Seems two former girlfriends of Loughner's have made reference to his obsession with the Bible - the King James version, and his saying: "It will be the only book I ever read, now or ever!' He could reel off quotes from memory, especially from Leviticus (the book with all the hundreds of Jewish laws) and never got tired of impressing his friends.
Later, they say, after he became alienated in High school, he took up certain esoteric rituals and practices, but always kept his KJV close by. One wonders why.
Now what of Loughner? Was he really a born-aginner? Was he nuts? A psycho? Was he an "atheist" as some claim? Was he "demon-possessed"? (Well, we already dealt with that in a previous blog and dismissed it as the least likely of all).
In the end, no one can really track anything Loughner is or was to his violent act, because that assumes an arc of causality (motivated by a basic logic) that simply doesn't come out in the wash. I mean, this is a character in possession of two books, Marx' Communist Manifesto (which I also have) and Hitler's Mein Kampf - which are totally antithetical to each other. As we know, Hitler actually hunted down communists in Nazi Germany and dispatched them to concentration camps or killed them outright.
Because Loughner was all over the map, one cannot pin his actions on any one ideology or anything he even wrote - because the latter presumes he was in his right mind when he wrote it, but the evidence shows he isn't. Worse, the guy has a history of irrational babbling which means that anyone who tries to pin his ideological identity on anything he owned or produced is least 51 cards short of a full deck too.
In the end, Loughner will remain a mystery - whether he was a born again Christian or atheist, until a professional therp probes his mind and manages to extract more signal than noise. Likely this won't occur until his lawyers have him examined, especially if they plan to mount an "insanity" plea.
In respect of all this the best policy or approach is to not speculate as to Loughner's identity at all, but to wait until further evidence and data are forthcoming.
We atheists will hold to this, and we hope our evangelical, Right wing counterparts do as well!
Later, they say, after he became alienated in High school, he took up certain esoteric rituals and practices, but always kept his KJV close by. One wonders why.
Now what of Loughner? Was he really a born-aginner? Was he nuts? A psycho? Was he an "atheist" as some claim? Was he "demon-possessed"? (Well, we already dealt with that in a previous blog and dismissed it as the least likely of all).
In the end, no one can really track anything Loughner is or was to his violent act, because that assumes an arc of causality (motivated by a basic logic) that simply doesn't come out in the wash. I mean, this is a character in possession of two books, Marx' Communist Manifesto (which I also have) and Hitler's Mein Kampf - which are totally antithetical to each other. As we know, Hitler actually hunted down communists in Nazi Germany and dispatched them to concentration camps or killed them outright.
Because Loughner was all over the map, one cannot pin his actions on any one ideology or anything he even wrote - because the latter presumes he was in his right mind when he wrote it, but the evidence shows he isn't. Worse, the guy has a history of irrational babbling which means that anyone who tries to pin his ideological identity on anything he owned or produced is least 51 cards short of a full deck too.
In the end, Loughner will remain a mystery - whether he was a born again Christian or atheist, until a professional therp probes his mind and manages to extract more signal than noise. Likely this won't occur until his lawyers have him examined, especially if they plan to mount an "insanity" plea.
In respect of all this the best policy or approach is to not speculate as to Loughner's identity at all, but to wait until further evidence and data are forthcoming.
We atheists will hold to this, and we hope our evangelical, Right wing counterparts do as well!
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