Devout nonsense on Virginia Tech
IT HAPPENED so fast. Less than 24 hours after the terrible massacre at Virginia Tech, with 33 dead, including the shooter, Ken Ham, who leads an outfit called Answers in Genesis, had this to say:
IT HAPPENED so fast.
Less than 24 hours after the terrible massacre at Virginia Tech, with 33 dead, including the shooter, Ken Ham, who leads an outfit called Answers in Genesis, had this to say:
"We live in an era when public schools and colleges have all but banned God from science classes . . . The more such a philosophy permeates the culture, the more we would expect to see a sense of purposelessness and hopelessness that pervades people's thinking. In fact, the more a culture allows the killing of the unborn, the more we will see people treating life in general as 'cheap.' "
Then, on Wednesday, four bombs exploded in Baghdad, killing at least 160 people.
Unless we have been completely duped by our government and our country's leading scholars over the last five years, the radical Muslims who are out for our heads are killing in perceived service to Allah, with their rewards to come in the next life. Seventy-two virgins in heaven, right?
The idea that a "godless" society is at fault for the senseless murder of the students and faculty at Virginia Tech is ludicrous.
Blaming science classes for not teaching public-school students that the earth was formed just 5,000 years ago is the kind of rhetoric that degrades our country's ability to have a meaningful conversation on the topics of violence and mental health - and hope that this sort of incident will never happen again.
When the issue is one deranged student whose warning signs were overlooked, and the background music is "God or no God?" the conversation is lost.
What happened at Virginia Tech last Monday was absolutely awful and tragic, and my sympathies go out to everyone affected. But incidents like this one are part of the daily life in Iraq, and not because Iraqis were brought up learning about dinosaurs and monkeys.
It's because they have nowhere to turn except radical religious beliefs.
The higher-ups in society have always thought of themselves as above common people, so it should come as no surprise that they're always thinking of scapegoats. After the Columbine massacre, the media blamed Marilyn Manson and violent video games. Then-House majority leader Tom DeLay blamed "the teaching of evolution in the schools, and working mothers who take birth-control pills."
But looking at violent episodes in human history, like the Spanish Inquisition and the Crusades, it's clear that they didn't occur because people were misled by the teaching of evolution and the lack of religion in their lives.
If any good can come from all this, our political leaders must now denounce every public voice pointing blame for this senseless tragedy at anything or anyone but Cho Seung-Hui.
Even now, after his videotaped message from beyond the grave, we're still not really sure why he chose to go on his murderous rampage.
Maybe one day we'll know all his secrets, and why he chose to take so many lives.
Until then, shut up.
This was not about God, or the National Rifle Association, or video games.
This was one deranged kid who never received the psychological help he so desperately needed.
For people like Ken Ham, their public voices are the truest explanation of their own ignorance. The very idea that in our supposedly advanced society that this man can get any sort of public platform is in itself a negative commentary on our sacred First Amendment rights.
This is a call from this writer to Mr. Ham and others in our media who think they have the answers, based on anything but reality:
Please, shut up. *
Randy LoBasso is a freelance writer from Philadelphia. He can be reached at
