Details of Aurora Massacre Show the Huge Role Blind Chance Played

WIth the details of the Aurora Theater massacre released last week during James Holmes' preliminary hearing, we are now aware of the enormous role blind chance played in determining who lived and who died.  This is important because in the immediate aftermath there were a number of victims who felt they had special protection from God. For example,  a Denver Post piece by Lynn Bartels, recounted how survivor Bonnie Kate Pourciau proclaimed "God was holding us in His hands" as the shooting unfolded - and hence, she and her friend (Elizabeth) managed to walk out  of the Century 16 cinema with Bonnie Kate only having one gunshot in her leg.


Much of this egoistic foolishness can be forgiven or overlooked either out of youthful folly (Bonnie Kate was only 18) or because too many people inhabit a mythical world of their own confabulation where a 'Daddy God' watches over everything and knows when every sparrow falls or when every rose bud blossoms. A lot is also engendered because of the U.S. of A's hyper religious culture and enabling media which pays more attention to religious nonsense than anything else. I already noted a lot of this and how the American press enables it in an earlier blog, e.g. http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2012/12/idiocy-beyond-belief-charles-pierce.html

Anyway, let's look at the findings to see the extent to which people were affected based on totally chance contingency as opposed to any "divine intervention". In other words, it was basically the movie goers' chance decisions which put them in the brunt of harm's way or not.

Some of the chance components of good fortune - which otherwise meant many more killed:

-Investigators found 76 used casings and 224 live rounds, with unused magazines picked up outside as the suspect was searched.  They also found evidence that Holmes' high capacity magazine had jammed, otherwsie perhaps three times more would have been killed. Blind chance!

-Of the total of 375 move goers in Theater 9, 12 were killed, and 58 others injured, including three in the adjacent theater (Theater 8).

- Holmes' actual movie ticket was punched for Theater 8, not Theater 9. Had he followed the information the  killings would have been in Theater 8, not 9. All the victims' names would have been different.

- By happenstance, at the time of the shootings two Aurora police shifts overlapped, allowing 129 officers to respond in 5 minutes to 911 calls, and help ferry the wounded to hospitals. If only one shift had been available many more victims would have died with barely half the number of officers available.

- At least a couple of victims, including Jesse Childress, chose to go into Theater 9 when they had friends who invited them into Theater 8. Others, like Jordan Crofter, had sneaked into Theater 9 to sit with friends. Choices!

- The most lethal area of the Theater was in rows 8- 12 where six were killed.

- A number of victims wouldn't have been in the Theater at all had they followed their usual norms, routines. Jansen Young and friend, for example, noted how tired they were and that "maybe we shouldn't go tonight". They did anyway.  Two bikers were headed for San Francisco and weren't Batman fans at all. They just happened to pull up near the Aurora 16 Cinemark  when they were tired and decided to take in the film.

Each of the above, and more, discloses the extent to which chance decisions and happenstance intervened on that July night. Meanwhile, diehard religionists like Bonnie Kate Pourciau will continue to believe they were spared by some divine intervention - never mind not far from them a 6-year old (Veronica Moser) died a brutal death.

We know the human brain is prey to these exceptionalist fantasies, and we also know there is no way they will ever stop. They are part and parcel of the religious exceptionalism that threads its way through our culture, culminating in the skewed belief that only a chosen select are "saved", who happen to "believe on the Lord Jesus Christ". Never mind, 'Jesus' was a god-man fable stolen from the Mithra template, e.g. http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2012/12/more-on-mithraic-god-man-mythooogy.html

At some time, however, most humans will grow up and finally put away their childish things, including immature beliefs and acknowledge their lives are more hinged to the vagaries of blind chance than they'd like to think!

God was "Holding You In His Hands?" Don't Think So!

Nearly twenty years ago, after a US Air (Flight 405) crash in New York, where there were a number of survivors (27) - but many died (24) - I wrote an article that appeared in the (then ) Baltimore Evening Sun warning of "survivor hubris" and "beliefs in divine exceptionalism",  after a number of the survivors appeared in the media bragging that 'God saved me!' or "God heard my prayers!' or some such rot. While it is understandable that in the wake of a major trauma and near escape with one's life (I had my own in May, 1971, from a head on car collision near Avon Park, FL) people would believe they are special on account of having lived, they need to process that this take essentially spits on the lives of those who didn't make it - and may have prayed just as hard!

So, I make some allowances for harried or traumatized brains that have 'run off the rails' (such as those of 18-year old, home-schooled Southern girls)  who may have expressed such misbegotten beliefs personally and "off the record". Where I take objection is when such wayward beliefs are given major press space such as in today's Denver Post piece by a Lynn Bartels, recounting how survivor shooting victim Bonnie Kate Pourciau claimed "God was holding us in His hands" as the shooting unfolded - and hence, she and her friend (Elizabeth) managed to walk out  of the Century 16 cinema with Bonnie only having one gunshot in her leg. (One wonders, of course, if God really was holding her so fast, how in His infinite power he could have allowed that stray gunshot to hit her. But again, we must bear in mind this is a home-schooled 18 year old from the Deep South - and yeah, I have been to Baton Rouge, so am aware of the culture there.)

My point is that such publicized blarney essentially disrespects, albeit indirectly, the lives of those who didn't make it and who had every right to have lived - just as much as Bonnie Kate Pourciau. Now, maybe as my wife has opined, she -  like some others spouting special divine dispensation -  are "brainwashed" and hence their only recourse is to barf up the sort of specialized pap they've been fed over the years by their Sunday Schools,  ministers or padres. Fair enough. That still doesn't mean The Post has to print it and thereby give wide circulation and credence to such whacked out beliefs.

A question here for Bonnie Kate and other Personal Divine Exceptionalists: How is it that you couldn't have extended your God's power (in your prayers beseeching His Presence) to the others under fire or running for their lives? How is it that He would have allowed little 6-year old Veronica Moser-Sullivan to die? Didn't that child deserve life, survival as much as you did? Didn't Caleb Medley, husband and father, who now is in an induced coma because of a shot to the head - and facing $2 million in hospital bills - merit a better outcome? Inquiring minds want to know!

Could you not, in your desperate moments, have tried to extend the 'umbrella' of (presumably) infinite divine power and protection to all and sundry - instead of only you and your friend?

In the end it really matters not, except again, the Post giving credence to such shallow views and beliefs by their publication. The truth is those like Bonnie Kate and her friend simply lucked out. There was no real "divinity" clasping her hand except in her mind. It was a case of pure dumb luck that her seat wasn't more directly in the gunman's line of fire.

Just as in the case of those US Air Flt. 405 survivors back in March, 1992, who survived simply by the good fortune of being in the right seats. No divine intervention, no individual specialness.

And if survivors, whether of that crash, or the Aurora theater massacre, insist it was divine intervention that spared them, then they need to cut the crap - come clean- and explain logically and completely why a little innocent 6 year old wasn't also spared, or the other 11 now dead victims who might also have been praying as fervently as Bonnie Kate, and have believed just as intensely that their lives were in "His hands" until the last fatal gunshot.

In the meantime, it's best that major news organs,  if they run stories of human interest on the survivors, stick to the facts as opposed to wishful thinking "divine saving" fantasies that indirectly smear and demean the lives of those who perished - implying that they were not good enough, or devout enough to make it!  For myself, as a non-theist, I am at least glad I can provide a rational response to people who ask: "Why was I saved and not  (fill in name)?

Basically, pure dumb luck! Much preferable to a misbegotten species of personal idolatry!