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I can't find this in any online English newspapers or websites, but several of my students and coworkers have reported reading on Korean online sites that the parents of the gunman tried to kill themselves Tuesday night or Wednesday morning, with the father succeeding and the mother barely being saved by paramedics. Maybe just rumour, but this serves to make the story even more tragic - especially considering that they have one other daughter who would be left to deal with all of this by herself.

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Thanks for the rumour-busting. I wonder if there's some conscious or unconscious pressure going on that the parents would be expected to commit suicide.

The shooter had a bit of a reputation before all this, apparently.

Face of the Campus Killer

The killer behind America's deadliest mass shooting had come to the attention of police as early as 2005, the Guardian learned yesterday. Cho Seung-hui was revealed to be a troubled loner of South Korean descent who left behind a disturbing note of grievances against his university saying: "You caused me to do this."

Police investigating the Virginia Technical College massacre, which left 33 dead, mainly students, blamed Cho, a fourth-year English student who lived on the campus, for earlier incidents ranging from stalking women to setting fire to a dormitory. The police suspect he was also behind persistent recent bomb threats.

Professor Lucinda Roy, a former head of the English department, said Cho had caused alarm in 2005 for taking illicit mobile phone photographs of women from under the desks and writing an essay brimming with rage.

At the time, she emailed Cho expressing her concerns and also contacted campus police, the legal department and counselling services. Cho responded with a long, angry and incoherent email.

Prof Roy said campus police reviewed Cho's essay but decided not to intervene as it did not contain specific threats. Instead he was removed from class and received individual tutoring from Prof Roy. He attended sessions with a hat pulled down over his face and wearing dark glasses. "He just seemed like the loneliest man I've ever known," she said last night.

Etc.

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Thanks for the rumour-busting. I wonder if there's some conscious or unconscious pressure going on that the parents would be expected to commit suicide.

That was similar to what I was wondering when I heard the rumour but couldn't find any verification. If they had committed suicide it wouldn't have been surprising, but at the same time I had my doubts.

Hey hamilton, thanks for the perspective from South Korea. It's very interesting.

I'm sure it will all get even more interesting in the days to come. Right now one of the biggest fears is that of a backlash against Koreans or just Asian people in general. I'll post more stuff as it comes up, but right now I'm going to go home and go to bed.

One more thing before I go, though: One of my students said to me this afternoon, "Today (Wednesday) is a very tragic day." I responded by saying, "I think the tragedy was yesterday." Unfortuantely, in the minds of some (but certainly not all) people, the fact that the killer was Korean was more sad and more shocking than the event itself.

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They figured it out!!! The DEVIL made him do it!

Seriously ... Fox News is reporting this here:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,266860,00.html

Did the Devil Make Him Do It?

Wednesday, April 18, 2007

By Lauren Green

FC1

ADVERTISEMENT

When unexplained violence takes center stage, we tend to turn to modern psychology to explain it.

But there is an alternative explanation, one that has been played out in film, stage and writings since the beginning of history.

Was Cho Seung-Hui schizophrenic … psychotic … manic-depressive? Or were the shooting deaths of 32 people, including Cho himself, at Virginia Tech University part of the ongoing struggle between God and Satan … good against evil … lightness and darkness?

Could Cho have been possessed by the Devil? Could that explain the massacre at Virginia Tech?

Dr. Richard Roberts, president of Oral Roberts University, shouts an unequivocal “Yes!â€

“Based on what I’ve seen in the news," Roberts said in an interview, "there’s no doubt that this act was Satanic in origin."

Roberts added that he doesn’t know if it was Satanic “possession†or “oppression.†Possession, he said, occurs when Satan takes over a person’s life, and the person’s actions are dictated by demonic possession within. Roberts says he’s seen this type and has seen the Devil cast out of a person.

Satanic “oppression," on the other hand, is "that which comes against." "It’s not in a person, but is coming against them, trying to put evil thoughts in their minds,†Roberts said.

He said that the evil thoughts in Satanic oppression can be fairly innocuous, or they can be harmful. And the oppression can be in the form of fear, depression or discouragement, he said, because “Satan comes to kill, steal and destroy.â€

Roberts says we’ll never know whether Cho was "possessed" or "oppressed," because the killer has died. But he did leave a note blasting everyone around him, calling them “rich kids,†and “deceitful charlatans,†and then blaming them, saying “you made me do this.â€

Roberts describes Cho's writings as “just words,†and says words are one of Satan’s tools to bring about Man’s destruction.

