School shooter texted 'I'm sorry' to family before killings

Please read the brief article and then notice this statement by the killer...

Also apologize to Andrews fam and xx fam for me taking them with me. But I needed to ride or dies with me on the other side...

This kid actually stood up in the cafeteria and shot his best friends because he wanted to be with them in the afterlife.

I hear believers saying, "Why do my beliefs matter to you?"

Well, some beliefs are rather dangerous. The idea that there is an afterlife can clearly lead people in this life to do things to prepare for the afterlife.

This tragedy is likely due to a specific medically defined psychosis rather than one particular "false belief" which countless people espouse, yet do not harm or murder people as a result.

It's socially dangerous to oversimplify matters like this.

As James Fallon demonstrates in "The Psychopath Inside", it's also oversimplifying things to say that acts like this are due to specific medical psychosis. A psychopath can be pro-social, as long as his beliefs aren't warped. Mixing the two is like the recipe for TNT.

Both medical conditions and warped beliefs are often enough on their own to lead to harmful behavior, but someone with a mix is definitely worse.

Interbane wrote:As James Fallon demonstrates in "The Psychopath Inside", it's also oversimplifying things to say that acts like this are due to specific medical psychosis. A psychopath can be pro-social, as long as his beliefs aren't warped. Mixing the two is like the recipe for TNT.

Both medical conditions and warped beliefs are often enough on their own to lead to harmful behavior, but someone with a mix is definitely worse.

There has to be a professional medical diagnosis of what the defined psychosis it likely is that lead this individual to act as he did.
Saying "false beliefs" are to blame is a broad generalization and oversimplification.
As I said before, many people (including yourself) live with false beliefs yet do not commit atrocities.

I know you are ready to jump out of your underwear on this one and blame religious superstition.
I am underwhelmed by the implicit conclusion here.


As a side note: social studies are notoriously difficult to hold as factual accounts of predicting human behavior. How James Fallon demonstrated his hypotheses validity is unknown to me.
I'd have to know more details. "As James Fallon demonstrates" is not enough for me.

ant wrote:How James Fallon demonstrated his hypotheses validity is unknown to me.

Read the book. You'll enjoy it I think. And he does demonstrate his hypothesis, as a personal embodiment of it. Unless you take his condition into account, you're guilty of oversimplification as well.

ant wrote:There has to be a professional medical diagnosis of what the defined psychosis it likely is that lead this individual to act as he did.

I'd like DWill's input here. The landscape of mental diagnoses have grown so much that nearly everyone is able to be diagnosed with something. If it's psychosis alone that leads to harmful behavior, and not other mental illnesses as well, then I'd say you're wrong. I'm assuming here, but I'd bet the entire spectrum is represented.

But if it is indeed some sort of psychosis, we have to wonder how to prevent psychos from doing harm. Do we jail them based on a brain scan? Put them in "therapy"? Exile them?

I think the best course of action is, we make sure their beliefs aren't mutated. This may be simple beliefs such as believing your neighbor is a succubus and must be put down. Therapy is the way this would be found and instilled. And I don't think wacko religious beliefs are something different. They are included here as harmful beliefs, if the person has psychosis.

Chris OConnor wrote:This kid actually stood up in the cafeteria and shot his best friends because he wanted to be with them in the afterlife.

I hear believers saying, "Why do my beliefs matter to you?"

Well, some beliefs are rather dangerous. The idea that there is an afterlife can clearly lead people in this life to do things to prepare for the afterlife.

He was clearly mentally disturbed. We are told he had broken up with his girlfriend the day before and was dropped from a sports team for alleged racist remarks a week before, and the gun he used was illegally in the possession of his Dad.
That's just a few things we do know.

How murdering your friends prepares you for the afterlife I don't know. What did he actually believe about the afterlife that made murder a good idea?

Of course beliefs can be dangerous. What's more dangerous is when a revolutionary government decides that religion is the opiate of the masses and it's a good idea to murder people in droves for having religious beliefs.

This will liberate the proletariat from these chains and bring them into the freedom of atheism and materialism.

In 1937 alone 85,000 Russian orthodox priests were shot dead.

And it wasn't just Stalin. These activities took place throughout the vast country of Russia and many other countries that were part of the Soviet Union.

You would be hard pressed to say that all those who engaged in these atrocities were psychopaths as there were so many involved at various levels.
So yes beliefs can be dangerous, but more so when it involves ruling factions oppressively imposing them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USSR_anti- ... _(1928-41)

Of course beliefs can be dangerous. What's more dangerous is when a revolutionary government decides that religion is the opiate of the masses and it's a good idea to murder people in droves for having religious beliefs.

Correct - the false belief that Communism was the answer to Mankinds ills, and as a result, the belief that all religious influence was antithetical to the perfect State, therefore it must be eradicated systematically.
Millions died as a result.

Oh yeah, that's right, we aren't supposed to talk about Secular Utopias gone mad.

It's interesting to see the deflection. Was Stalinist Russia harmful to many people? Yes. But what does that have to do with Chris' premise, other than serve as an attempt at misdirection? Are you both too afraid to admit that false beliefs are indeed harmful, and that religious beliefs often fall into this category? The atheists on booktalk have admitted the harm various secular beliefs have caused, such as eugenics. To say a belief is false doesn't mean it's necessarily religious. But it can be.

Interbane wrote:Was Stalinist Russia harmful to many people? Yes. But what does that have to do with Chris' premise, other than serve as an attempt at misdirection? Are you both too afraid to admit that false beliefs are indeed harmful, and that religious beliefs often fall into this category? The atheists on booktalk have admitted the harm various secular beliefs have caused, such as eugenics. To say a belief is false doesn't mean it's necessarily religious. But it can be.

It's not misdirection, Interbane. It's entirely in keeping with the premise that beliefs can be dangerous.
Secondly you don't know that an afterlife is a false belief. It may or may not be.
The main point is that belief in the afterlife doesn't ordinarily result in the kind of actions that this young man did.

Whereas in the Soviet Union the belief in the enslavement of the masses by 'superstitious' religion and the supposed need for 'liberation' promoted a sustained campaign of murders and persecution implemented by many over a considerable period of time.

I agree that beliefs can be dangerous including anti-religious militant atheist beliefs.

Chris's question about the harm of false belief involves a discussion of how sacrifice can be good or bad. By sacrifice of worldly pleasure the religious or political mind imagines a better world awaiting. This can be perverted into justification for murder, both by deranged individuals and by regimes who believe that the end justifies the means.

The concept of sacrifice for an afterlife was identified by Max Weber in The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism as a key factor enabling rapid industrial economic growth in Protestant societies. And yet the American capitalist icon Ayn Rand saw sacrifice as a bad thing, reducing the focus on the individual.

It is interesting to consider the afterlife as a psychosocial displacement of the real afterlife lived by descendants onto an imagined continuation of personal identity. When we sacrifice to make things better for our children or society it can be thought of as leading in the direction of building heaven on earth.