Let’s walk down memory lane and remember what happens when “non-religious” people who don’t like “organized religion” get hold of guns and decide to act on their non-religious convictions. In this case, the shooter was a gay activist who was a great admirer of Friedrich Nietzche, the atheist philosopher who proclaimed the death of God.
The man accused of opening fire and shooting a security guard at the conservative Family Research Council headquarters last August plead guilty to three charges in a D.C. federal court Wednesday.
Floyd Lee Corkins, II of Herndon, Virginia entered guilty pleas to a federal weapons charge as well as a local terrorism charge and a charge of assault with intent to kill, according to news reports.
The Washington Post reports that, according to the plea agreement Corkins signed, he told FBI agents on the day of the shooting that he “intended to kill as many people as possible” and planned to “smother Chick-fil-A sandwiches in their faces.”
Investigators found additional magazines and 15 Chick-fil-A sandwiches in his backpack on the day of the shooting.
Following the guilty plea the FRC issued a statement placing a large portion of the blame for the shooting at the feet of the liberal Southern Poverty Law Center, which had listed FRC as a hate group. FRC noted that prosecutors discovered Corkins identified his targets on the SPLC’s website.
“The day after Floyd Corkins came into the FRC headquarter and opened fire wounding one of our team members, I stated that while Corkins was responsible for the shooting, he had been given a license to perpetrate this act of violence by groups like the Southern Poverty Law Center which has systematically and recklessly labeled every organization with which they disagree as a ‘hate group,’” FRC president Tony Perkins said in a statement, which went on to demand that SPLC stop attacking organizations that have a different opinion on gay rights.
The shooting happened shortly after Chick-fil-A made headlines over the company president’s disagreement with gay marriage.
Why does anyone think that people on the secular left are tolerant?
A friend shared this story with me that appeared on Life Site News.
Excerpt:
A 26-year-old Mennonite missionary was violently stabbed in the back on Friday by a pro-LGBTQ woman who became aggressive after he shared with her his Christian beliefs regarding homosexuality.
“The confrontation was about the idea of homosexuality…if that’s OK, if that’s acceptable, and whether God loves somebody who is in that state. And we assured her that he does,” said Eric Brubacher, a member of the Mennonite community who was present during the attack, to CTV.
The unnamed victim was rushed to the hospital where he was treated for non-life threatening injuries and then released. The attacker fled the scene of the crime.
The stabbing occurred in the Byward Market area three days prior to the opening of Ottawa’s “Pride Week” where homosexuality is celebrated and promoted openly with parties and a parade.
The Maranatha Conservative Mennonite Church had traveled to Ottawa from Drayton, Ontario for three days of evangelization through singing and handing out Gospel literature. Friday was the community’s first day.
[…]Ottawa Police are looking for the attacker, who is described as white, 22 years of age, of slim build, and sporting blond hair with pink highlights.
An Ottawa Police spokesperson told LifeSiteNews that as of Monday morning the attacker had not yet been apprehended. The investigation is still ongoing.
Ottawa is the capital of Canada, and it is in the very liberal province of Ontario.
Now I know that most people on the left like to talk a lot about tolerance, critical thinking, and diversity. Might I suggest that they go back to the drawing board and re-think what those words mean. I am seeing more and more stories come out every day where gay activists are going after the livelihood of people who disagree with them or even just refuse to celebrate what they are doing. It may have started non-violently, but now I am seeing it escalate into violence. I would like to see the leaders of the gay rights movement step forward and take responsibility for their inflammatory rhetoric, and dial down their persecution and violence against those who disagree with them. I don’t see any coercion, vandalism and violence coming from the traditional moral values side. Maybe the other side needs to take a lesson in civility and tolerance from us. Disagreement – yes. Violence – no way.
Sherlock Holmes and John Watson: let’s take a look at the facts
J.W. Wartick posted a review of a book called “The Myth of Religious Violence”, and written by Dr. William T. Cavanaugh.
Let’s take a look at some of the review.
Here, J.W. quotes from the book:
The story goes that, after the Protestant Reformation divided Christendom along religious lines, Catholics and Protestants began killing each other for holding to different doctrines. The wars of religion… demonstrated to the West the inherent danger of public religion. The solution to the problem lay in the rise of the modern state, in which religious loyalties were marginalized and the state secured a monopoly on the means of violence…
This story is more than just a prominent example of the myth of religious violence. It has a foundational importance for the secular West, because it explains the origin of its way of life and its system of governance. It is a creation myth for modernity (123).
