So how do conservative Christians feel about that Norway killer

[Contarini]

I sympathise with him. There is no depth to the (hypocritical) anger I consistently try to dispel in myself which is directed toward the Devil and his dealings on Earth. I can not, in good conscious, completely disavow my sympathies with those who are brave enough to fight for their beliefs.

Isn’t there a difference between fighting for your beliefs and murdering dozens of unarmed teenagers?

The former, even if misguided, is worthy of respect. The latter is utterly despicable without qualification.

If he wanted to fight for his anti-Islamic beliefs, he could have mounted a one-man raid on a Taliban stronghold in Afghanistan or Pakistan, or something like that.

Fighting implies that the people you are attacking are armed. Shooting kids who are trying to swim to safety isn’t “fighting.”

Edwin

 

[Contarini]

I have to wonder whether whatever caused the Norway killer to commit this atrocity is the same process that acts in Muslim fanatics.

Yes. He’s become a mirror image of his enemies.

This so often happens.

Edwin

 

[Contarini]

I call the BS flag.

NO REAL CONSERVATIVE CHRISTIAN OF ANY DENOMINATION WOULD COMMIT SUCH AN ABOMINABLE ACT.

Any more than a genuine pro-lifer would bomb an abortion clinic. It’s all a media frenzy to get people to associate pro-life conservatism with violent lunatics.

The logic of evil.

On the contrary, your “logic” amounts to “if someone belonging to my group does something bad, I will redefine my group to exclude them, so I can claim that no one in my group does anything bad.”

Edwin

 

[Birdpreacher]

On the contrary, your “logic” amounts to “if someone belonging to my group does something bad, I will redefine my group to exclude them, so I can claim that no one in my group does anything bad.”

Edwin

Hear Hear

 

[Contarini]

More here.

God help everyone involved.

This link isn’t very helpful, because they’re trying to portray him as a “Darwinian terrorist,” and they claim that he denied religious beliefs right before citing a passage where he says that he moved from agnosticism to become “moderately religious.”

The point of your earlier post remains valid, though, that he seems to see himself as a “Christian” predominantly in a cultural sense. That doesn’t seem to exclude religious belief, but he’s clearly not an evangelical (which the English-language media have implied).

He seems to favor a kind of Enlightenment pseudo-Catholicism.

Edwin

 

[Monte_RCMS]

He wrote a 1500 word “manifesto”.

I would like to read it.

What I have read about it is that it makes him sound just like Al Gore.

No joke.

Of course, the Unabomber’s “manifesto” also reads like it was written by Al Gore.

No joke.

So, basically, the guy was a leftist.

 

[estesbob]

He wrote a 1500 word “manifesto”.

I would like to read it.

What I have read about it is that it makes him sound just like Al Gore.

No joke.

Of course, the Unabomber’s “manifesto” also reads like it was written by Al Gore.

No joke.

So, basically, the guy was a leftist.

My understanding is he quoted the New York Times more than he referred to himself as a Christian. . Perhaps the topic of this thread should be " so why does reading the New York Times cause one to be a mass murder"?

 

[TheWatcher]

On the contrary, your “logic” amounts to “if someone belonging to my group does something bad, I will redefine my group to exclude them, so I can claim that no one in my group does anything bad.”

Edwin

I agree with this.

 

[Darryl1958]

The main point of contention for conservatives would likely centre around whehter or not this child murder without a conscience should be executed, be put in jail for life, or committed to an insane asylum for life.

Conservatives tend to have a stronger response against all forms of criminal behavior than liberals. Law and order are one of the hallmarks of conservative thinking after all.

 

[Monte_RCMS]

My understanding is he quoted the New York Times more than he referred to himself as a Christian. . Perhaps the topic of this thread should be " so why does reading the New York Times cause one to be a mass murder"?

So, then it is agreed, that reading the New York Times encourages people to become mass murderers.

Heck, it even says so here:

anncoulter.com/

Excerpt:

NEW YORK TIMES READER KILLS DOZENS IN NORWAY

July 27, 2011

The New York Times wasted no time in jumping to conclusions about Anders Behring Breivik, the Norwegian who staged two deadly attacks in Oslo last weekend, claiming in the first two paragraphs of one story that he was a “gun-loving,” “right-wing,” “fundamentalist Christian,” opposed to “multiculturalism.”

