MSN has a story that Mateen’s current wife said she was with him when he bought ammo and a gun, and wanted to be driven to the club to “scope it out”. Noor Mateen says she tried to talk him out of the attack. Now authorities are considering whether or not she has done something she can be prosecuted for.
Well my point is you can be a true Christian while freely picking and choosing which Christian values to follow, and it’s silly to say someone isn’t a true islamist because they’re picking and choosing which islamic values to follow.
I’ll grant that knowing his motivation may not directly gain much for those of us posting in this message board, but understanding the motivations of someone like this is important to those whose job is to fight things like this. If he was chosen and groomed (which so far appears to not be the case) then they may be able to investigate his background and find some or all of those involved in that and prevent them from acting in the future. If not, then they can use their resources elsewhere.
I’m not addressing how Islamic he may or may not have been. Again, general Islamic values are not the same as Islamist values. Just like general Christian values are not the same as Dominionist values. More to the point, if there were an active armed Christian Dominion movement somewhere that was holding territory and fighting for power… the fact that some sociopathic loser came from a general Christian background, and liked to shock people by saying he was in league with them… well, it wouldn’t really be saying anything, about him or them.
So God is kewl with married gay sex?
I take it you’ve never visited the South. I work with people (who claim to be Christian!) who think gays and lesbians should be rounded up and executed. 
Now that it seems Mateen may have been secretly gay himself, I wonder what Isil will make of that.
Its too bad the club did not have armed security.
Really its a good idea to have a couple of people with concealed carry license to be armed and on the lookout.
Sadly I think too much of America will need it.
Indeed, it was the vastly majority view of the Christians I grew up among in West Texas.
Here’s a sufficiently horrifying example of a pastor speaking his mind.
Not only a good guy with a gun but a good guy with a gun and trained to use it in this kind of situation.
Wheter it’s race, religion, ethnicity, orientation or whatever, the words of the song “You’ve Got to be Carefully Taught”, from the musical South Pacific, are sounding in my ear.
You’ve got to be taught
To hate and fear,
You’ve got to be taught
From year to year,
It’s got to be drummed
In your dear little ear
You’ve got to be carefully taught.
You’ve got to be taught to be afraid
Of people whose eyes are oddly made,
And people whose skin is a diff’rent shade,
You’ve got to be carefully taught.
You’ve got to be taught before it’s too late,
Before you are six or seven or eight,
To hate all the people your relatives hate,
You’ve got to be carefully taught!
Over twnety years ago, when the WBC was just getting started with it’s hate campaign, I helped organize a “Sunday in the Park Without Fred” rally. We had speeches, music, and so on. One song performed was the one above.
Sometimes I feel like the banner for the Dope, when I think of how it’s taking so long to get the hate to stop.
Same in east Texas.
Jesus.
:mad:
The pastor of Verity Baptist Church here in Sacramento also posted a video on YouTube hoping the government will round up all gays and put them against a wall and shoot them. YouTube took it down.
Geez, what exactly is going on in Orlando? First there was that singer’s murder. Then the largest shooting attack in US history. Now a two-year-old has been eaten by an alligator near Disney World.
I think I’ll keep away from Orlando for a while.
It’s not about “picking a team”; it’s about the credence we give the claims. It’s like a “Christian extremist” claiming to be a Catholic Mormon; at some point you have to wonder how much was actual religion-inspired violence and how much was because he was a confused loon.
Religion was certainly a big factor here, but is the religion to blame or the fact that this particular guy had “personal issues”? We seem perfectly happy to blame the other hundreds of mass shootings in the US on lone nuttery; why not this guy?
Gators gonna gate, gate, gate, gate, gate, gate…
My inlaws have done the “retire to Florida” thing, and their word is “assume every body of standing water has an alligator in it unless you absolutely know otherwise”. The gators get everywhere and they eat a lot of housepets (although fortunately few children despite this latest tragedy).
Seems this was a family on vacation from Nebraska. I guess they don’t get many gators in Nebraska.
There were “No swimming” signs posted at the beach. They probably should be amended to read “or wading.”
I started a thread about the alligator attack last night.
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=795794
Why discuss it in an unrelated thread?