Texas church fire suspects had books on atheism

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Yahoo Article - Texas Church Arson

Oh, great. That's all the fundies need to go on a witchhunt. And some of them will.

Sorry to point at a stereotype, but mal-adjusted adolescent males with nothing better to do than torch churches to get back at whatever "them" they blame for their current misery are not worth a lot of text time. Jail time, yes.

But there'll be a WHOLE lot of text over these boys. The only thing that would have been more incendiary is if they'd had books on Satan... no, wait, I think these days if they had a Koran ~that~ would be more incendiary.

"Court records show that one of the suspects in a string of church fires in eastern Texas had assault rifles and books on demons and atheism in his home."

sounds like books on demons would be the more relevant topic, when discussing people who want to burn churches down.

as an atheist, i have to point out that demon-worship is generally a "religious" type of thing....

pretty crappy article, all in all. didn't even say what kind of "demons" the books were about. for all we know, he could have had a sci-fi/fantasy collection. "harry potter" is still considered "satanic" in some of the more regressive religious communities.


all the same, the title of this thread is a little misleading and i'm not sure the responses will be what you're looking for, tim.

if they were pushing an atheist agenda, burning churches = fail.
if they were pushing a demonic agenda, burning churches = win?
if they were pushing a pleasedon'trapemeintheshower agenda, burning churches = epic fail.

Even if true, so what.

Think of all those abortion clinic bombers that had bibles on them.

ruveyn

Even if the culprit was an atheist he wouldn't be any worse than the religious extremists who bomb abortion clinics and gay bars. There are extremists from all belief systems.

Satanism is sort of a form of atheism. Satanists claim not to believe in God/Satan and Heaven/Hell since those are christian beliefs.

Both Atheism and Satanism are religions. A religion is any belief system or spiritual worldview requiring a leap of FAITH in something that cannot be proven. Atheism posits that there is no intelligent mechanism behind the creation of the universe, which must be accepted on faith as it cannot be conclusively proven. Existential, yes, but a (n anti) religious belief nonetheless.

Satanism (such as it exists - until Anton LeVay created it in the 60s, there was no such thing*) actually only requires belief in a Satanic 'principle' a sort of plastic energy in the ether which can be molded to one's purposes through willful intent. Levay belief the emotions of selfishness and hatred to be the easiest method of amassing and directing this energy, and created a set of rituals designed to facilitate the process, based on the works of previous modern magi like Aleister Crowley, MacGregor Mathers and other members of The Golden Dawn (their system of ritual magic, however, in spite of Crowley's gleefully malicious braggadocio, was more about mysticism and spiritual gnosis and psychological self-awareness). As spiritual pedigrees go, however, Satanism is about as valid as Scientology. Yawn.

Still, systems of belief that cannot be proven by empirical means and must be taken on faith.

At least until one adopts them and they work.





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*not at least as an organized group of like-minded followers. There have always been those who believed one could achieve material results by invoking the aid of unseen presences, both angelic and malevolent, but that sort of Demonology is not specifically 'Satanic' and differs little from the prayers of religions everywhere. Whether calling upon the name of the Father, Son, Holy Spirit, Beelzebub, Gabriel, whatever, one bugaboo is as good as another.

first, the article did not say anything about satan or satanism.
second, satanism != atheism.
third, fourth, fifth, sixth, and a bunch of other numbers just for funzies, if you think "Satanism is sort of a form of atheism," feel free to argue the point.

alternately, you can read someone else argue the opposite (http://atheism.about.com/b/2005/05/26/blogsnark-atheism-satanism-humanism.htm)

don't draw too many conclusions from the title of this thread or of the article it links to. especially since the article it links to now is different than the one it linked to upon my first comment.

i'll pull another quote from the (currently) linked article.
"Investigators searching a home Sunday in rural Grand Saline where Bourque's girlfriend and family live discovered paperback books titled "Demon Possession" and "The Atheist's Way," according to an affidavit filed Tuesday by Texas Ranger Sgt. Brent Davis. Also found were four rifles, three knives and a GPS device at the double-wide manufactured home, the affidavit said."

now, let's look at the titles of the two books referenced... "demon possession" and "the atheist's way." i think it's clear, from his actions, which one he liked more.

Umm... The books on atheism were TOTALLY not the point of this article. For God's sake, this is about a serial arsonist. I think the satanism books would be more relavant anyway.

I wonder how many serial killers and rapists have Bibles in their homes...

I can't tell if you're trying to say, "few" or "lots".

If you're implying that these people would have Bibles, that simply holds no water whatsoever. You can't judge an entire religion by a few of its followers.

wouldnt a book on atheism be empty?

What I'm saying is arson is not caused by having atheist books any more than rape and murder is caused by having a Bible. What I'm saying is the books are irrelevant to the actions of the persons. If a person commits arson, rape, or murder, that's not the fault of what the person reads (even if the person reads a note that specifically tells them to do it), it's the fault of the person's failure to apply enough basic common sense to it to make the choice not to do it.

Atheism is not a religion, it is lack of religion. Let's not confuse religion with philosophical views.

Satanism is not atheism, as in Satanism there is belief in a supernatural being; something that deny the atheists.

Ah. I agree.