Orlando Massacre

[JCasey]

As I anticipated, it seems that the Pulse Orlando massacre was fueled partly by the struggle of a man who appears to have been in the closet. The report indicates that he not only attended the club regularly for a period of time, but also messaged people on Grindr, a gay hookup app.
The level of conflict he was experiencing must have been tremendous, given the fact that being queer is considered such a negative attribute within the religious beliefs he claims to have practiced.

Everyday people commit suicide over the societal pressures associated with sexuality. Typically, closeted individuals can display homophobic and or other antisocial behavior, and the stress can manifest itself in strong urges to release the sexualized angst in inappropriate ways. But the extreme Muslim beliefs place an even stronger burden upon anyone who discovers that they are not fully heterosexual. To a person in that situation, their mere existence becomes a crime against their faith, and being discovered by fellow followers of the belief can cause a total loss of interaction by everyone within their family and religious community, not to mention the high likelihood that other believers may attempt to kill them, in accordance with their belief system.

Extreme beliefs are prevalent in most religions, including some Christian denominations. Some interpretations of the Bible include the killing of people who aren't heterosexual. However, the same interpretations also require the mother of a newborn baby to be stoned to death if she brings the baby into a church within the first 30 days after the child's birth. It also requires death for wearing mixed fabrics, and planting a garden with more than one item.

The point is that extreme interpretations of a religious text don't just exist in the Muslim faith, therefore demonizing one belief system is hypocritical. These extreme belief systems are responsible for causing so much negativity in our world in the form of homophobia, self loathing over failure to conform to distorted value systems, and it is responsible for many of the wars over the history of mankind. If we could all just learn to accept others for who they are while holding people accountable for actual harm to others, and stop this battle over which historic text is the true word of the supreme deity, the world would be such a better place and there would be so much less turmoil and angst.

[knickerbuck]

yep .. what do you expects from those hypocrites .. damm ..

[CorsacReborn]

It doesn't matter how far forward society has come, there is always going to be groups of people who use extreme measures to do what they think is enforcing old religious beliefs. When those people start to question and lose their identity, that is when the extremist groups are most likely to indoctrinate these people to commit these crimes against the rest of the world.

ISIS is only the most recent example of a group that gained enough support that the world has had to increase its surveillance and security. The ferocity of which these people attack their targets is huge, they delude their followers into thinking that joining them will lead them on the most righteous path in both this life the next and use any vulnerabilities they can to impact the minds of those who join.

I don't think people will ever wake up from the delusions that they hold that following a religious practice is going to make the world a better place whether its been interpreted rightly or wrongly. The actions of a few rarely benefit anyone outside of those few. Its not difficult to respect each other, but causing destruction to try and force ideals that you think is right seems to be easier for these people.

[meridannight]

Life isn't so damn complicated, people. All you have to do is figure out what it is you want in life and go after that with all that you have. This applies the same way to non-religious people and those who are religious.

If you find yourself wanting to hurt other people without provocation, without them having done anything bad to you, you should also keep in mind that yourself, your friends and family are likewise at the mercy of other people's emotions and state of mind. When you go out to kill other people just because you don't like who/what they are, would it also be okay for those other people to kill your brother, grandmother, a close friend just because they don't like what they are? Would it?

Like it or not we all have to co-exist on this increasingly crowded planet. We can't be at each other's throats all the time. There are no winners or losers in this journey. We all have to stay true to ourselves within the healthy bounds of not doing to others what we don't want to have done to our own kind.

[himself]

When I heard about it, it didn't occur to me that the killer might be a Muslim, since I thought it was equally that it was some fucking lunatic who was angry because he hadn't had his McDonald's fix, yet.

Maybe he was full of hate, maybe he was mentally ill (you could say that being so full of hate that you kill lots of people is symptomatic of a mental illness so the former implies the latter but then you run into the fact that, from what I understand, mental illnesses are defined in terms of their symptoms rather than in terms of measurable biological... thingies... in which case the term 'mental illness' isn't always that useful. I'm not dismissing mental illnesses; I'm just saying that it's easy to say that a person is mentally ill if you use a broad enough definition.), maybe he was religiously and politically motivated. Let's all just pick the explanation that suits our own ideologies.

[knickerbuck]

i have a feeling that this was done by a straight Muslim .. deep down inside .. straights absolutely hate gays .. because they know that we are far more better than them in any race that life has to offer ...

[knickerbuck]

When I heard about it, it didn't occur to me that the killer might be a Muslim, since I thought it was equally that it was some fucking lunatic who was angry because he hadn't had his McDonald's fix, yet.

Maybe he was full of hate, maybe he was mentally ill (you could say that being so full of hate that you kill lots of people is symptomatic of a mental illness so the former implies the latter but then you run into the fact that, from what I understand, mental illnesses are defined in terms of their symptoms rather than in terms of measurable biological... thingies... in which case the term 'mental illness' isn't always that useful. I'm not dismissing mental illnesses; I'm just saying that it's easy to say that a person is mentally ill if you use a broad enough definition.), maybe he was religiously and politically motivated. Let's all just pick the explanation that suits our own ideologies.

he was a retard if you ask me .. idiotically following his blindness to the precepts of his religion .. what does the bible tell us to those who are fervently devoted to religion? isn't it to visit widows and orphans in their affliction? instead this man took the lives of innocent and miserable people who simple want to live life despite all their problems .. damm .. i hope that murderer goes to hell ..

[InbetweenDreams]

Well everyone gets all on the defensive about whether the guy was a Muslim or had a mental illness or the gun he used.

I'd like to think the average Muslim isn't all about killing gays...or anyone for that matter. Here lately they have been in the spotlight because some of the mass shootings here lately have been done by Muslim extremists. The same thing about guns. Yeah I don't think the average person needs to be able to buy assault weapons. I think it is way overkill. Not sure what logic people have about having these weapons but I think a lot of people who want them think it is the "end of times" or that we're going to be in some kind of land invasion. They literally think the government is going to come take their right to have a gun away and you know what some people like that idea. I know a lot of folks in Europe for instance think we have a gun problem. Yeah well we do. Yeah, if you could magically take away all the guns there would be less gun deaths, but it is the same as taking away all the cars to put an end to car wrecks. Gun control only works when everyone obeys the rules, criminals and maniacs aren't known for following the law. In other words if you make it illegal to have guns someone will still find a way to get guns.

I think people get the wrong idea about mental illness. You could say that every person who has depression has a mental illness, but doesn't mean they're going to go out and shoot up some place. Same with people who are bi-polar or even has schizophrenia for that matter. It is a nasty snowball of conditions, temperament. For one you pretty much have to be a psychopath, someone who can shoot at a bunch of people have no regard for life. So I don't think people who suffer from depression need to get wound up about passing legislation for gun control to restrict gun sales for those who suffer from a condition that could make someone unstable. Then again what is to say someone who does suffer from such a condition doesn't go seek help with it? What is to say there is some other non-mental motivation to shoot up the place like I don't know someone who is a big ISIS supporter?

No matter what laws you pass, no matter what kind of screening process you have in place there will always be some kind of a nutjob who will break the law, slip through the system and do harm to people.

[LJay]

Does an act of this sort, given minimal reporting, have the same impact as the same act being given worldwide press within moments of it happening?

I woke up to hearing this on the news Sunday morning and was preplexed as to why I heard, almost immediately, the voice of an Orlando policeman speculating as to wheyther this was an act of terror. Way to go Billiy Bob. Got a big one on your hands, eh? Please forgive my perspective. I used to live in Orlando.

[JCasey]

Reports suggest that he was a closeted Muslim with mental illness, anger issues and a steroid user.