In Judaism, however, there is no belief in a supernatural evil and no belief that demon possession is at the heart of what happened in Blacksburg on Monday.

Rabbi Peter Rubenstein from New York’s Central Synagogue, says, “… Every human has two inclinations, one to do evil and one to do good…. Our hope is the individual tries to access the inclination to do good. There is a balance." But, he said, evil is done "when we enter that other side.â€

Rubenstein is convinced that Cho, who reportedly was taking anti-depressants, may have been sick.

"Every human being has the ability to control that kind of rage," Rubenstein said. "This is a person that lost contact with anything decent in their lives, including their own inclination to do good.â€

It’s not only theologians who talk of evil. A new book by psychologist Philip Zimbardo, “The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil,†offers a perspective that may shed light on Cho’s inner demons.

"The Lucifer Effect" is based on the Stanford Prison Experiment of 33 years ago. It exposed how the prison environment creates evil and violent behavior, like at Abu Ghraib. It also explained the group or systemic evil that occurred under Hitler, communist regimes and during the genocide in Rwanda.

Zimbardo says there are prisons that are not confined to a place or building — emotional prisons of “normal†individuals that can create aberrant and evil behavior. Whether that prison is shyness, loneliness, anger or hate, it can grow and manipulate an individual into believing his only course of action is to break out, using any means possible, including violence.

In the case of Cho, he said, the “rich kids,†the “deceitful charlatans" and the women who rejected him may have been people he saw as his “jailers,†the wardens responsible for his emotional incarceration. Cho vilified them, found them guilty of great offenses and then methodically executed his warped sense of justice: the murders of 32 people.

Atheists don’t believe in the Devil or demonic possession, but there is some respect for the theological idea of evil. Michael Shermer, editor of the Skeptics Magazine, acknowledges Christianity’s take on Satan has a great deal of weight to it. “Religion figured out long before science the pervasiveness of man’s 'vil'side, that’s why they created so many rules," he said.

Shermer, of course, doesn’t believe in anything like demon possession. And surprisingly, he has an unlikely man who almost agrees with him: Rev. Robert H. Schuller, founding pastor of the Crystal Cathedral, who says he’s “not prepared to give the Devil credit for insanity.â€

In addition to his theological accolades, Schuller has a background in psychology. He says of Cho: “I think it’s pure psychotic crack-up.

“I’m not denying that Satan himself could have been in this act. I’m just saying if he was, I’m not giving him credit for it.â€

But the scenario of demonic possession fits neatly in the Christian paradigm. It says the whole of human existence is predicated on the narrative of man’s fall from Grace in the Garden of Eden, after Satan’s temptation of Adam and Eve, and that wherever there is good, there is Satan trying to destroy it.

The battle of good vs. evil in all of us is not a simple choice between two forks in a road, but a cosmic war being waged over our souls.

Says Dr. Richard Lints of Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary: “The lesson, I think, is that when we don’t take our own evil seriously, we are much more liable to perpetrate acts of evil.â€

Lauren Green is FOX News Channel's Religion Correspondent.

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Hey hamilton, thanks for the perspective from South Korea. It's very interesting.
I'm sure it will all get even more interesting in the days to come. Right now one of the biggest fears is that of a backlash against Koreans or just Asian people in general. I'll post more stuff as it comes up, but right now I'm going to go home and go to bed.

One more thing before I go, though: One of my students said to me this afternoon, "Today (Wednesday) is a very tragic day." I responded by saying, "I think the tragedy was yesterday." Unfortuantely, in the minds of some (but certainly not all) people, the fact that the killer was Korean was more sad and more shocking than the event itself.

sad they even think of anti-Korean backlash... Bush is from Texas but just because of that I don't automatically distrust Texans... america has come to be perceived as such a bully state

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watched Cho Seung Hui's video confession he sent to NBC... basically pissed off at rejection and humiliation... sounds like he was targeted by some sort of physical abuse by his peers... pissed at the rich and injustices in general... felt persecuted

strange Fox says he was possessed as he continually compares himself to Jesus on the cross and says he's being forced to die for our sins

sad stuff

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Hey hamilton' date=' thanks for the perspective from South Korea. It's very interesting.[/quote']
I'm sure it will all get even more interesting in the days to come. Right now one of the biggest fears is that of a backlash against Koreans or just Asian people in general. I'll post more stuff as it comes up, but right now I'm going to go home and go to bed.

