Yesterday, in a small town in Connecticut, a young man killed 28 people, including his mother and himself; 20 of those killed were children.
what eye thynk: I have looked at jihadists in the Middle East and thought: what is wrong with these people? What makes them go out and kill total strangers in the name of God? I wondered about a culture where killing people you've never met, people who may be just like you or as different as the desert and the ocean, people who become victims only because they needed to buy flour on the day you decided to blow up the town market. And I felt superior.
Today, I look at our latest shooting tragedy and I realize, we are not better, we are not even close enough to look up and see the soles of their shoes. Jihadists have a purpose--albeit unfathomable to anyone born in our culture--they kill in the name of their faith. And those they kill are faceless strangers.
But yesterday, before turning the gun on himself, a young man murdered 27 people, one at a time, face to face, some of whom he knew personally, 20 of them blameless children. There was no call to martyrdom from his local pastor. There was no revenge being taken for a personal affront. There was only the mindless, senseless taking of life.
I cannot imagine what brings a human being to kill another; but whose sin is worse--the one who kills indiscriminately in blind allegiance to his spiritual leader or one who looks into the eyes of each victim he targets with no promise of paradise to dazzle his vision as he pulls the trigger?
I look at jihadists in the Middle East and I still do not understand. But I no longer feel superior.
powerful
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