It may as well have thrown in “Fox News-watching” and “global warming skeptic.”

This was a big departure from the Times’ conclusion-resisting coverage of the Fort Hood shooting suspect, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan. Despite reports that Hasan shouted “Allahu Akbar!” as he gunned down his fellow soldiers at a military medical facility in 2009, only one of seven Times articles on Hasan so much as mentioned that he was a Muslim.

Of course, that story ran one year after Hasan’s arrest, so by then, I suppose, the cat was out of the bag.

In fact, however, Americans who jumped to conclusions about Hasan were right and New York Times reporters who jumped to conclusions about Breivik were wrong.

True, in one lone entry on Breivik’s gaseous 1,500-page manifesto, “2083: A European Declaration of Independence,” he calls himself “Christian.” But unfortunately he also uses a great number of other words to describe himself, and these other words make clear that he does not mean “Christian” as most Americans understand the term. (Incidentally, he also cites The New York Times more than a half-dozen times.)

Had anyone at the Times actually read Breivik’s manifesto, they would have seen that he uses the word “Christian” as a handy moniker to mean “European, non-Islamic” – not a religious Christian or even a vague monotheist. In fact, at several points in his manifesto, Breivik stresses that he has a beef with Christians for their soft-heartedness. (I suppose that’s why the Times is never worried about a “Christian backlash.”)

[skipping down toward the bottom of the column:]

“It is enough,” Breivik says, “that you are a Christian-agnostic or a Christian-atheist.” That statement doesn’t even make sense in America.

At the one and only meeting of Breivik’s “Knights Templar” in London in 2002, there were nine attendees, three of whom he describes as “Christian atheists” and one as a “Christian agnostic.” (Another dozen people mistook it for a Renaissance Faire and were turned away.)

As explained in the smash best-seller “Demonic: How the Liberal Mob Is Endangering America,” the liberal rule is: Any criminal act committed by a white man with a gun is a right-wing, Christian conspiracy, whereas any criminal act committed by a nonwhite is the government violating someone’s civil liberties.

 

[dedo]

I am wondering if whatever caused this guy to go off could be some “unknown process” that is in most countries and most people.

There was a case in the 1990’s where two nuns were convicted of participating in the genocide in Rwanda.

If nuns can join a mass murder, who is immune?

It is possible that episodes of murderous fanatics are really examples of some underlying process in society that is moving toward a “critical mass”. Then the fanatics would be analogous to “leaks” or “symptoms” that something else is going on.

This does not excuse or justify violence.

However, if you listen carefully to casual conversation in many settings, it is not hard to find someone say something that refers to a willingness to support mass killing or genocide in certain circumstances. An example would be using nuclear weapons against a country that sponsored terrorism. Some people talk this way.

I have had this sort of thoughts also; however, I treat it like any other sort of evil with a prayer to St. Michael etc.

If there is some “unknown process” in society, then it would be important to understand it because the “process” could be reversible. The “process” could also be the basis for violence on a larger scale, such as interstate war. At least one author has speculated that all wars have the same “unknown cause”, based on some statistical anomalies involving war casualties that seem to apply to all wars.

 

[sw85]

…who was a self proclaimed Christian anti-Islamic far right nationalist? Is he dismissed as a phony as no real Christian would kill another person? Or can it just be said that he needed a lot of help? Would it be absurd, while admitting fully that he did wrong, for somebody to sympathize with his frustration with society?

What about people like Hitler for that matter who are often thought of as being far-right (though I don’t understand how slightly right = small government, more right = even smaller government, far right = huge government) and supposedly Christian?

How do people respond to this?

People who think Hitler is “far right” are generally, in my experience, ignorant of history and very poorly read. The philosophical left has been in firm control of the world for centuries now (and yes, all the Republicans and libertarians and Tories and so on are part of that liberal tradition); it is often not recognized as such because there is a main body of leftism which derides everything outside itself as “non-left,” but the brute fact remains that nearly everyone rejects the classical philosophical tradition which alone can be called “conservative” meaningfully.

To my mind, this includes Breivik, who was a “conservative” only insofar as Western European “conservatives” are “conservative,” which is to say not very.

