Is God Responsible for the Killings?

[JoeMo]

Fair enough - I'm outta here.

[cricket]

Yes, and he did like violent video games. Besides, neither the mother nor the son felt a need to engage in a useful employment. Of Sodom it was said that the problem was the abundance of bread.

This woman's alimony was $ 24,000 a month. This amount is what some families receive in a year.

Regarding useful employment: Are you familiar with what this woman did with her time? What is considered "useful" in your eyes? In your opinion, is caring for a mentally unstable young man not "useful" employment?

Have you read the online blog post titled, "I Am Adam Lanza's Mother"? Do you regard the job of mothering as not useful employment?

Yes, you've struck a nerve.

[cricket]

Exactly Nic, and as many newscasters have been asking, and so should all, why the need to purchase "assault weapons?" And as I've asked why and how did he get a hold of these weapons? If they were put away and locked up he would've had to purchase these weapons, and maybe not have such easy access to them. No one knows for sure. Just heard that he had been planning this, so all this talk of him just waking up and going on a killing spree because of mental problems has been ruled out, at least for the time being.

Just to reiterate, no one knows for sure. Also, anyone who goes on a killing spree most likely suffers from mental problems--whether they be spur of the moment problems, or long-lasting ones.

[Nic Samojluk]

Have you read the online blog post titled, "I Am Adam Lanza's Mother"? Do you regard the job of mothering as not useful employment?

No, I haven't! Can you provide a link to said story?

[Neil D]

Claims are made about what God does. When God does not do those things, the response is 'shut up, how dare you question God!'

If questioning the claims (which is not questioning God) is impossible because God's ways are inscrutable, then *making* the claims is also impossible because God's ways are inscrutable.

If we must simply shut up and let God be God, then perhaps y'all could be getting on with that...

Most of the time, God is given free reign as to what He is able to do...and that has been discussed ad infinitum....I am sure the ins and outs of that discussion are endless....

But what if there is a limit placed upon God....? What if He is not able to work His "magic" and for some reason SOMETHING is hampering Him working for mankind [assuming that He does work for mankind]....How can God work in this self-limited way? And identify what it is that limits God?

[cricket]

Originally Posted By: cricket

Have you read the online blog post titled, "I Am Adam Lanza's Mother"? Do you regard the job of mothering as not useful employment?

No, I haven't! Can you provide a link to said story?

Sure. I did a quick search on Google using the words, "I AM ADAM LANZA'S MOTHER" and came up with 142 million hits. Here's one of them:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/16..._n_2311009.html

[JoeMo]

Quote:

And identify what it is that limits God?

Man's free will; and God's respect for it (for better or worse). This is a limit God put's on Himself - not one that was imposed on Him externally.

[Nic Samojluk]

I did a quick search on Google using the words, "I AM ADAM LANZA'S MOTHER" and came up with 142 million hits. Here's one of them:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/16..._n_2311009.html

That is a great story! Thank you for the link!

[7daysadventist]

[quote

I agree that guns don't kill people. Murderers do the killing, but shouldn't society make it extremely difficult for crazy and evil people to kill so many in such a short time?

[debbym]

I dont think the citizenry needs to own and have access to automatic assault weapons. They are no good for hunting, and personal concealed weapon defense.

debjm

[debbym]

I knew a kid that was so disturbed that when he went into the psyche unit they wanted to keep him, and have his father sign him over to the state, he was the most angry case they had ever witnessed.

he was around age 9 or ten at that time, after years of violence, destruction of property charges and constant problems at home and school.... and heavy medication... he decided to take responsibility. Around age 14-15 he went off his medications, and struggled with that. at 18 he was in and out of jail a bit, then he mellowed out, and he is living a quiet responsible life. He grew beyond it. At 20 it appears he is ok, but we have not seen him deeply hurt again and greatly provoked.

but if he had had access to an ak47 or some automatic assault weapon, many would be dead today. when he was berserk it was beyond all beyond insane rage. The hospital saw this in him and really was deeply concerned.

and his case is in no way extremely rare, just less common.

deb

deb

[debbym]

White Men and Mass Murder: Did a Sense of "Aggrieved Entitlement" Lead Adam Lanza to Kill 26 People at Sandy Hook Elementary School?

i think there is something to this.

http://www.alternet.org/speakeasy/chaunceydevega/white-men-and-mass-murder-did-sense-aggrieved-entitlement-lead-adam-lanza?page=entire%2C1

Ultimately, many are so invested in protecting Whiteness and White Masculinity from any type of critical interrogation about such identities' relationship to horrific mass murder in the United States; here, White Privilege trumps sanity, safety, and commonsense.

An aberrant variety of pathological White Masculinity, as embodied by mass gun murders such as Adam Lanza and John Holmes, is killing people--the vast majority of whom are white. Nevertheless, many in White America do not want to ask basic questions about the processes leading to these horrendous outcomes.

White racism, white privilege, and Whiteness, more generally, hurts white people. How so many are running away from hard conversations about those concepts, and their relationship to white crime and violence in the aftermath of the Sandy Hook massacre, is proof positive of that fact. Instead of protecting the lives of white children, many would rather ignore an obvious social evil that lies at the heart of Whiteness and its intersection with American gun culture. I can think of no greater example of how Whiteness is a type of property that is toxic to its owners.

There are some good folks asking hard questions about the relationship between Whiteness, White Masculinity, and gun violence. For example, William Hamby has offered up a great piece that is well worth reading.

There, he makes good use of a concept called aggrieved entitlement:

Rachel Kalish and Michael Kimmel (2010) proposed a mechanism that might well explain why white males are routinely going crazy and killing people. It's called "aggrieved entitlement." According to the authors, it is "a gendered emotion, a fusion of that humiliating loss of manhood and the moral obligation and entitlement to get it back. And its gender is masculine." This feeling was clearly articulated by Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, the perpetrators of the Columbine Massacre. Harris said, "People constantly make fun of my face, my hair, my shirts..." A group of girls asked him, "Why are you doing this?" He replied, "We've always wanted to do this. This is payback... This is for all the sh*t you put us through. This is what you deserve."

At the risk of getting too existentialist, I'd like to propose a very simple and elegant explanation for not only school shootings but a host of other barbaric acts in recent years: White men are having a crisis of both aggrievement and entitlement. One need only look at the 2012 election season to see less brutal but equally mind-numbing examples of white men going mad because they are losing their power. The "Republican Meltdown" is a perfect example of men who previously had all the control escalating to madness when that control was lost.