I know most of you have also been victims of endless Facebook or twitter rants about gun control laws and safety of our schools. Perhaps you instigated them or snuck in a comment yourself.
There are a few personality profiles I’ve typecast; humor me by placing yourself into the most fitting category:
First Responder: is the first one to witness/hear about a horrific event. You think it’s your duty to alert everyone even when you don’t know all the details yet, so the post is usually something vague.
“omg, I can’t believe ~ happened.” You wait to form an opinion until others post within the next 4 minutes.
Second Responder: You see that the First Responder has posted something, check it out and post like you were the one who saw it first. Post is still vague, but slightly different from the original.
Second Responder: You see that the First Responder has posted something, check it out and post like you were the one who saw it first. Post is still vague, but slightly different from the original.
“wtf, I can’t believe ~ just happened.”
Mass Communicator: After seeing the vague posts from the responders, you check it out and repost, but are sure to include the link where you read/saw the information so people know to trust you. An empathetic opinion is usually rendered in this post.
“I just found out about this ~. It’s so awful. Check out the link.”
Charged Argument: You’re the one who just KNEW this was going to happen, and now you’re ready to post about how you feel about it using some kind of sarcastic remark. Usually no reference to the actual incident, but more universal concepts or political issues that have already circulated.
“This is exactly why ~ should be legal/outlawed in America. If ~ didn’t exist, (insert wonderful thing that happens or how everyone would benefit).
Love Healer: offer no real solution or effort to discuss the issues or the event, but try to stay objective by making some sweet comment about the victims or someone else you knew who was in a similar situation. You just want to give everyone a hug and cry as you watch emotional slideshows.
“My heart goes out to ~. I’m remembering ~. We need more love in the world.”
Prayer Warrior: you have a scriptural reference handy, and probably already prayed for every single person/group involved.
“I’m praying for the people involved in ~. (Insert scripture here. Watch for contextomy).”
Sword of Sarcasm: Hey, a picture is worth a thousand words and you know exactly how you feel about this...and exactly who you’d love to Facebook Pokethroughtheeye. Instead of an argument-turned-hate mail, you find a witty, sarcastic cartoon or meme to post on your wall. You never comment again.
“(insert sarcastic meme)”
Peace-faker: You stay silent and just mumble to yourself how stupid everyone is. Keep a low profile online, but you talk to people at work as you all discuss how annoying it is to watch things heat up on Facebook. Secretly you each wonder who will post about the conversation in 6 minutes…
There are as many different internet personalities as there are people in the world, but these are just some generalizations I made. I know exactly which one I am…
In light of the recent mass shootings, I would like to use the most recent one in a Connecticut elementary school as a base for this discussion. As I make conclusions, keep in mind that I am gleaning from all horrific acts against mankind, not one isolated event. I am also not relating these things to times of war or acts of self-defense. Those are topics for another day.
Event: perpetrator takes guns from mom’s house, kills her, goes to school, breaks through security door, shoots adults, shoots children, shoots and kills himself.
So basically you have a guy. He decided to kill people. He decided to kill himself.
Does it matter what he used? Slingshot, cross bow, a neck break, a metal chair, kidney punch, knife stab, strangling, drowning, electrocution, bombing, collapsing a building, driving a car through a window….
Does it matter who he killed? Children, adults, girlfriend, ex-wife, sports player…
Does it matter how many victims there were? 2, 11, 28, 33?
It seems to me that people who have the desire to kill will do it. They’ll find a victim. They’ll find a weapon. How can they be stopped? By stricter laws? We’ve all heard the argument that lawful people without guns will be shot by the law-breakers possessing them. And what about people who want to kill but don’t have a gun? Murder has been happening for thousands of years. This is not a new concept birthed out of the 21st century.
So the solution is a gun in the hands of every law-abiding citizen? Well, then the rules of “self-defense” will start to get blurry very quickly. “He lunged at me officer. I had no choice.” Besides, most perpetrators were law-abiding citizens at one point in their lives. How can we predetermine who will fall out?
Gun control, by either reducing or increasing firearms, can be summed in a word: escalation.
Even if escalation didn’t happen, you’re still dealing with the original problem: the hate inside of a human being.