One more thing before I go, though: One of my students said to me this afternoon, "Today (Wednesday) is a very tragic day." I responded by saying, "I think the tragedy was yesterday." Unfortuantely, in the minds of some (but certainly not all) people, the fact that the killer was Korean was more sad and more shocking than the event itself.

sad they even think of anti-Korean backlash... Bush is from Texas but just because of that I don't automatically distrust Texans... america has come to be perceived as such a bully state

I don't think that it's America's reputation that has created this fear so much as the Korean mindset has created the fear. They think this way because it is what they themselves would do if the shoe were on the other foot. For example, a few years ago, a couple of Korean schoolgirls were killed in a trafic accident when they were crushed by a US Army tank. The result? Widespread *anti-American* demonstrations and crowds attempting to storm the American embassy. Granted, the situation was a little different for a number of reasons (including the simple fact of the presence of the US Army in Korea and the American Army's insistence on trying the soldiers responsible internally rather than handing them over to the Korean authorities - which, I should point out, they were 100% entitled to do under the legal treaty governing the actions of the army while stationed here), but the result would have been the same if it had been an American English teacher rather than a soldier. Koreans are also pointing to the treatment of American Muslims after 9/11 as an example, but they have a hard time perceiving that the average American can see a vast and fundamental difference between 9/11 and a murderous rampage by a mentally-deranged person who just happened to have been born in South Korea.

The concepts of community and "one-ness" are much different here, as are the concepts of image and reputation. I have had people ask me if I would feel sad or guilty if the killer had turned out to be Canadian, and they can't understand my reasoning when I say no.

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Also, there is the L.A. Riots to consider. Many people have been mentioning this event lately in conjunction with the events in Virginia, especially as we are closing in on an anniversary .

Expanding on my "one-ness" point (I'm totally rambling right about now, but ideas keep popping into my head as I sit here), I often have students say things like, "Koreans think blah blah blah about topic ABC; what do Canadians think about this topic?" And it's hard for me to explain that "Canadians" don't necessarily think a certain way about many topics, and that we all have different opinions about a lot of topics.

I don't mean to suggest, of course, that everyone here thinks exactly the same way or that there is no difference of opinion, but many (most?) people here that they can understand each other well based only on the fact that they are the same race - hence, they are alike. And for some of them it's hard to draw a distinction between nationality and ethnicity, because if you are Korean it is the same thing, unilke in immigrant countries like the US, Canada or Australia.

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I don't think that it's America's reputation that has created this fear so much as the Korean mindset has created the fear. They think this way because it is what they themselves would do if the shoe were on the other foot. For example, a few years ago, a couple of Korean schoolgirls were killed in a trafic accident when they were crushed by a US Army tank. The result? Widespread *anti-American* demonstrations and crowds attempting to storm the American embassy. Granted, the situation was a little different for a number of reasons (including the simple fact of the presence of the US Army in Korea and the American Army's insistence on trying the soldiers responsible internally rather than handing them over to the Korean authorities - which, I should point out, they were 100% entitled to do under the legal treaty governing the actions of the army while stationed here), but the result would have been the same if it had been an American English teacher rather than a soldier. Koreans are also pointing to the treatment of American Muslims after 9/11 as an example, but they have a hard time perceiving that the average American can see a vast and fundamental difference between 9/11 and a murderous rampage by a mentally-deranged person who just happened to have been born in South Korea.

The concepts of community and "one-ness" are much different here, as are the concepts of image and reputation. I have had people ask me if I would feel sad or guilty if the killer had turned out to be Canadian, and they can't understand my reasoning when I say no.

somehow a tank that's the responsibility of a military superpower killing schoolgirls, even accidentally, actually sounds more unsettling to me than an american-ized, though poorly adjusted, Korean guy loosing it and shooting people on purpose... which is probably strange... can see what you're saying though... suppose maybe its the Korean sense of responsibility that sounds so alien to north american ears

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This has Scottish Rite codes all over and the timeline is fantastic. All of these incidents over the years all happen in the waxing new moon after the easter full moon. Siruis is also in direct alignent and produces a powerful channel for communication between the dimensions existing here on earth which is the key to all the 'Craft'.

Ive gone through the articles posted here alone less all the other news reports Ive looked at regarding this and it is dripping with Masonic ritual. The number 33 is a very powerful number and even though it keeps appearing in these stories it is a falsified numbered. 33 is not the actual number of dead but it has been reported???? Sounds like a message to everyone out there who is watching. I edited in colours and bold the easy references to pick out.

Thanks for the rumour-busting. I wonder if there's some conscious or unconscious pressure going on....[color:red]THERE IS IF YOU READ BETWEEN THE LINES

The shooter had a bit of a reputation before all this, apparently.

