Making Sense of Evil (Virginia Tech Massacre)

Let me be clear at the start - I strongly disagree with the actions of the people you mentioned - McVeigh, Choo, KKK members, they are all repugnant to me.However, are they "evil"?These people are making decisions to do their actions based on their worldviews. Their rationale may be incorrect, their logic may be faulty, but their actions come from these things.In otherwords, McV blows up Oklahoma City because of his view of Waco/ATF/whatever, but there is a reasoning there. He isn't choosing to do "evil", he's choosing to take an action which he feels is correct and just - even though 99.99% of the people would say "You are sooooo wrong."Personally, I think "evil" is when someone is taking actions that even they know are false. Televangelists like Oral Roberts claiming that "God said he was going to kill me if I don't raise 3 million" - that is Evil.The Neo-Cons falsifying scientific reports about Global Warming because they want to appease their Big Oil masters - that is Evil.A KKK member, poorly educated and raised in a world steeped in racism is merely acting on his established world view. He believes he is doing "good".

I haven't seen Cho's "manifesto" so I can't comment on his justifications.You make some good points, but I have to disagree.The crusader who believes he is doing good isn't evil, he's just coming from a different perspective.If McV is evil, or the 911 hijackers are evil, then we have to say that the Christian cruisades were evil or that the soldiers mislead into war are evil.On the other hand, when someone KNOWINGLY alters the facts for their own profit, or preaches to his television audience as a way of financing his blood diamond business, that's evil.You can pursuade the evil person, _because_ of their self interest. It's the person who thinks they are doing good that you can't pursuade.

Clearly the 911 hijackers were acting in accordance to a very strong belief in God, their actions were completely in line with their worldview as to what they thought he wanted them to do.Who are we to tell them they were wrong about God's desires?

Not to make this thread about politics, but it's the best example I can come up with.There is a world of difference between -
FDR lies about fore-knowledge of Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor, knowing that that will draw America into WWII. (supposition - just go with it)Bush lies about Iraq to draw America into war in the Middle East.Firstly, FDR lie is one of omission. He had the info and he didn't act, the result would be the same if he had not had the info in the first place. Where as in Bush's case, it was a lie of his own creation. If he had not created the lie, things would have turned out very differently.Second, FDR wasn't an employee of the Industrial War Complex at the time. In fact it didn't exist. The current administration is up to their eyeballs in contracts with the very people they work for.While we shouldn't be debating politics on this thread, I just wanted to point out that while anyone can claim to be lying "for the greater good" it's in our best interest to dig a little deeper and see who's good is getting greater.

By that reasoning God's actions are frequently immoral in the Bible. Genesis, Exodus, Job - lots of places God either directly, or through an agent, causes the deaths of others.

I'm really trying to understand this statement.If you are saying - "Sitting around blaming people rather than trying to save lives is irresponsible" then fine.But if you are saying "assigning blame after the fact is irresponsible" then I have to say you are crazy.It's EXTREMELY important to sort out the cause and try and fix it. Now in the VT case, causation is going to be hard to determine.But the "blame game" sound bite and the reference to Katrina makes me think that you are definitely NOT assigning blame to the people that sold him the gun.Ever read this headline - "Student at VT goes on a stabbing rampage! Nearly 4 are wounded."

Not to go too far off topic but...The problem with Katrina was not that people didn't evacuate. That's always the case. There were people on Mt. St. Helens when it went up.The problem was that GWB didn't do a damn thing about helping people for a week afterwards. The fact that Sean Penn was there in a row boat while GW was STILL on vacation is what proved he hates black people.As for the gun. Yes, the specific person who sold him the gun didn't break any laws. It's not illegal to sell a crazy homocidal maniac a hand gun and a shitload of bullets.Perhaps it's the law that's to blame.But then again, guns don't kill people. People with easy access to guns kill people.

Two problems with this:
1) "Accidental shooting" How many people are accidently shot and killed? There's no motive there. How many people are accidently stabbed and killed? Not quite so many.2) People with motivation and a pointy stick don't kill nearly as many people as those with motivation and a 9mm with lots and lots of clips.

Typical conservative crap.You honestly want to claim that if you and I had a killing contest where you were using a knife, you'd kill as many people as quickly as I would with a machine gun.Either you don't know much about machine guns or you don't know much about knives.The fact of the matter is if this kid had a muzzle loader, like what was available at the time the 2nd A was written, we would have killed maybe 3-4 people - assuming people didn't either try to stop him or just ran away while he was reloading.If he had a knife, he'd have killed even less.If he had a uzi he'd kill even more.It sounds like you would be fine with every house having guns. I can only assume that you would likewise be fine with machine guns, armor piercing bullets, etc.The 2nd states "arms", guess what? A nuke is an "arm". Guess we should make it a free for all. AFter all, I bet the neighbor would damn sure clean up after his dog if he knew I was prepared to blow up the entire friggin' city with my nuke