I submit that the motives behind these murderous crimes are hate and fear. Coincidentally, they’re the same motives behind rape, kidnapping, armed robbery, shoplifting, looting, stealing, lying, embezzling, and taking the nerd’s lunch money.
Hate is an active response that would motivate an ill-intentioned act towards another human being. The interesting thing is that the perpetrator doesn’t even have to hate a specific person! Apparently he (or she) can have a general hate and feel justified in the act. I think it’s worth a closer look.
Quiz time:
Fill in the blank.
Hating is the opposite of _________.
Mass Communicator: After seeing the vague posts from the responders, you check it out and repost, but are sure to include the link where you read/saw the information so people know to trust you. An empathetic opinion is usually rendered in this post.
“I just found out about this ~. It’s so awful. Check out the link.”
Charged Argument: You’re the one who just KNEW this was going to happen, and now you’re ready to post about how you feel about it using some kind of sarcastic remark. Usually no reference to the actual incident, but more universal concepts or political issues that have already circulated.
“This is exactly why ~ should be legal/outlawed in America. If ~ didn’t exist, (insert wonderful thing that happens or how everyone would benefit).
Love Healer: offer no real solution or effort to discuss the issues or the event, but try to stay objective by making some sweet comment about the victims or someone else you knew who was in a similar situation. You just want to give everyone a hug and cry as you watch emotional slideshows.
“My heart goes out to ~. I’m remembering ~. We need more love in the world.”
Prayer Warrior: you have a scriptural reference handy, and probably already prayed for every single person/group involved.
“I’m praying for the people involved in ~. (Insert scripture here. Watch for contextomy).”
Sword of Sarcasm: Hey, a picture is worth a thousand words and you know exactly how you feel about this...and exactly who you’d love to Facebook Pokethroughtheeye. Instead of an argument-turned-hate mail, you find a witty, sarcastic cartoon or meme to post on your wall. You never comment again.
“(insert sarcastic meme)”
Peace-faker: You stay silent and just mumble to yourself how stupid everyone is. Keep a low profile online, but you talk to people at work as you all discuss how annoying it is to watch things heat up on Facebook. Secretly you each wonder who will post about the conversation in 6 minutes…
There are as many different internet personalities as there are people in the world, but these are just some generalizations I made. I know exactly which one I am…
In light of the recent mass shootings, I would like to use the most recent one in a Connecticut elementary school as a base for this discussion. As I make conclusions, keep in mind that I am gleaning from all horrific acts against mankind, not one isolated event. I am also not relating these things to times of war or acts of self-defense. Those are topics for another day.
Event: perpetrator takes guns from mom’s house, kills her, goes to school, breaks through security door, shoots adults, shoots children, shoots and kills himself.
So basically you have a guy. He decided to kill people. He decided to kill himself.
Does it matter what he used? Slingshot, cross bow, a neck break, a metal chair, kidney punch, knife stab, strangling, drowning, electrocution, bombing, collapsing a building, driving a car through a window….
Does it matter who he killed? Children, adults, girlfriend, ex-wife, sports player…
Does it matter how many victims there were? 2, 11, 28, 33?
It seems to me that people who have the desire to kill will do it. They’ll find a victim. They’ll find a weapon. How can they be stopped? By stricter laws? We’ve all heard the argument that lawful people without guns will be shot by the law-breakers possessing them. And what about people who want to kill but don’t have a gun? Murder has been happening for thousands of years. This is not a new concept birthed out of the 21st century.
So the solution is a gun in the hands of every law-abiding citizen? Well, then the rules of “self-defense” will start to get blurry very quickly. “He lunged at me officer. I had no choice.” Besides, most perpetrators were law-abiding citizens at one point in their lives. How can we predetermine who will fall out?
Gun control, by either reducing or increasing firearms, can be summed in a word: escalation.
Even if escalation didn’t happen, you’re still dealing with the original problem: the hate inside of a human being.
I submit that the motives behind these murderous crimes are hate and fear. Coincidentally, they’re the same motives behind rape, kidnapping, armed robbery, shoplifting, looting, stealing, lying, embezzling, and taking the nerd’s lunch money.
Hate is an active response that would motivate an ill-intentioned act towards another human being. The interesting thing is that the perpetrator doesn’t even have to hate a specific person! Apparently he (or she) can have a general hate and feel justified in the act. I think it’s worth a closer look.