Face of the Campus Killer

which left [color:red]33 dead

Etc.

fuckingFOXnews Said:Did the Devil Make Him Do It?

Wednesday, April 18, 2007

By Lauren Green

“Based on what I’ve seen in the news," [color:blue]Roberts( Oral Robert's is a IV Degree Master Mason of the 33rd degree Scottish Rite. said in an interview, "there’s no doubt that this act was Satanic in origin."

"The Lucifer Effect" is based on the [color:red]Stanford Prison Experiment of 33 years ago. It exposed how the prison environment creates evil and violent behavior, like at Abu Ghraib. It also explained the group or systemic evil that occurred under Hitler, communist regimes and during the genocide in Rwanda.

Lauren Green is FOX News Channel's Religion Correspondent. [color:red]And probably also a Mason following the 33rd Scottish Rite.

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Nice voice of reason here, against the neo-religio-con crap that seems to ooze in like mold in stories like this.

Atheist's Blog

Dinesh D'Souza, Atheism, Virginia Tech [second Update]

by mapantsula

Thu Apr 19, 2007 at 03:55:16 PM PDT

I am an atheist and a professor at Virginia Tech. Dinesh D’Souza says that I don’t exist, that I have nothing to say, that I am nowhere to be found.

But I am here.

* mapantsula's diary :: ::

*

Dinesh D'Souza writes:

"Notice something interesting about the aftermath of the Virginia Tech shootings? Atheists are nowhere to be found. Every time there is a public gathering there is talk of God and divine mercy and spiritual healing. Even secular people like the poet Nikki Giovanni use language that is heavily drenched with religious symbolism and meaning.

"The atheist writer Richard Dawkins has observed that according to the findings of modern science, the universe has all the properties of a system that is utterly devoid of meaning. The main characteristic of the universe is pitiless indifference. Dawkins further argues that we human beings are simply agglomerations of molecules, assembled into functional units over millennia of natural selection, and as for the soul--well, that's an illusion!

"To no one's surprise, Dawkins has not been invited to speak to the grieving Virginia Tech community. What this tells me is that if it's difficult to know where God is when bad things happen, it is even more difficult for atheism to deal with the problem of evil. The reason is that in a purely materialist universe, immaterial things like good and evil and souls simply do not exist. For scientific atheists like Dawkins, Cho's shooting of all those people can be understood in this way--molecules acting upon molecules.

"If this is the best that modern science has to offer us, I think we need something more than modern science."

It is hardly surprising that Dinesh D’Souza is once again not only profoundly mistaken but also deeply offensive. But I thought it worthwhile to say something in response, not because most people would put the point in the same morally reptilian manner as D’Souza, but because there is at least some vague sense amongst people that we atheists don’t quite grasp the enormity of Monday’s events, that we tend towards a cold-hearted manner of thinking, that we condescend to expressions of community, meaning, or bereavement.

So I will tell you, Mr D’Souza, what I grasp and where I am to be found.

I understand why my wife was frantic on Monday morning, trying to contact me through jammed phone lines. I can still feel the tenor of her voice resonating in my veins when she got through to me, how she shook with relief and tears. I remember how my mother looked the last time she thought she might have lost a son, so I have a vivid image of her and a thousand other mothers that hasn’t quite left my mind yet.

I am to be found in Lane Stadium, looking out over a sea of maroon and orange, trying not to break down when someone mentions the inviolability of the classroom and the bond between a teacher and his students. That is my classroom, Mr D’Souza, my students, my chosen responsibility in this godless life, my small office in the care of humanity and its youth.

I know that brutal death can come unannounced into any life, but that we should aspire to look at our approaching death with equanimity, with a sense that it completes a well-walked trail, that it is a privilege to have our stories run through to their proper end. I don’t need to live forever to live once and to live completely. It is precisely because I don’t believe there is an afterlife that I am so horrified by the stabbing and slashing and tattering of so many lives around me this week, the despoliation and ruination of the only thing each of us will ever have.

We atheists do not believe in gods, or angels, or demons, or souls that endure, or a meeting place after all is said and done where more can be said and done and the point of it all revealed. We don’t believe in the possibility of redemption after our lives, but the necessity of compassion in our lives. We believe in people, in their joys and pains, in their good ideas and their wit and wisdom. We believe in human rights and dignity, and we know what it is for those to be trampled on by brutes and vandals. We may believe that the universe is pitilessly indifferent but we know that friends and strangers alike most certainly are not. We despise atrocity, not because a god tells us that it is wrong, but because if not massacre then nothing could be wrong.

