft of recessive genes.

I think the world would be a lot safer if all our priests were pigeons. It would really cut down on pedophiles in the ranks.

I was sitting on the steps of a Catholic church once, talking to a girl, when a pigeon on the roof shit right on me. I'm not sure that means anything, but it's a true story and your post made me think of it.

Also, I was underage at the time.

THis is an interesting point about us being genetically hardwired to be religious. Maybe that was a survival mechanism of our ancestors that evolved after the realization that "wow, we're mortal". The problem is that it doesn't explain why Europeans, for example, are on the whole so much less religious than say North Americans. The two populations haven't been separated for that long to drift apart - genetically speaking.

If his claim were true, you'd have to argue that the murderer did a good thing for those children, and that parents ought to strangle their kids as soon as they're born

You think you're being shocking and original. . .but are becoming dull and derivative of your own, tired self.

That you continue to be completely clueless as to what that elder Amish was saying, of course, almost goes without saying.

I tend to agree with that Amish elder. Given that (as far as I can tell) the injured survivors all have serious head injuries, it may well be the case that the ones who died were luckier. There are certain kinds of injury that I personally regard as worse than death. I can't say what those girls or their families would prefer, but they have a very difficult road ahead of them.

You think you're being shocking and original. . .but are becoming dull and derivative of your own, tired self.

Dull and derivative? Have you looked over your emails to Pharyngula lately, Hoody? Given what a cartoon of a rightwing Christian you've become, you might want to think twice about calling other people 'unoriginal'.

Amish elder:

The children are better off than their survivors.

If the nice gentleman had confined himself to this, I think he arguably has a point--the suffering of the girls who died is over, while the suffering of the survivors will continue for years.

The "God's plan" stuff, though, in the context of an event like this, has always struck me as creepy: what, the guy has control of space and time, sees it all at once, or whatever, but still gets "impatient" to call his little darlings back into his bosom RIGHT NOW? Like "now" means something to a Supreme Being? Like he isn't already also "there," in the fullness of the time that these little girls should have enjoyed? Like, even if we assume such a being could have such petty, thwarted urges, he has some good reason to engineer a deed like THIS ONE as his means to calling his little ones home before their time?

Even if the butchering of little schoolgirls could ever be sanely offered as evidence of some greater scheme, what would ever be the point in being a sadist about it?

I realize the old Amish feller is just babbling cliches in the extremity of grief, but who can really gain comfort from such hopeless inanity?

One possible advantage is that it might be a mechanism for accommodating empathy. If you're a social animal who identifies strongly with your fellows, death could be highly traumatic...but if you've got a rationalization to displace that feeling, by pretending that he isn't really dead, you've removed one barrier to tight-knit social cohesion.

Yeah. 'could be'. This sounds as demontrable as the idea that they are in heaven.

I'm sure it also explains this:

In one sign of their approach to tragedy, Amish residents started a charity fund yesterday not only to help the victims' families but also to help the gunman's widow.

"This is imitation of Christ at its most naked," Mr. Shachtman said. "If anybody is going to turn the other cheek in our society, it's going to be the Amish."

He continued, "I don't want to denigrate anybody else who says they're imitating Christ, but the Amish walk the walk as much as they talk the talk."

A theory that 'explains' everything... explains nothing.

I posted the following on another site, and it generated no response. I'm re-posting it here not out of stubbornness but out of persistent curiosity regarding the validity of my point (or are my thoughts stupid? Either way, it's good to get feedback):

Thought experiment:

Imagine an Earth where the notion of a supernatural God had never arisen. Imagine your prematurely born daughter dies 20 minutes after birth. With no God to blame, there would be no revenge motive on which to base any future murderous lashing out.

In a manner of thinking, the assailant might have been rather clear-headed and rational, given his purported belief presuppositions: God allowed the destruction of my precious girl, so I'll return the favor by slaughtering other innocents.

Much about this man remains mysterious, and maybe more about his background and prior mental state will be forthcoming. For now, I'm not ready to assent to the idea that his action was necessarily incomprehensible or spiritually incoherent. I realize this sounds repulsive, but I can't shake the suspicion that his action might be more coherent than some other positions on theodicy.

----------

On a different note: I've been reading a number of Amish statements about their having forgiven the perpetrator. I've got a big problem with that. If Roberts had slaughtered adult Amish women, well, maybe a surviving Amish person might be justified in forgiving him, knowing that that would have been the adult victim's philosophy. But how f***king dare anyone assume the right to forgive a murderer of a child -- a child who has not had time to thoughtfully and maturely assess the Amish belief, but has only had it programmed into them. I'd be curious about any interviews of any surviving children, as to whether their suffering through those grievous wounds is something they're honestly willing to forgive. Who dares speak in their place?

The last section in my post above contained a clumsy sentence:

If Roberts had slaughtered adult Amish women, well, maybe a surviving Amish person might be justified in forgiving him, knowing that that would have been the adult victim's philosophy.

Better:

If Roberts had slaughtered adult Amish women, well, maybe an Amish adult might be justified in forgiving him, knowing that that would have been the adult victims' philosophy.

This also occurs to me: those children who, we hope, survive their wounds will not only have the physical trauma to deal with; owing to the expectations of their elders, they'll also have to contend with the psychological stress of suppressing any natural, unforgiving rage. This might be even worse for those who consent to forgiveness as a willing expression of their young Amish belief. Then, the buried, natural rage would fester unconsciously until eventually superating in a future emotional crisis.

There is also another problem with the idea that these things are just "God's will"; it creates a sense of societal fatalism in addition to the personal fatalism mentioned earlier. Why bother to persecute the killer, when it was God's will? Why bother to have laws against such things in the first place, when it's all God's will? I would hope for some good righteous indignation and anger about the state of gun control, school control,mental health care, overt and subtle misogyny in the culture, etc. But no, it was God's will, so there's no point in seeing this as a sign that something is broken and then trying to make society any better.

Not Amish: I have seen a movie, presented in a sociology of religion class, that does suggest that analysis is slightly wrong. The movie presented the case of a young Amish fellow who wanted to try flying an airplane before committing to the community. And, based on the principle under debate here, he did. (And later returned to the community, but that's another story.)