Typical Atheist behaviour?

[AYHJA]

Man, like you raum, I love good threads...I literally go through a ritual now before coming to VU...I light a candle, brew a nice hot cup of my special Java, and have a sit down to read...

NOW...Psychology and criminal behavior, I'm somewhat of a shade tree mechanic in the field if such a thing exists...I did consider the sociopath angle, but besides the things you mentioned, there are some things that stand them apart from even them...The first being that they were a group...There is the lack of conscious and responsibility, but they themselves did not appear to be anti social...They did not hurt each other or their own families...Sociopaths are notoriously callous, these guys almost seemed to be doing this for sport, for fun...Maybe I guess you could say criminally sociopaths, but then I go back to x3n's point in his first post, something seems to almost be cultivating this behavior...

A great many things can make someone a sociopath, but according to many sources and what I personally think, they don't often exhibit this kind of behavior...They see an old woman fall down and can't stop laughing...They see someone getting hurt, and don't think twice about it, let alone helping them...These dudes were fully expecting not only to get away with the shit, but to have something to gander at in old age..?! Wow man, that's beyond on so many levels...This is everything, to the extreme...If it were one person, for me, I think I would be able to accept that this was some sort of exception...Only, there were 3 of them...And all 3 of them seem to be clones of the other in thought, action, and emotion...

One guy filmed while the other two used crude things to cut out his guts and gouge his eyes.......I mean, honestly..... What human could be capable of that with no cross to bear one way or the other..? To me, this situation, and I am only thinking that we don't have all of the facts, spills over any attempt to quantify it...It's just too much...

[blixa]

There is so much that could make this far less surprising and "evil" than it first comes across as....

My initial assumption is you would find horrible childhood abuse in the dominant personality/s of the three, a whole range of previous incidents/behaviour that could have served as warning signs etc etc...the submisve personality/s experiencing similar childhoods and or some form of mental disability/learning issues and a whole range of this or that type personality disorders for all three etc etc...

Who the fuck knows, but a decent book written about them in a few years would be interesting
I think blaming it on atheism is too easy, just like blaming religion for violent extreamist behaviour is too easy...chances are a bit of everything thats has been mentioned in this thread was a contributing factor to their behaviour.

[x3n]

Wow, I'd forgotten about this thread. Heh.

I would argue that having a cosmic babysitter has gotten us, as a species, very VERY relaxed about our contribution to each other. It has made us complacent in helping others for a fucking dog biscuit that we will never get. We forgot to be good for our sake. Yes, we forgot to know ourselves, and entrusted the answers to weaker humans. To liars and con-men, who, if engaged in conversation, would soil and embarrass themselves in admission of ignorance. Except in the art of bullshit.

Clueless parents with little time and attention to their cubs are almost always behind these nuggets of gold. Not instilling a desire, or at the very least, a curiosity for learning in general, is a foundation ripe with disease.

[Aemeth]

Here is what gets me:

It takes a special kind of freedom to be able to do what these boys did. Namely, a complete disregard for social standards to the degree of life itself. Imagine if this individuality would have manifested itself in some way that didn't make me want to vomit while only watching the video out of my peripheral vision. I am convinced that if this transcendence of culture and arguably innatism with respect to senseless murder could have somehow been channeled into something Mother Teresian, we would see some significant, unparalleled "good" come out of these "crazy" people.

I would love to have a conversation with them. I would probably learn more about true human nature and flat-out reality than any experience I will ever have or college philosophy class I will ever take.

[raum]

Aemeth the world should be as hesitant about unparrelled good as its evil counterpart.


Like look at what the negative impact of Mother Theresa's work is:

Did you know Mother Theresa was one of the largest benefactors of funds from the Keatings Savings and Loans scandal in the 1980's that bankrupted entire parts of America? And she knew it, requested clemency to keep the funds, even though there was sufficient evidence that she knew the money was stolen? She never repied to requests sent by the prosecuting attorney to return the money.

As late as 1989, "Mother Theresa" called AIDS a "just retribution for improper sexual conduct".


Meanwhile, she gave aspirin to cancer patients, and needles were rinsed and reused in her clinics.

