ST. AUGUSTINE, Fla., Aug. 14 (UPI) — A Florida man allegedly took out his frustration with God by slamming his pickup truck into a St. Augustine church Tuesday.
The St. John’s County Sheriff’s Office said Thomas Kyle Nursey, 23, of St. Augustine told deputies he drove his truck into St. Anastasia Catholic Church because he was angry with God, WJXT-TV in Jacksonville, Fla., reported. It wasn’t known what was at the core of Nursey’s anger.
The 3 a.m. vehicular assault on the church resulted in damage to a door and wall but a dollar estimate wasn’t available, the TV station said.
If you are angry with God and attack a Church is this a hate crime? Though I guess God isn’t a protected minority. But he is certainly a minority since their is only one God, but a census would give you three persons.
Thinking about this it does make it easier to understand why God became man 2000 years ago. Could you imagine the difficulties he would have now? Just think of the paperwork when having to check off his minority status. "I don’t see a block here for God/Man, I guess other will do. But it should at least be wholly other." I do wonder if Jesus would always have his hand raised in class when the teacher asks a question. "Don’t be a know-it-all Jesus! Sorry ma’am, but I can’t help it."
29 comments
Alright Hoodlum, aside from your missing my point entirely, I take issue with you excusing the Gulags in favor of your narrow bigotry. Stalin was the greatest mass murderer in history and many innocent people died simply because they would not got along with their Utopian belief that was rooted in an atheistic dogma. I was trying to be tongue-in-cheek, but I don’t think it’s a mark of an “enlightened” sort to downplay such a horrific time in history.
I think this is why Joseph tried to get the paperwork for the census all done and over with before Jesus was born! I’m not sure if he ever got around to completing the census…
Some morality you guys got there. No atheist would ever do this.
That’s a pretty impressive faith.
Hoodlum,
I don’t think anyone said that an atheist did do this.
Paolo,
I think Hoodlum is trying to say that because Christians do violent things, only Christians would do something violent like drive a vehicle into a building. Thus, the world would be a better less violent place without any form of religion – Christianity in particular.
John Lennon seductively expresses this sentiment in his song “Imagine”. This song plays at the end of “The Killing Fields” – though ironically enough it was the Khmer Rouge that lived out the sentiments promoted in Lennon’s song.
Has anyone ever seen the movie Commandments? Has a very similar ring to this. As for crimes commited by religious and non-religious, I think I’d take a car crash over the Gulags any day of the week.
Follow this logic, if you will:
Based on the current legislative/judicial environment in the country, we can’t have God in any law.
Since God is being legislated (is that a word?) out of existence, the federal government doesn’t have to recognize Him as a minority/majority or otherwise. Therefore, this would not be a hate crime.
But seriously, we should all pray for Mr. Nursey. He apparently really needs some help.
No atheist would ever do this.
Of course not, because if they did, then we would get mental gymnastics explaining that he really wasn’t atheist. The similarities between atheism and fundamentalistism keep piling up.
So, much stupid, so much time to deal with it.
Burnt, the Khmer Rouge had faith, they were followers of the Budda. Besides, religious organizations have put up similiar body counts.
M. Jordan, Pius XII friend Ante Pavelic and the Ustashi established camps as bad as anything the Soviets came up with. In fact, Pavelic’s camps like Jasenovac and the behavior of his followers was so demonic that hardened Nazis were appalled. Of course, the Soviets didn’t kill because they were atheists, but killed because they were communists 🙂
Bryan, open up your wallet and read your currency, god is not being oppressed.
Scott, this has gotta be the dumbest thing I’ve heard all day, and I spent my day dealing with a puppy dog love struck supervisor, Baltimore City school children, and smack addicts.
Atheists do not believe in god. Thus they do not get angry with god, thus will not drive into a church because they are angry with him. There is no mental gymnastics involved. It is a statement based on the very nature of atheism.
My money is on Mr. Nursey being displeased with the with the way the Diocese of St. Augustine reacted to Summorum Pontificum.
But that’s just me.
-J.
P.S. Good thing Stalin and Mao were atheists. Imagine what they would have done had their minds been polluted with thoughts of God.
To be an atheist, one must believe that:
1) Billions of years ago, there *just happened* to exist these abstract “somethings”
2)Which *just happened* to be atoms
3)Which *just happened* to get together
4)In ways which *just happened* to look like natural laws
5)That some of these configurations of atoms *just happened* to develop into stars
6)That around atleast 1 of these stars there *just happened* to develop planets
7)That one of these planets *just happened* to be exactly the right distance from this star that water could exist in a liquid state
8)That this planet *just happened* to have certain exact concentrations of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen.
9)That some of these molecules of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen *just happened* to get together to form amino acids
10)That some of these amino acids *just happened* to develop the ability to reproduce themselves
11)That some of these organisms *just happened* to develop the ability to evolve into more complex organisms
12)That some of these organisms *just happened* to develop self-awareness
13)And that one of them *just happens* to be you
To anyone who can believe all that, all I can say is: “Great is thy Faith!”