 

[Monte_RCMS]

I am wondering if whatever caused this guy to go off could be some “unknown process” that is in most countries and most people.

There was a case in the 1990’s where two nuns were convicted of participating in the genocide in Rwanda.

If nuns can join a mass murder, who is immune?

It is possible that episodes of murderous fanatics are really examples of some underlying process in society that is moving toward a “critical mass”. Then the fanatics would be analogous to “leaks” or “symptoms” that something else is going on.

This does not excuse or justify violence.

However, if you listen carefully to casual conversation in many settings, it is not hard to find someone say something that refers to a willingness to support mass killing or genocide in certain circumstances. An example would be using nuclear weapons against a country that sponsored terrorism. Some people talk this way.

I have had this sort of thoughts also; however, I treat it like any other sort of evil with a prayer to St. Michael etc.

If there is some “unknown process” in society, then it would be important to understand it because the “process” could be reversible. The “process” could also be the basis for violence on a larger scale, such as interstate war. At least one author has speculated that all wars have the same “unknown cause”, based on some statistical anomalies involving war casualties that seem to apply to all wars.

Supposedly Eskimos [PIC for Inuit and dozens of other tribes] have a hundred words for snow.

Well, the Catholic Church as a hundred words for sin.

You can just start with the Seven Deadly Sins … like “envy” at the success of others. Or “sloth”, when we refuse to do the work necessary to be successful. Etc.

So, the answer to your question is “sin”.

The Original Sin was probably envy at God … how could HE be so powerful and smart. We can do as well. zap!

So, anyway, we then get “leftism” or some of its nicer names … progressivism or Marxism … so that less talented people can steal what others have worked for … like the Soviets did with the Kulak / farmers in Ukraine. The Soviets simply starved eight million successful hardworking farmers to death.

More recently in Zimbabwe.

Same sort of thing.

We’re doing it now in the USA. The “evil” oil companies. Heck, they produce huge amounts of oil. In other countries, the government controls and their oil fields are being mismanaged to the point that production suffers and they have more oil spills than we do.

 

[ManOnFire]

Jared Loughner was pro-marijuana. Gabrielle Giffords was anti-marijuana. Loughner might have shaved his head to avoid mj detection in the strands of hair, so people jumped to the conclusion that he was far right.

 

[St_Francis]

He is not one of us. Conservative Christians do not advocate for the murder of children. You can self identify, if indeed he did, as anything. But that does not make you so.

On the contrary, your “logic” amounts to “if someone belonging to my group does something bad, I will redefine my group to exclude them, so I can claim that no one in my group does anything bad.”

Edwin

The first post was correct in that the man turned out not to be a Christian, but colloquial in the way they put forth the idea that he was acting contrary to the teachings in which he was believed to have claimed.

 

[dedo]

Supposedly Eskimos [PIC for Inuit and dozens of other tribes] have a hundred words for snow.

Well, the Catholic Church as a hundred words for sin.

You can just start with the Seven Deadly Sins … like “envy” at the success of others. Or “sloth”, when we refuse to do the work necessary to be successful. Etc.

So, the answer to your question is “sin”.

The Original Sin was probably envy at God … how could HE be so powerful and smart. We can do as well. zap!

So, anyway, we then get “leftism” or some of its nicer names … progressivism or Marxism … so that less talented people can steal what others have worked for … like the Soviets did with the Kulak / farmers in Ukraine. The Soviets simply starved eight million successful hardworking farmers to death.

More recently in Zimbabwe.

Same sort of thing.

We’re doing it now in the USA. The “evil” oil companies. Heck, they produce huge amounts of oil. In other countries, the government controls and their oil fields are being mismanaged to the point that production suffers and they have more oil spills than we do.

It could just be something as general as “sin” that causes people to kill in groups.

However, what I have read on criminal violence literature is not consistent with this. Criminal violence seems to be related to a narrow area of “sin” closely related to violence itself – (experiencing violence, being coached in violence, being terrified by violence in close proximity, as well as acting out violence).

We really don’t know what causes groups to kill. In general, groups can have emergent properties that are different from the way individual agents act.

The statistical parameter that describes group conflict is called a “power law”. Other systems that follow a power law include the forest fire model or a “percolation model”.

