What's this jabber about the VT gunman being a Christian?

Question

I saw the video where he identifies himself as a martyr like Christ, but where do people get the idea he was a Christian? I remember similar episodes from art school were a freshman girl would strip naked and crucify a stuffed bear as some kind of profound work of performance art. So that girl was a Christian, too? Fill me in peeps.

South Korea is 50% Buddhist and 14% Christian. 35% are unaffiliated.

Markyyy, people did try to help him. His roommates tried to involve him in their social activities for weeks but he kept withdrawing.

Justsyd: How does his use of that analogy make him a Christian? Any martyr for any cause could make the same comment.

Yo Yo: Thanks for your post. But your CIA statistics are different from the Department of State, which is different from the Library of Congress. Nor is it possible to clearly identify the number of Buddhists because they do not associate with the believe in a binary way, as Christians do with Christ. Thus the "believer" and "non-believer" distinction does not apply. Regarless, there the religion stats of S. Korea are of no relevance whatsoever in claiming this guy was a Christian.

Answer 1

You had it right in your question. Just jabber.

Answer 2

I fail to see what it matters if the guy was a Christian or not.

What bothers me more is that, over the last years, there was obviously no Christian, no atheist, no Buddhist, no Pagan, no Muslim that handed out to this guy.

This guy was obviously pretty messed up, all signs were there, as we keep on hearing. It seems that our society has become so selfish that we create such disturbed human beings.

Everybody is playing the blame game now. I blame everybody, including myself.

Edit: I know that, dog sneeze. But if we, as a society, can't see how we create this type of behavior and prefer to play the blame game, there is truly something very wrong with all of us. Nobody is born as a monster. Society obviously creates monsters.

We should stop finding the blame, and try to work, together, on solutions to prevent this. And solutions will start at the very bottom of society, and will end only after many generations I'm afraid.

If there were 500 people inhabiting the planet, this wouldn't have happened. Never. Those people would look after eachother much more than we do.

I'm not saying I have a solution. I _am_ saying we should stop searching for who's to blame and try to figure out solutions.

Answer 3

Your stats are way off. I've linked the CIA World Fact book for you so you can get your facts straight.
Christian 26%
Buddhist 26%
Confucianist 1%
no affiliation 46%
other 1%

Look down the page to "Religion"

I lived in Korea. I speak, read and write Korean. There are a lot of Koreans where I live. They're all Methodists. I think I met seven Buddhists when I lived in Anjongni and Seoul, and everyone else was Baptist, Methodist or Presbyterian.

You are correct that his references to Christ don't make him Christian. But the fact that he became mentally ill doesn't make him Buddhist either. I suspect if you wait to learn about his family, they are probably Christians. There aren't that many Son Buddhist (the Korean variety) temples in the US. That doesn't mean this kid was a Christian, just raised in the culture. But it also isn't the case that every time a nominal Christian commits a cime that all of Christendom gets to deny he ever had a legitimate conversion, because we have no evidence that being Christian means you can't get sick or commit a crime.

I used to counsel and conduct services at a state prison farm. 1500 inmates out of 3800 attended services. At least six I worked with were deacons in their churches when they were arrested and 12 were ordained, and that was just what I met in 18 months.

You don't really mean to assert that Christians can't sin do you?

But as pointed out above, the religious beliefs of a paranoid schizophrenic aren't particularly relevant to the illness.

Answer 4

I guess we will never know unless someone really says what his religion was,but no one has yet really confirmed this outright. So it doesn't matter what religion he belonged to. What we have to do is learn from this and make sure our children do not commit the same mistake. Killing is not a Christian thing to do. Christ was crucified and did not murder anybody. We have to teach people to love and not to hate by being loving ourselves. I think love is the answer to this tragedy. So let's forgive and move on with our lives and not blame anyone for this. I guess removing violence onTV and the movies would not hurt. Let's also keep watch at what our children watch so that we can guide them properly. Also let's give our children the proper values and the respect for life so they can learn to respect other people's lives especially their own life. We have to go and teach the catechism or the moral law in schools again. Students have forgotten not to kill and the other 10 commandments because it has been erased from the curriculum of most schools. Let's teach our children the 10 Commandments so that they will not lose their way the way many people are losing their way these days.

