And, in your answer, please bear in mind that one of your co-workers was a principal in the apprehension of the perpetrator.

____________________________

"It's gettin' so a businessman can't expect no return from a fixed fight. Now, if you can't trust a fix, what can you trust?"

Does it violate the laws of nature for someone to be both liberal and Christian? Reynolds supposes that it might be possible. Cute.

Brian A.
I'd rather be cycling.

Last I heard there are entire peoples who wish to wipe Christianity off the map. While no killing may "make sense" depending upon your belief system, it happens to be one of the most horrific ways of expressing rage available to the human race.

So it is very disturbing to hear someone with education claim there are shades of degrees when it comes to killing innocent people. Like, "it's OK to kill a liberal, because they are an enemy of our country." Or, "killing a liberal Christian is OK, because they have a 22% differential in their beliefs than I do." In some parts that is called a sectarian view, and people do indeed murder one another under this logic.

I hope, instead, Mr. Reynolds was trying to say that hating "liberal Christians" isn't exclusive of hating "Christians"-- as in, you may hate ALL Christians, but especially liberal ones. Of course, since his "blog" doesn't allow comments, we may never know.

Oh, Glenn never means anything by it.

Although it's pretty clear to me that he meant it made more sense for someone to kill liberals than Christians.

You are reading things into Reynolds' words that are not there, and you did the same to SayUncle. You are seeing what you want to see.

Yes, I meant "credible explanation." It seemed odd to me that someone who "hated Christians" would shoot up a Unitarian church in particular. On the other hand, it's perfectly possible to hate lots of different people, so the two aren't mutually exclusive. Perhaps I was too telegraphic there.

On the other hand, perhaps jumping to the conclusion that I approve of killing liberals was a bit uncharitable, too?

We want to know WHY?

First of all,to try & answer the question of why by accessing blame to anyone from the ramblings of a very disturbed individual is fruitless.

There are factual answers to why.The individual has a history of dark moods & heavy drinking.The individual blames those who are different for his lot in life.The individual has shown vilolent intent & sucidal tendencies.Those factors came together in the travails of his life & resulted in the rage of this horrific act.

However,we can not apply reason to the question of why?

Because reason can not be applied to an unreasonable act.

Toby, you've made your point, now knock it off. This tragedy touched the lives of numerous people most of us - including Glenn - know personally.

As a Unitarian, I understood Glenn's meaning perfectly well. And I had the same reaction to hearing that the motive was liberal-bashing, not Christian-bashing. Why would a Christian-hater start with a church where many of the members don't even claim to be Christians? The majority of Unitarians consider themselves liberals.

As for whether Glenn approves of murder just because he holds political differences, that is absurd. I supported the war in Iraq, and opposed the majority of my fellow Unitarians in doing so. Just because I disagreed with them, and thought their isolationism to be the height of folly, didn't mean that I would ever want them -- or any other group of innocent, unarmed people -- to be attacked by a lunatic murderer.

That's the difference between psychopaths and normal people, after all. Normal people can agree, even passionately, without thinking that it is justified to murder one's opposition. You may disagree with Glenn Reynolds blog, and his politics, but I sincerely hope you would never dream of praising someone who would want to murder him for those views.