Monday School: Atheists responsible for shootings?

Welcome back to Monday School… still “The Rational Corrective To All That Nonsense They Tried To Teach You Yesterday!”

So to begin today’s lesson, I would like to present the following timbit that came across my desk earlier today.

Every time something bad happens from hurricaines to shootings… it’s odd that everytime this happens, there always happens to be some Christian who in front of a microphone that always seems to find someone to blame whenever it hits the fan. The same can be said to the shooting that took place at a Sikh Temple in Oak Creek, Wisconsin. Someone walks into a temple and starts shooting and rather than express sorrow to what happen, zealous christians would rather blame someone for not being religious enough and that this ‘act’ was God’s punishment for their lack of faith.

For example, Pat Robertson of the 700 Club place the blame for the shooting at the Sikh Temple on atheists for ‘hating God’ rather than on the shooter for actually pulling the trigger. He stated the same day as the shooting that “…people who are atheists, they hate God, they hate the expression of God, and they are angry at the world, angry with themselves, angry with society and they take it out on innocnent people who are worshipping God…” (Source).

Christopher Hitchens once said put ‘reverend’ at the front of your name and you’re ok to say really unintelligent things. This outrageious commentary seems to prove his point in spades.

While every other religion on the planet as well as every politician are falling over each other to condemn this shooting, this evangelical Christien prefers to do the exact opposite, regardless of the fact that there is a good chance the actual shooter might be member of his specific brand of religion. Reports are coming out that the suspect was the member of a Neo-Nazi group, which is interesting since it’s generally believed that most Neo-Naizs are often like the original Nazis… Christians.

If this shooter really is a Neo-Nazi, then odds are he’s a racist, facist Christian who shot up a temple because of his raging bigotry. So it’s ironic that Robertson would not try to shift the blame, when in fact it was most likely a Chrstian who once again picked up a gun and tried to gun down many people in their temple.

I’ll finish off with a question for Mr. Roberson: How can you hate something you don’t believe in? Got an answer for that?

Truth is Pat, we don’t hate your imaginary friend. We don’t like you, because you’re mean.

Peter