I am to be found on the drillfield with a candle in my hand. “Amazing Grace†is a beautiful song, and I can sing it for its beauty and its peacefulness. I don’t believe in any god, but I do believe in those people who have struggled through pain and found beauty and peace in their religion. I am not at odds with them any more than I am at odds with Americans when we sing the “Star-Spangled Banner†just because I am not American. I can sing “Lean on Me†and chant for the Hokies in just the same way and for just the same reason.

I know that the theory of natural selection is the best explanation for the emergence and development of human beings and other species. I know that our bodies are composed of flesh, bone, and blood, and cells, and molecules. I also know that this does not account for all aspects of our lives, but I know no-one who ever thought it did. That is why we have science, and novels, and friendships, and poetry, and practical jokes, and photography, and a sense of awe at the immensity of time and the planet’s natural history, and walks with loved ones along the Huckleberry Trail, and atheist friends who keep kosher because, well just because, and passionate reverence for both those heroes who believed and those who did not, and have all this without needing a god to stitch together the tapestry of life.

I believe this young man was both sick and vicious, that his actions were both heinous and the result of a phenomenon that we must try to understand precisely so that we can prevent it in future. I have no sympathy for him. Given what he has done, I am not particularly sorry he has spared the world his continued existence; there was no possibility of redemption for him. You think we atheists have difficulty with the concept of evil. Quite the contrary. We can accept a description of this man as evil. We just don’t think that is an explanation. That is why we are exasperated at your mindless demonology.

I feel humbled by the sense of composure of a family who lost someone on Monday. I will not insult that dignity by pretending there is sense to be made of this senselessness, or that there is some greater consolation to be found in the loss of a husband and son.

I know my students are now more than students.

You can find us next week in the bloodied classrooms of a violated campus, trying to piece our thoughts and lives and studies back together.

With or without a belief in a god, with or without your asinine bigotry, we will make progress, we will breathe life back into our university, I will succeed in explaining this or that point, slowly, eventually, in a ham-handed way, at risk of tears half-way through, my students will come to feel comfortable again in a classroom with no windows or escape route, and hell yes we will prevail.

You see Mr D’Souza, I am an atheist professor at Virginia Tech and a man of great faith. Not faith in your god. Faith in my people.

----

Update

Mr D'Souza has more to say:

"And boy the atheists are up in arms! They're mad as hell about my post "Where is Atheism When Bad Things Happen." Many responders informed me that tragedies are normally considered a problem for religion, not atheism. Where is God when bad things happen? Yes, people, I know this. My point was that if evil and suffering are a problem for religion--and they are--they are an even bigger problem for atheism.

"The reason is suggested from the quotation given above. When there is a tragedy like the one at Virginia Tech, the ones who are suffering cannot help asking questions, "Why did this have to happen?" "Why is there so much evil in the world?" "How can I possibly go on after losing my child?" And so on.

"In my post I noted that Richard Dawkins had not been invited to address the mourners at Virginia Tech. Several atheists--who haven't yet lost their fundamentalist habit of reading--took this sarcastic statement literally. "So what? The Pope hasn't been invited either!" My point was that atheism has nothing to offer in the face of tragedy except C'est la vie. Deal with it. Get over it. This is why the ceremonies were suffused with religious rhetoric. Only the language of religion seems appropriate to the magnitude of tragedy. Only God seems to have the power to heal hearts in such circumstances. If someone started to read from Dawkins on why there is no good and no evil in the universe, people would start vomiting or leaving.

"One clever writer informs me that atheists don't deny meaning, they simply insist that meaning is not inherent in the universe, it is created by us. Okay, pal, here's the Virginia Tech situation. Go create some meaning and share it with the rest of us Give us that atheist sermon with you in the pulpit of the campus chapel. I'm not being facetious here. I really want to hear what the atheist would tell the grieving mothers."

And so on. It carries on through a couple more repartees. It also reminds me why I shake my head when I hear the name "Dinesh D'Sousa".

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From the dailygut.com

BLAMEWATCH, DAY 5

Whodunnit? Top 10 possible suspects:

1. The guy who sold him the guns

2. The legislators who grabbed the law-abiding students' guns

3. The cops who didn't get there in time to stop him

4. The kids who picked on him in high school

5. The violent movie he watched over and over

6. The victims who died at his hand

7. The faculty who didn't have him institutionalized for being a disturbing batshit loser

8. The family who didn't give him enough love, or too much, or whatever works

9. The media who are exploiting all of the above

10.

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