No atheist would ever do this. Of course not, because if they did, then we would get mental gymnastics explaining that he really wasn’t atheist. The similarities between atheism and fundamentalistism keep piling up.
Scott, how did you know Hoodlum would turn the Khmer Rouge into a deeply religious group? Do you have the gift of prophecy? Or are you two the same person paid by Jeff to generate activity on his blog?
I was equally amused at the sudden religious nature of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge. As Pol Pot was a student of marxism (which, dear Hoodlum, is athiestic)most biographers (all..unless I missed one) place him as an atheist himself. Like all marxist leaders, he had a hatred of religion as it was as Marx said, an opiate to the masses.
Bill touches on a good point. He describes the philosophical underpinnings of atheism. Now, agreed, Schoppenaur, Nietzche, Comte, Sarte could have done it better. But the accidental nature of reality, in their view, gives rise to a moral relativism which gives rise to a self-idolatry that is at the heart of athiesm. Pair this with the ‘science’ of Ernst Haeckle, Thomas Galton, and Margret Sanger; and the disposability of human life en masse is a justifiable means to an end that athiestic leaders such as POl Pot, Mao, Stalin, Lenin, Hitler (although he might be better described as a pagan) have adopted with abandon.
Hoodlum, you keep dragging out this little disaster in the Balkans and doing a rather tepid job (unless beating a dead horse is a sign of intellectual efficiency (sp?…it’s late)) of equivocation to monstrasities committed by athiestic regimes. It shows your utter lack of understanding of marxism. Even if everything you said is true about the Balkans, it pales in comparison. No doubt you’ll bring up speculation that had the crusaders had the firepower available now they would have wreaked heavy destruction (then again if ANY group of the middle ages had such firepower they would have wreaked havoc)…but that old canard is speculation which is transponding 21st century values and sensibilities on the 12th Century Mediterranean world.
It would seem you have gotten a lot of revisionist history and been taught poorly. Go back to primary sources. Have you read Marx, Engels, or any of the other philosophers and ‘scientist’ mentioned above? I have…extensively actually.
You seem to believe that athiesm has some moral high ground when compared to organized religion (how Bill Mahr [intellectual hack] of you!). History and the philosophical underpinnings of history (why things took place) would prove you fataly wrong.
Hoodlum,
As I recall in “Hitler, the War and the Pope” by Ronald Rychlak has a defense against the alledged involvement of Pope Pius XII and the Ushante.
I’ll be the first to apologize that I have not read the book in a couple of years and won’t be able to get my hands on a copy for at least 3 weeks.
It�s late so I�m answer some questions, while ignoring others, and all the while hoping the wireless network I�m borrowing stays active
Joe, Stalin was a seminarian remember? Check out Stalin’s hangman on how that influenced his behavior on how leaders should rule.
Bill, being an atheist only requires a disbelief in god. The rest is optional.
Burnt, the Time edition that details Pol Pot’s show trial details how the Buddhist beliefs of the Khmer Rouge led to its mass slaughter. They also do a nice comparison with the Vietnamese communists. The Khmer Rouge were Buddhist, and believed that suffering received was suffering earned, and that people could try again in the next life. With the Vietnamese, Confusicism was dominating, so there was a belief in reeducation.
As for getting paid by Jeff, I have a feeling one day, you�ll find the �Atheist Jester� has arrived. Gee, is anyone the least suspicious of his �conversion story�. It�s totally to stereotype.
FRBP, for all the slander about atheist morality, you rarely find us in jail. FOIA Bop for their statistics on religious orientation, and you�ll see atheists are underrepresented in the figures. Nor is this limited to the United States. In the 1980s, atheist Yugoslavia had a murder rate of 2.4 per 100,000, while America had a rate of 13.7 per 100,000. This is in spite of Yugoslavia�s more lenient judicial system, which capped sentences at 20 years, unless the death penalty was given and the far greater prevalence of firearms and military training. (Norman Cigar, Genocide in Bosnia: A policy of ethnic Cleansing, pg. 209 fn. 3. Other secular societies, like Sweden and Finland, had similar figures.
After the fall of Yugoslavia, murder rates increased right along with vocations and church attendance.
Of course, Christian morality is selective as well. It changes in concert with public attitudes. Women are now viewed as being equal to men. So all those passages based on the biblical belief in their inferiority are ignored. Praying in public is viewed by many Christians as sticking it to the man, so Jesus� explicit instruction not to do so is ignore. So is Jesus� order not to brag about charitable donations.
FRBR, as for intellectual honesty, unlike you and many others, I determine whether or not someone�s beliefs are relative before I blame them. Using your logic, many of the 3 million Vietnamese dead during Vietnam wars, were the result of Christianity. Let us not forget Kosovo, which was Christian on Christian warfare (NATO versus Serbia), or World War I, which, other than moderate Ottoman Empire involvement, was an all Christian show. Why is this? I am smart enough to seek out the true motivations of people, rather than accepting and propagating indoctrinated beliefs. Shocking as this may be to you, but atheism is only one part of anybody�s identity, and we share nothing more in common than a disbelief in deities.