Quiz time:
Fill in the blank.
Hating is the opposite of _________.
Loving. Right? Can you love and hate the same thing at the same time? You’re all ready with an arsenal of arguments, I’m sure.
You love that spicy food, but hate how it burns your mouth.
You love your dog, but hate cleaning up the mess.
You love the freedoms of living in America, but hate when America makes choices you don’t agree with like politics, international involvement, and domestic concerns.
The problem with these instances of love and hate is that they’re all conditional. It’s about good outweighing the bad. It’s about you getting more positive out of it than negative. Admit it, if your spicy burrito literally set your mouth to flames and caused facial scarring every time you took a bite, you would no longer love it. In fact you’d probably sue the restaurant and make them pay for all your skin graft surgeries. Sounds like hate to me.
If your dog was SO bad that it kept your house in an absolute tornado and was vicious towards all the company you invited, you’d get rid of it. You’d probably hate the dog, or hate the breeder for being irresponsible, or hate the previous owners who taught it bad things or abused it.
If you can achieve a seemingly balanced or “more positives than negatives” mindset, you would be able to love and hate…but still love. But when the bad outweighs the good, it’s hated.
This formula gets trickier with people: do you still love a teenager who uses you and steals from you? Do you love a parent who abused you as a child? Do you love your spouse who cheated on you? Enter in moral issues. It’s easy to make decisions about burritos when you’re the only one being affected. It takes an act of selflessness to truly love those who are harmful to you. It’s not impossible, but difficult. Now widen it to a universal level, outside of your family and friends. Do you love dictators? Do you love terrorists? Do you love your neighbors? Why or why not? Exactly how much love do you think you have, and where does it stop?
Count to ten while you think about that.
Is it safe to assume that perpetrators do not love the people they’re hurting? I think so.
Since the opposite of love is hate, whom do they hate? Their victims? I don’t think randomized shooters took the time to profile and stalk each individual who would be at the crime scene that day. Hence, random. If they can’t hate their victims, who is left?
Family, friends? While there may be some cases where a family feud or dissed friendship fueled a murderous reaction, it doesn’t explain the randomized victims. If you’re mad AT someone, you take it out on them to feel justified. At least that’s if you have even a hint of honoring the sanctity of life and innocent people who are otherwise not involved in your spat. However, the randomization of victims indicates the perpetrator views every one in equal standing---that is, undeserving of life.
I only know of one other being who holds every one in the same equal standing as undeserving of life: God.
That’s right; God knows that we’re all law-breakers, that we all have the potential to turn to the dark side, that we’ve all got a past, that we all stole a cookie when mom was doing laundry in the other room. In fact, plenty of people go out of their way to disrespect Him, ignore Him, disobey Him, and hate Him.
Guess what? People die. And God doesn’t stop it. Of course He could, and He has, but that’s not his purpose for interacting with us. His purpose is to give us life, even when we don’t deserve it. (more on this in a second). Look at us!! Killing each other, taking advantage of each other, misleading each other, taking the biggest brownie, being rude on the phone to customer service. We are not very deserving of God’s favor. Guess whose favor we’re earning? Satan. Yep. It seems like in times of hatred, despair, and grief, people turn to God for answers…or blame. But let’s not forget: love and hate are a pair. So are God and Satan. Pitted against each other, you’re either for or against.
It is absolutely absurd to say, “Why did God let this happen?”
Why not say, “Why did Satan encourage this to happen?” Because that’s the question with the most obvious answer.
Satan hates you. He hates your life. He doesn’t want you to live, and especially doesn’t want to you live with God. Hating God is the only thing he hates more than you. If you look through the Bible, Satan never attempts to defend himself or mask his motives. He knows who he is and is proud of it. There is no going back for him and he’s going to take as many souls with him as he can.
Satan, the great tempter, is the one who comes into your mind and jeers, “God never liked you. Why don’t you throw a rock in the church window to show him how you feel about that.”
Satan is the one who whispers, “God isn’t going to provide for you. Just steal it from this other person.”
Satan is the one who sneers, “Your life is terrible and will amount to nothing. There is nothing to look forward to and nothing to live for. Might as well put other people out of their misery now and take them with you.”