In the forest fire model, fuel in the forest builds up until a fire starts that can be large or small. The statistical plot of fire size vs frequency forms a straight line in a logarithmic graph that is consistent with a power law. The fuel can also be inhibited by rain. The fires can start from lightning strikes.

If the forest fire model is the best analogy for group violence, then some unknown “process” or behavior(s) in society contribute to a building up of violent “fuel” that eventually erupts into a war or genocide.

It may be that there is some inhibitory process as well, that is like “rain”.

If such processes exist, they have not been described. There are some “peaceful societies” that seem to be relatively resistant to war / group violence. It may be that these societies can help illuminate such processes if they do exist.

 

[St_Francis]

It could just be something as general as “sin” that causes people to kill in groups.

However, what I have read on criminal violence literature is not consistent with this. Criminal violence seems to be related to a narrow area of “sin” closely related to violence itself – (experiencing violence, being coached in violence, being terrified by violence in close proximity, as well as acting out violence).

We really don’t know what causes groups to kill. In general, groups can have emergent properties that are different from the way individual agents act.

The statistical parameter that describes group conflict is called a “power law”. Other systems that follow a power law include the forest fire model or a “percolation model”.

In the forest fire model, fuel in the forest builds up until a fire starts that can be large or small. The statistical plot of fire size vs frequency forms a straight line in a logarithmic graph that is consistent with a power law. The fuel can also be inhibited by rain. The fires can start from lightning strikes.

If the forest fire model is the best analogy for group violence, then some unknown “process” or behavior(s) in society contribute to a building up of violent “fuel” that eventually erupts into a war or genocide.

It may be that there is some inhibitory process as well, that is like “rain”.

If such processes exist, they have not been described. There are some “peaceful societies” that seem to be relatively resistant to war / group violence. It may be that these societies can help illuminate such processes if they do exist.

I am skeptical of these theories. They never seem to take human nature, specifically original sin or concupiscence among the baptized, into account.

And if, as they seem to think, violence comes about as the result of bad experiences like learning, seeing, or being a victim of violence, then how did violence get started?

 

[GEddie]

The first post was correct in that the man turned out not to be a Christian, but colloquial in the way they put forth the idea that he was acting contrary to the teachings in which he was believed to have claimed.

He was acting counter to the teachings. (As distinct, lamentably, from the historical record in it’s entirety). Nowhere in the teachings of our LORD or those of HIS remaining body, the Church, is the killing of innocents to make a political point a valid course of action.

ICXC NIKA

 

[Contarini]

The first post was correct in that the man turned out not to be a Christian, but colloquial in the way they put forth the idea that he was acting contrary to the teachings in which he was believed to have claimed.

It’s not clear to me that he isn’t a Christian. It’s clear that he isn’t an evangelical Christian or an orthodox Catholic. He seems to line up best with the kind of vague cultural Catholicism that an 18th-century moderate philosophe might advocate, or a German Catholic of the sort that formed the early core of Nazism.

Certainly the American media misinterpreted his early claims to be a “conservative Christian” to interpret him as some sort of fundamentalist in the sense intelligible to Americans.

Edwin

 

[Aboveallbereal]

I would tend to be a skeptic about the nature of the man as reported by the media. In all seriousness he could be a an MKULTRA type project like the Unabomber. It is equally convenient for this to be Muslim terrorism or a White Christian Norwegian. If the media is to be believed this guy seems to be like an American neocon more than anything else.

Norway like most of the west is being destroyed by unfettered immigration. It is easy to be furious at politicians for what they do but this guy seems to have mostly targeted innocent children. I cant imagine how anyone would think this would help their cause.

It is actually quite easy to imagine how he though that attacking that island would help his cause. In fact the attack is for me more or less conclusive proof of a worped, criminal but nonetheles lucid mind.

In attacking the children of the leftist pro immigration anti nationalist elite he strikes fear into them in a way an attack on Muslims would never do.

He is not a Christian. He is a fascistic fantasist. His victims were for the large part not Christians either ( the Christian funerals are simply secular appropropriation of pre existing circumstantially Christian burial ceremonies ). The whole event is a clash of two separate humanist strands…the one anti immigrationist belief in an uber race. The other a form of collectivised secular humanism.