The Sickness We Don't See

There's nothing in this world that makes me want to blog about the massacre by Devin Patrick Kelley at the First Baptist Church at Sutherland Springs. Everything about it is chilling and awful--this was supposed to be a safe space. This was a place where families were gathered to worship their Lord and enjoy fellowship as a community. This person mowed down lives of persons young and old for whatever reasons, and I think by now we should just discount the production of bullshit manifestoes.

Fuck it. If the monster was a socialist monster or a conservative monster--would it make as much of a difference as the frigging time-bomb in his head and the socialization malfunction that told him there were reasons to mow down innocent people with a rifle? Would being an Islamic monster or a Christian monster make the enormity of the thing he did less? He could be a democratic socialist atheist monster, and tick off every box of compatibility with my world view, and be no one I have an ounce of pity for, because one of my main thoughts about life is--you don't just randomly create a bloodbath of your fellow sentient primates because of some burr up your ass. He slaughtered mothers and fathers and children in innocent prayer. There isn't ever a reason for that action. No concocted worldview ever satisfies the why for that enormity. It boils down to his inability to see these human lives as anything but pieces on a board for some personal game--but what I do see, and always look for?

Domestic abuse. He was court martialed for abusing his wife and child.  How he treated the people closest to him, the most vulnerable and nearest to him, was a symptom or a sign of how he would eventually treat so many random others. This idea has been hashed out before, and I've documented it, and gifted feminist comedian and social justice warrior princess Samantha Bee just did a meaningful segment on the connection between domestic abuse and mass shootings. 

I don't really have anything to add--except my condolences to a community, a small Texas town where literally everyone knows someone who was affected by this tragedy. I care about their healing and want the church and it's communion to stay uninterrupted. But as long as I have a memory of violence and the causes thereof and the means thereof, I will continue talking about the toxic masculinity that sees violence as a necessary part of the enforcement of its claims on other people's behavior and sheer existence, and the acceptance of gun culture as a reinforcement of that toxic strain of social dominance. By murder. And by people accepting these tools and these unnecessary and petty ideas that lead to murder so easily. 

Dylann Storm Roof is A Terrorist

Nine people died in a massacre that was horrifically out of place--a young white male opened fire on a mid-week prayer meeting at an historic AME church, explicitly saying for the benefit of the person he left alive, that he had to commit these murders because "You rape our women and you're taking over our country."

That's quite an assertion to unload at prayer meeting. "You rape our women", Dylann Roof told a group that was mostly church-going women, an allegation against black people reminiscent of D.W. Griffith's 100 year old pioneering film, Birth of a Nation, "and you're taking over our country." 

Although the shooting took place in a church, I don't see a lot of reason to consider this an attack "on religion" or "religious liberty".  This young man, who is seen in the above picture in a jacket adorned with patches showing the flags of apartheid-era South Africa and Rhodesia, is broadcasting fairly undiluted anti-black racism and white supremacy. Not acknowledging the ideology of the shooter might seem like not giving his pernicious creed any more mileage than it deserves, but I think it's wrong to try and smooth this act of terror over with a sin of omission in denying its racist component, and yet more wrong to hijack this tragedy to try and serve some trumped-up idea that it's part of some larger war on "churches" or "religious people".

Some Thoughts About the Pew Religion Study

So, by now, most of my readers have probably heard about the Pew 2014 study on religion.  I find it an interesting document, especially because religion seems to be politicized in this country, and I blog about politics and religion. As an atheist (or probably more precisely, "militant agnostic"), I find the sharp rise in the "unaffiliated" category to be comforting as a probable hedge against political forces thrusting a theocracy on us. (Think I'm paranoid? One SCOTUS member has voiced the opinion that while there can be no federal church, there is no reason states can't have official churches, And polls have shown a high percentage of people who would make Christianity the national religion. I'm a regular reader of Rightwingwatch.org. I take the threat of theocracy fairly seriously.)

I find the reactions of other people interesting, as well. Because marriage equality has been a big topic of conversation lately, I find it interesting that some anti-gay politicians, like presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, and activists like Phyllis Schlafley, seem to believe that LGBT activism and especially the marriage equality movement are out to destroy the Christian church. And yet, nearly 50% of gays consider themselves to be Christian, and there is increasing acceptance of LGBT people in several Christian denominations.

Your moment of Retro-Zen--

Did you spot the moment of Xtian bias nestled between burgers and popcorn?

That was totes ancient.