Do you think God gave the order to murder children? He explicitly rebukes his own closest followers for preventing the children to come up to him and declares, “The kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.” Jesus loves kids and would never encourage or endorse harmful acts towards them.
Both Satan and God know your life sucks and you’ve done some regrettable things, but there is a major difference between the two. Satan is looking to bring you down with him. God is reaching to pull you up to Him.
Satan is hate. God is love.
God’s love is so great and so deep that He will always be willing to take us back no matter what we do. No matter how just we think we can be, God is more just. Our judgments and punishments dealt to each other are nothing compared to the judgment of refusing God: eternal agony and separation from God.
Does Satan want this for you? Absolutely. If you’re not with God, you’re with him.
Does God want this for you? Absolutely not. Even though God and Satan both agree your life is worthless and undeserving, God decided to do something about it. To become justified for our actions against God, we have to pay a price. A fine. A bail. And because we’re talking about human souls, we can’t put a price of money on it. It has to be something completely innocent to make up for our lack of innocence. Something completely love.
God.
God is love.
So Jesus, who is fully God, took the form of a man and lived as a man, only to voluntarily die. It wasn’t only the death, but the perfection and sacrifice.
Time for a movie reference.
Harry Potter’s parents shielded him with love to save him, while dying in the process. There are some holes in this analogy but the basic idea could be applied.
The better analogy is Aslan from the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. Aslan, portraying Jesus, lays down his life as compensation for the “trespasses.” But Aslan knew of a deeper magic, that of innocence taking the place of unworthiness, and became more glorified than he was before.
Likewise, Jesus did not stay dead after his agonizing death but lived again and ascended to the throne of God, which makes Him the only one worth following. I don’t want to listen to a dead guy’s teachings.
If you’ve made it this far, congratulations. You’ve earned the right to comment on this post.
In short, I see a direct correlation between hate and hate.
Those who hate will commit acts of hate.
Likewise, I see a direct correlation between love and love.
Those who love will commit acts of love.
God is love and committed an act of love to redeem our lives that they will not stay worthless and empty. This love encourages and inspires us to love others, to see the value of each life on earth.
Satan is hate and encourages people to commit acts of hate so that our lives will result in death and misery.
Notice neither Satan nor God commit these things themselves….no, it’s all us picking sides and listening to the coach.
You have a choice to make.
You love that spicy food, but hate how it burns your mouth.
You love your dog, but hate cleaning up the mess.
You love the freedoms of living in America, but hate when America makes choices you don’t agree with like politics, international involvement, and domestic concerns.
The problem with these instances of love and hate is that they’re all conditional. It’s about good outweighing the bad. It’s about you getting more positive out of it than negative. Admit it, if your spicy burrito literally set your mouth to flames and caused facial scarring every time you took a bite, you would no longer love it. In fact you’d probably sue the restaurant and make them pay for all your skin graft surgeries. Sounds like hate to me.
If your dog was SO bad that it kept your house in an absolute tornado and was vicious towards all the company you invited, you’d get rid of it. You’d probably hate the dog, or hate the breeder for being irresponsible, or hate the previous owners who taught it bad things or abused it.
If you can achieve a seemingly balanced or “more positives than negatives” mindset, you would be able to love and hate…but still love. But when the bad outweighs the good, it’s hated.
This formula gets trickier with people: do you still love a teenager who uses you and steals from you? Do you love a parent who abused you as a child? Do you love your spouse who cheated on you? Enter in moral issues. It’s easy to make decisions about burritos when you’re the only one being affected. It takes an act of selflessness to truly love those who are harmful to you. It’s not impossible, but difficult. Now widen it to a universal level, outside of your family and friends. Do you love dictators? Do you love terrorists? Do you love your neighbors? Why or why not? Exactly how much love do you think you have, and where does it stop?
Count to ten while you think about that.
Is it safe to assume that perpetrators do not love the people they’re hurting? I think so.
Since the opposite of love is hate, whom do they hate? Their victims? I don’t think randomized shooters took the time to profile and stalk each individual who would be at the crime scene that day. Hence, random. If they can’t hate their victims, who is left?
Family, friends? While there may be some cases where a family feud or dissed friendship fueled a murderous reaction, it doesn’t explain the randomized victims. If you’re mad AT someone, you take it out on them to feel justified. At least that’s if you have even a hint of honoring the sanctity of life and innocent people who are otherwise not involved in your spat. However, the randomization of victims indicates the perpetrator views every one in equal standing---that is, undeserving of life.
