Hatred Owes No Allegiance to Victims-Religious, Military, or Otherwise

Submitted by M. Tovey (United States), Feb 4, 2010 at 12:56

Did a Christian put a weapon into the Ft. Hood assassin's hand and compel him to act? Did a Christian mindset provide the reasoning and ideology that prompted the Ft Hood assassin to pick and choose targets of opportunity in causing the death and injuries of his victims? Decidedly, the answer is no; there was no such reasoning that justifies those actions. Neither does the reasoning attempted here in some form of attempted authentication of the gross actions of the Ft Hood assassin.

But let us go further and ask, is there a bilateral sense of reasoning between the Muslim who goes awry and commits his acts of hatred and that of, say, a McVeigh and his acts of hatred, someone who was brought up in a 'Christian' environment, but did not come to its basis of belief? No, neither acts of violence have a basis for acting out their hatreds; not for a religious reason; not for a common sense of decency.

The reason that presents itself in trying (an attempt that is self defeating, as reasoned out later) to understand the disparity between Islam and Christianity is that there is the disparity, and (sorry Dr. Pipes) there can never be a common resolve to the dilemma it presents. It is by enmity with the Holy Spirit that the Quran was originally written, that in its attempt to present to the Arab population (and later converts) a separate set of tenets to distinguish a religious mindset from that of Christianity and Judaism, its Prophet needed to distance himself from the central truth of Jesus Christ, and reform it for purposes that I will let any expositor of the Quran try and explain, for I shall not.

Anyone outside of the full faith and belief in Jesus Christ does not know what influences the Holy Spirit has in the conduct, so trying to explain how the Holy Bible has those influences to someone who does not believe can be somewhat, if not completely, difficult. Had the Ft. Hood Assassin a belief and faith in Jesus Christ, then we would most likely not be having this discussion about him. Yet, in his earlier expressions of disdain for things American, it is his gross antipathy for things Christian that provided his motivation for committing his acts of violence, and no amount of justification is appropriate for what he did, just like there is no amount of justification for McVeigh either.

Oh, and, even though I could not swear to it, I am pretty sure cat does not taste like chicken.

Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome but not comments that are scurrilous, off-topic, commercial, disparaging religions, or otherwise inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the "Guidelines for Reader Comments".