As for, �Have you read Marx, Engels, or any of the other philosophers and ‘scientist’ mentioned above? I have…extensively actually.�
All I got to say is My supervisor is an avowed Marxist. As a birthday gift, he gave a complete set of Djilas� works. I�ve met the leadership of every Marxist/Maoist/Leninist/Titoist/Trokyist party in the state of Maryland. I also read Bruce Hoffman�s inside terrorism, where he talks about how the Red Brigades use of violence was not from Marx or even Gramsci, but something of their own manufacture. So yeah, I have a passing knowledge of leftist thought.
As for being poorly taught, do learn what the term revisionist history means and properly use it.
I haven�t read Rychlak�s defense yet. But I did read Dalin�s book, which was littered with errors and made a studied effort to dodge the counter evidence. Seriously, Dalin�s ignorance of the historiography and primary sources was embarrassing. For example, he frankly makes up the activities of the division, which was not directed at the Jews, who at that pointed been annihilated, fled to the Partisans, or were protected by their membership in the Ustashi or relationships with its members. If he read Martin Gilbert�s the Holocaust, he�d know Croatia, not the Netherlands, had the highest percentage of Jews killed. Croatia had 80% of its Jewish population killed, while the Netherlands suffered a lost of 79%. I’m too tired to go on listing his idiocy.
“Bill, being an atheist only requires a disbelief in God. The rest is optional.”
Not if the atheist is intellectually honest. What I posted is the logical progression the atheist’s thought process must take. Try to refute it.
Or is your atheism an emotional position rather than a rational one?
Don’t feed the trolls, guys. Hoodlum has been making up Ustashi revisionist history for years.
Don’t feed the trolls, guys.
Agreed. Starve the energy monster.
Not really Bill, take points 11 and 12. An atheist could simply believe in alien driven panspermia 🙂 Also in the future, misleading vividness.
Andy, first go learn what the term revisionist history means. Then, go familiarize yourself with the standard, mainstream historiography regarding the Ustashi. As my eventually- coming book will demonstrate, my views are very much in line with that.
It might be best to refrain from responding to the person who jokes about bulimia on his blog.
Hoodlum: Is that the best you can do? I’m disappointed. All you did was beg the question: Where did the aliens come from?
He can’t even spell Usta�e right, why bother?
….starting to think Hoodlum might be part of a blog conspiracy…….an alter ego of sorts
Paul, it’s how I got into shape during basic. 🙂
Bill, your entire premise was idiotic. All being an atheist means is not believing in the supernatural, like gods. Nothing else.
Doubt, Ustashi is an accepted spelling used by the FBI in its 1967 report discussing continued Ustashi-Vatican cooperation. US Army CIC, the Yugoslav government, and others use this spelling as well. There are about a dozen different spellings of varying degrees of acceptance.
Na, Kevin, I am totally on the level accept that I borrow wireless access from my neighbors to hide my secret identity.
Bill: “Or is your atheism an emotional position rather than a rational one?”
Hoodlum: “Bill, your entire premise was idiotic.”
Sorry, yesterday was hectic. But it gave me some time to ponder Hoodlum’s latest argument. I went back and read and re-read his posts and it occured to me what is going on. He judges a religion (and religion as a whole) based on the actions of it adherents (even if they refuted that adherency later) whereas I judge a religion or philosophy (say..marxism) on the merits of the religion and philosphy itself. Why? Because those who claim adherence to a religion (or philosophy) can be inconsistent in their adhering to that religion. For example, many ‘catholic’ politicians are pro-choice, rarely go to Church, and wantonly ignore church teachings that do not jibe with their own desrires or wants. Some have done everything short of formal apostasy. Are they really Catholic? Not really..more what would be called CINOs (Catholic in name only). But the underlying beliefs of Catholicism are a whole different matter. What is on paper is not always what is practiced.
Likewise marxism and athiesm have set beliefs and even, under classical definition, a faith by which they operate. The state, in Marxism, takes the place of a transcendent God. The individual, in the case of athiesm, takes the place of a trascendent God. Each have a soteriology, epistomology, and ethics that underlie their practice. Each have a fundamental belief system about the nature of creation and its end.
The case for my judgement is what does the actual writings say. Having read Galton, Marx, Haeckel, Sanger, Rand, Comte, Schoppenaur, Sarte, Engels, and others who purvey the athiestic or marxist mystiques and having read Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, John Chrysostom, Basil, John Paul II, and the New Testament…to name a few..the radical differnces in thought process, ethics, teliology, soteriology, attitudes about the nature of creation and such, I came to the conclusion that the utilitarianism of marxism and the moral anarchy of athiesm have such a dismal view of the created order and humanity that one who acts on these beliefs condemns themselves to despair and confusion. It might explain, at least, why a avowed athiest keeps coming into a Catholic blog over and over again. I would, in truth, never lable Hoodlum a troll..more to the case I would label him a searcher. Although I am sure he would rather be labeled a troll 🙂
“Stalin was a seminarian remember?”
And was kicked out of it, he also could have picked up a bit on ruling by watching how some of the Tzars did it.
I’d never label Hoodlum a troll either. An incredibly vile troll, maybe, but never just a troll.
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