I only know of one other being who holds every one in the same equal standing as undeserving of life: God.
That’s right; God knows that we’re all law-breakers, that we all have the potential to turn to the dark side, that we’ve all got a past, that we all stole a cookie when mom was doing laundry in the other room. In fact, plenty of people go out of their way to disrespect Him, ignore Him, disobey Him, and hate Him.
Guess what? People die. And God doesn’t stop it. Of course He could, and He has, but that’s not his purpose for interacting with us. His purpose is to give us life, even when we don’t deserve it. (more on this in a second). Look at us!! Killing each other, taking advantage of each other, misleading each other, taking the biggest brownie, being rude on the phone to customer service. We are not very deserving of God’s favor. Guess whose favor we’re earning? Satan. Yep. It seems like in times of hatred, despair, and grief, people turn to God for answers…or blame. But let’s not forget: love and hate are a pair. So are God and Satan. Pitted against each other, you’re either for or against.
It is absolutely absurd to say, “Why did God let this happen?”
Why not say, “Why did Satan encourage this to happen?” Because that’s the question with the most obvious answer.
Satan hates you. He hates your life. He doesn’t want you to live, and especially doesn’t want to you live with God. Hating God is the only thing he hates more than you. If you look through the Bible, Satan never attempts to defend himself or mask his motives. He knows who he is and is proud of it. There is no going back for him and he’s going to take as many souls with him as he can.
Satan, the great tempter, is the one who comes into your mind and jeers, “God never liked you. Why don’t you throw a rock in the church window to show him how you feel about that.”
Satan is the one who whispers, “God isn’t going to provide for you. Just steal it from this other person.”
Satan is the one who sneers, “Your life is terrible and will amount to nothing. There is nothing to look forward to and nothing to live for. Might as well put other people out of their misery now and take them with you.”
Do you think God gave the order to murder children? He explicitly rebukes his own closest followers for preventing the children to come up to him and declares, “The kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.” Jesus loves kids and would never encourage or endorse harmful acts towards them.
Both Satan and God know your life sucks and you’ve done some regrettable things, but there is a major difference between the two. Satan is looking to bring you down with him. God is reaching to pull you up to Him.
Satan is hate. God is love.
God’s love is so great and so deep that He will always be willing to take us back no matter what we do. No matter how just we think we can be, God is more just. Our judgments and punishments dealt to each other are nothing compared to the judgment of refusing God: eternal agony and separation from God.
Does Satan want this for you? Absolutely. If you’re not with God, you’re with him.
Does God want this for you? Absolutely not. Even though God and Satan both agree your life is worthless and undeserving, God decided to do something about it. To become justified for our actions against God, we have to pay a price. A fine. A bail. And because we’re talking about human souls, we can’t put a price of money on it. It has to be something completely innocent to make up for our lack of innocence. Something completely love.
God.
God is love.
So Jesus, who is fully God, took the form of a man and lived as a man, only to voluntarily die. It wasn’t only the death, but the perfection and sacrifice.
Time for a movie reference.
Harry Potter’s parents shielded him with love to save him, while dying in the process. There are some holes in this analogy but the basic idea could be applied.
The better analogy is Aslan from the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. Aslan, portraying Jesus, lays down his life as compensation for the “trespasses.” But Aslan knew of a deeper magic, that of innocence taking the place of unworthiness, and became more glorified than he was before.
Likewise, Jesus did not stay dead after his agonizing death but lived again and ascended to the throne of God, which makes Him the only one worth following. I don’t want to listen to a dead guy’s teachings.
If you’ve made it this far, congratulations. You’ve earned the right to comment on this post.
In short, I see a direct correlation between hate and hate.
Those who hate will commit acts of hate.
Likewise, I see a direct correlation between love and love.
Those who love will commit acts of love.
God is love and committed an act of love to redeem our lives that they will not stay worthless and empty. This love encourages and inspires us to love others, to see the value of each life on earth.
Satan is hate and encourages people to commit acts of hate so that our lives will result in death and misery.
Notice neither Satan nor God commit these things themselves….no, it’s all us picking sides and listening to the coach.
You have a choice to make.
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