Then writes this:
Following the lines of thinking of Voltaire, John Locke, and others, Cavanaugh argues that the myth of religious violence is perpetuated in order to marginalize that which is considered religious and give rise to the nation-state. According to this myth, “All theological religions are to be tolerated, provided they do not interfere with the obligations of citizens to the state…” (129). The myth is that religion is divisive and that they “fight over doctrines or ‘religious creeds’” so that “the state steps in to make peace” (130).
Cavanaugh shows that this myth is indeed false. The “wars of religion” had any number of motivating factors. The use of this story is not so much to tell a truth as it is a means by which to legitimize the nation-state. He argues towards these conclusions by showing that many “wars of religion” were in fact wars of economy, wars of power structures, and the like. He notes four primary factors for this myth to work: that combatants were motivated by religious difference, that the primary cause of war was religion, that religious causes are analytically separable from political, economic, and social causes at the time of the wars, and that the rise of the modern state was not a cause of the wars (141-142). He then analyzes each of these in turn based upon the historical record and shows that these all fail to account for the actual history of the “wars of religion.” In fact, the opposite is true in each case (142-177).
“We must conclude that the myth of the wars of religion is finally incredible, which is to say, false” (177).
[…]Perhaps the most challenging and paradigm-shifting portion of the book is that which focuses upon the uses of the myth of religious violence. Cavanaugh argues that the myth is so perpetuated because of its usefulness.
Cavanaugh has his BA from the University of Notre Dame, his MA from Cambridge University, and his PhD from Duke University.
Regarding religion and wars, consider this post from Well Spent Journey:
The Claim: “Religion has been the primary cause of war and oppression throughout the history of mankind.”
The Truth: In their comprehensive Encyclopedia of Wars, Phillips and Axelrod document the recorded history of warfare. Of the 1,763 wars presented, a mere 7% involved a religious cause. When Islam is subtracted from the equation, that number drops to 3.2%.
In terms of casualties, religious wars account for only 2% of all people killed by warfare. This pales in comparison to the number of people who have been killed by secular dictators in the 20th century alone.
So let’s take a look at those secular dictators.
According to the The Black Book of Communism, published by Harvard University Press, over 100 million innocent people were killed in atheistic, communist regimes in the last century. In the past, consistent atheists like Stalin who had power enough to ignore objective morality caused millions of innocent deaths. And you can even see atheism killing lots and lots of people in countries like North Korea today – where the official state religion is atheism. Why is that? It’s because the worldview of atheism teaches that the universe, and human beings, are here by accident. We are all just molecules in motion, and there is no inherent dignity or purpose to any of our lives that would obligate others to treat us a certain way.
On the Christian view, every single person has dignity because they are made in the image of God, and made to know him. Christians can never treat another person (of any religion or no religion) in any way that would discourage them from knowing God and experiencing his love for us. We could never hurt anyone in a way that causes them to turn against God. We are careful with people, because we want to act towards them in a way that helps them to accomplish this purpose.
Of course there are lots of atheists in the Judeo-Christian West who live more peacefully, because they are living in a background of objective morality and human rights provided by Western religions. But in countries like North Korea, with a state religion that cannot ground free will or objective morality or human rights or judgment after death, there are fewer restraints.
Even here, we have already seen over 50 million unborn children killed since abortion became legal. And I can guarantee you that it’s not authentic, Bible-believing Christians who are having these abortions. People who think they are going to face God when they die do not treat their fellow humans like machines made out of meat. As a group, atheists tend to be among the most radical in favor of abortion rights. The Secular Census of 2012 found that 97% of atheists vote for abortion. And of course today in the news we got the second video of Planned Parenthood top brass explaining how they sell the body parts of unborn babies to the highest bidder. I wrote about the first video here.
The idea of the strong killing the weak for their own advantage is the law of the jungle, and it’s not surprising to me that those who think that humans are just animals would act this way with vulnerable children. If you only have 80 years to be happy in an accidental universe, then anything goes. No one is there to hold you accountable when you die. If the weak get in your way, kill them all. Just don’t get caught. That’s what atheist morality teaches.
Here’s famous atheist Richard Dawkins explaining why infanticide is OK:
And here’s what he thinks of objective moral values and duties:
In a universe of blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won’t find any rhyme or reason in it, or any justice. The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference… DNA neither knows nor cares. DNA just is. And we dance to its music.
–Richard Dawkins, (River Out of Eden: A Darwinian View of Life (1995))
In a previous post, I looked at an article by an atheist who explained what it meant to live consistently with atheism. I really recommend reading that in order to understand what is rational within that worldview.
WINTERY KNIGHT 