The woman was bent - she considered the conversion of the sick to be more important than treatment. her millions and millions were enough to build about 14 modern medical treatment centers, and she used make shift clinics and dirty needles, and said "I think it is very beautiful for the poor to accept their lot, to share it with the passion of christ." and "I think the world is being helped so much by the suffering of the poor people." She was set on converting, not treating.

and Dr. Robin Fox has confirmed that NO ONE is on record as having EVER been transferred to a REAL hospital. He described a draconian voew of 4,000 nuns and volunteers that sat next to the ill and dying bidding them to accept a religion that validated their suffering as a blessing.

and this is in books and all - it is well known she was agnostic - and was "masking" her lack of faith, if she ever really had one. Before Calcutta, she was vocal about wanting to create an Order to rival the Franciscans in size and scope. In her letters to the church, she even said "jesus, if he be true." and stated she needed to mask herself in a smile, because she had no faith.... upon death, she asked those letters be destroyed, the church published them. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/08/ ... 9062.shtml

She ran conversion factories... and they were a sham. They were a way for her to see others find a faith she could not. that is morally reprehensible and a very evil ploy. it is a vampirism of the soul that was institutionalized. to feed doctrine and hope to the ill to feed on their faith.


and AIDS in Ireland and elsewhere skyrocketed after 1992 when she asked the country to commit to no controception and no abortion. and several other countries saw the same exact thing.

spare me the "Mother Theresa" bit... unstable direction is dangerous, no matter what.

[Aemeth]

Thank you for telling me 95% of what I already knew about Mother Teresa...I meant the term as a American pop culturally-defined idealistic symbol, not as an argument for the riches abundant in MT's soul...

Indifference is the opposite of love. Hate is just love with its hat on backwards. If those people could just turn that hat around, they could do way more than most people who have never even thought of hurting somebody...

It is a moral equivalent of an analogy my high school teacher told me regarding the stock market. He said a lot of rich people have lost a lot of money in the stock market, and a lot of poor people haven't lost anything. Instead of money we are dealing with the investment of passion. It seems that most of the people I know who don't do anything "bad" also don't do anything "good," and conversely, those who start the fights are also often the ones who will help me out when I am stuck.

So yeah, Mother Teresa wasn't as saintly as the masses think. But that doesn't discount my argument that these crazy killers could probably "do more good" if they redirected their passion than many everyday Joe's that blindly drift through life without a care...

[raum]

Thank you for telling me 95% of what I already knew about Mother Teresa...I meant the term as a American pop culturally-defined idealistic symbol, not as an argument for the riches abundant in MT's soul...

Indifference is the opposite of love. Hate is just love with its hat on backwards. If those people could just turn that hat around, they could do way more than most people who have never even thought of hurting somebody...

Indifference isn't the opposite of love to me. Indifference to me is just a true state of emotional neutrality; unconditional, but unmotivated.

So yeah, Mother Teresa wasn't as saintly as the masses think. But that doesn't discount my argument that these crazy killers could probably "do more good" if they redirected their passion than many everyday Joe's that blindly drift through life without a care...

I don't think she did any more good that these people did. I think she did something just as severe in a less directly violent way, that killed far more people, and warped the conventions of people's souls. So seeing you saying "they could have done some crazy "good" mother theresa stuff" to me is a sign you believe what she did was somehow commendable. i call to remind you that she was just damn near psychotic, from her own admission, and it was all part of some terrible torture to wrest from the suffering their capacity for a faith she did not share to convert them before they died, not to help treat their medical condition or ease their suffering. Pop culture be damned.

[Aemeth]

Ok I must not be emphasizing my main point so I will just post it again...

It seems that most of the people I know who don't do anything "bad" also don't do anything "good," and conversely, those who start the fights are also often the ones who will help me out when I am stuck.

[AYHJA]

Well, considering the fact that good or bad is a point of view (which is pretty much the scope of raum's post), I have a hard time finding the point in what you're saying...I mean, I kinda see what you're saying, but...Using your example about the guys that start fights, why is it 'good' that they help you out when you're stuck, and not 'bad' that you got yourself stuck in the first place..? Maybe you needed that ass whipping they helped you avoid so that you wouldn't be in that situation again...

[Aemeth]

Look, all I am saying is that I go to a pretty conservative school and the best "Christians" are usually never there for me if I need a ride or need to borrow a few bucks, etc...The guys who are there for me are the ones who drink too much, cheat on a test, and engage in other vicious (vicious in the sense of root word 'vice') activities...In my experience, the people who do the "worst" things are the ones who at least hold the potential to do the best things also...If a serial killer and typical, every day respectable Joe both loved AYHJA forums, the serial killer would be more likely to donate his or her life savings to it when he died (that is my example of the utmost "good" deed :D)...Does this help clear things up?