Answer 5

I honestly do not know much about it.
I remember the world being horribly upset with John Lennon, who obviously was an atheist, for saying that The Beatles were more popular than Christ.
I have also wondered about the tattoo "Ismail's Ax"....that doesn't make me feel too comfy.
What really worries me is why nobody seemed to pick up on the fact that this kid seems to have had some severe mental problems. Aren't there supposed to be counselors that they talk to who are supposed to be alert for this sort of thing?
How did this boy slip through the cracks??

Answer 6

Christianity is the predominant religion in the U.S., so any person you hear about here is likely to be some kind of Christian.

Anyway, it doesn't matter what religion he was. He was severely mentally ill. That pretty much cancels out everything else - religion, philosophy, or whether or not the VT management handled the situation well (which is being disputed.)

Answer 7

you're good that quiet and anti-social have not got something to do with mudering human beings, yet quiet and anti-social plus his melancholy, recommendations-set, his writings, between different issues, finally ends up interior the very undeniable fact that there have been definately symptoms and indicators. it is a physcology element. There are forensic physchologists available that would take a glance at a criminal offense scene and permit you recognize each and everything with regard to the assailiant, right down to issues like despite if he became a mattress wetter. From what's been informed already, his strikes and reactions to human beings became definately no longer familiar. no longer all of us this is a loner is risky, yet human beings that are loners with different aggravating symptoms and indicators have the flair to be risky. i do no longer think of they're doing it to stereotype. i think of they're attempting to tell human beings of dissimilar issues you may desire to observe of that would desire to bring about an identical tragedy, and that it is great in case you spot those issues, to checklist them to the right human beings. they are no longer asserting p.c.. aside the loners. they're asserting in the event that they're a loner, and instruct signs and indicators of melancholy, and agression, or anger, do no longer forget approximately it.

Answer 8

**
Yes, he was Christian.

"You have vandalized my heart, raped my soul, and torched my conscience. . . . Thanks to you I die like Jesus Christ, to inspire generations of the weak and defenseless people."

justsyd

--Are you retarded Just? Yes, you are.

That source does not even begin to say he is Christian. He doesn't even know how Christ died. His thought was that Christ killed a bunch of people and then killed himself. That is his idea of Jesus. That says he was not Christian nor ever read anything in the Bible.

Being an English Major does not say he was intelligent. In fact, from all the evidence out there, anyone can deduce that this guy was not well read. He was totally clueless. In truth, he was removed from a class and then personally tutored in another. I have read his Richard Mcbeef play and it was totally without structure, plot, setting, meaning or intelligence. He was not a good student.

ISMAIL AX is Islamic. That is who he identified himself as. This is where his actions are defined. The statement about Christ proves he has no idea who Christ is or how Christ died. The name he chose to kill people with is Islamic.

**You don't really mean to assert that Christians can't sin do you?

Yes they can. But this guy was not Christian in the sense of killing in Christianity's name. He did not understand Christ. Christ was not a jihadist. This guy was mixed up between Islam and Christianity. He was active in Indonesian blogs and chat.

Indonesian Religion: Muslim 88%, Protestant 5%, Roman Catholic 3%, Hindu 2%, Buddhist 1%, other 1% (1998)

His Blog activity with Indonesians:
http://www.carlschaad.com/blog/2007/04/ismail_ax.html


Obviously, most of you need to re-examine your assumptions. We Americans are at war with extremist Muslims, it isn't beyond reality that an Islamic Jihadist would say Christ to create the illusion that Christ was his reason. But, in so doing, he made no sense, because, Christ died innocent. He did not murder 32 people then take his own life. So, Cho did not die like Christ at all, like he said he would do in the video.

Answer 9

Yeah I saw that too. He didn't say he was a Christian he said he was going to do like Jesus did. So he was having visions of grandeur. He was mentally ill, He wanted very badly to be important. It is such a dirty shame that he had to kill those kids, it makes me sick.
God be with all the VT families, as the grieve the loss of there loved ones, and those who are still healing.

Nice post

Answer 10

He likely was a Christian, South Koreans tend to be that. If he was Muslim he would have been picked up long ago.
But whatever, the whole martyr complex thing indicates some religious involvement of some kind or another.

Answer 11

obviously, a lot of people don't have the faintest glimmer of what a Christian is...and a lot of people are sufficiently sick and twisted to be willing to capitalize on the tragic deaths of innocent victims and the suffering of the wounded and the grieving families in order to advance their own twisted agenda...these are also the ones who read what was in the media and only retained whatever seemed to suit their agenda-'cut and paste' readers