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When I turned from a cable show to a local network channel at 10:00 PM last night the first thing I heard was that their was a mass shooting at an LA Fitness in Bridgeville/Collier Township.
My immediate thought was some man is pissed off at an ex-girlfriend or ex-wife/his job or former job/all women. I especially thought the latter after I heard that he turned off the lights before he started firing.
You can pretty much bet your house on this stuff.
Now we know that:
Yes, the shooter was male.He's been identified as George Sodini:
Yes, he hated women.
You can read his "thoughts" here.
In case you didn't know it, women are "hoes" (because they don't want to date him).
He's a racist.
He planned this for a year.
Really, nothing more to say except to extend condolences to the family and friends of those who he murdered.
.
10 comments:
Wow, this guy was off-balance...
I enjoy your blog, btw.
sucks. i have no better words right now. i watched it last night and my heart just sank.
@Ellipses: Thanks! Did you read how he explained that he's going to heaven and meeting Jesus?
@Sherry: Yeah, I felt physically sick last night watching the coverage.
You should have warned your readers that the link to his "thoughts" goes to the nutbag's personal website.
You know, I can understand being desperately unhappy. I can understand being lonely. I can understand being really angry at other people, even (or probably particularly) family. I can understand not making attempts to connect to women because of your own perceived failings.
But nothing could justify this, under no circumstances. If you have nothing to live for, go shoot Robert Mugabe or Kim Jung Il, and then yourself. Of course, you don’t *have* to shoot anyone. Become a missionary. Become a monk. Go work in a soup kitchen. Or start tithing and live like a monk. Then you can still revel in your misery *and* be self righteous about your life (“see what you made me do, mom, you made me help people”).
Or go get help, if you actually write down that you think you are crazy. If the first shrink doesn’t work, go to another and another.
This guy worked out, was apparently in decent shape. He had a decent job where he had even been promoted recently. He says other people described him as a nice guy. You know, go get therapy and then go get a girl friend. He apparently had the occasional date, and had a former girlfriend. He could have learned the routine of telling people what they want to hear in exchange for physical intimacy. If he couldn’t have Cheryl Tiegs, too bad. Neither can the rest of us. (Cheryl Tiegs too old? How about Lauren Hutton or Isabella Rossilini?)
And that is not even going down the road of why we need to restrict or ban handguns. I saw on the Good Morning America website someone commenting that this incident would have had a different ending if Congress had passed that recent concealed carry (across state lines) law. Because (this is me saying) the woman from Alabama would just happen to be in LA Fitness that night with a handgun concealed in her leotard.
@Maria- Yeah... I wasn't sure that you could fit so much crazy into one page on the internet... It's like a leprechaun riding a unicorn through a field of crazy.
Speaking of which, one of my bloggers has seized on this event as yet another example of America's desperate need to embrace mental health services. Check it out.
Reading his blog is a scary thing. Not the suppressed violence so much, but the psychotic desire to blame his problems on everyone else, from his mother and brother to (apparently) every woman he ever met.
How all that rage translates to killing a bunch of innocent women is for mental health professionals to figure out....
OK, it's a cop out to blame something this screwed up on a church. That said, the church front page set up a whole lot of red flags for me. Quite a mix of "cult watch" level terminology mixed in with the standard Christian stuff. In case it goes down, here are some chunks. Note the oddness of "dispensationally-specific teaching," and " By advancing together in such a way, results of intrinsic good are bound to eventuate" and the armed-combat overtones of "We believe that ancillary results of this advance include influence toward the preservation of the freedom, safety, and stability of our nation [...] and victories in the angelic conflict, which complement the strategic victory of the Lord Jesus Christ." Strategic victory? You don't say.
And there's a pretty high oddness quotient in "To keep mission-focus it is crucial that the pastor-teacher sticks to his core-capability of studying and teaching," at least to my ears.
And the name of the church means "it is finished"-I don't think I'm necessarily reading into this if it sounds to me like there might have been a millennialist edge to it.
our mission
Tetelestai Church exists for the purpose of the dissemination of the accurate (2 TIMOTHY 2:15), dispensationally-specific (EPHESIANS 3:1-6; COLOSSIANS 1:24-29) teaching of Bible doctrine with the confident assurance that the results of this will be the magnification of Christ (PHILIPPIANS 1:20) and the glorification of God the father (EPHESIANS 3:21), the edification of the Church which is Christ’s body (EPHESIANS 4:11-16), and the advancing of the faith of the Gospel (PHILIPPIANS 1:27) to those who are without God in this world and without hope (EPHESIANS 2:12).
As a local church in the Pittsburgh area with listeners elsewhere feeding upon the same truth (JEREMIAH 15:16), Tetelestai aims to be an assembly of believers unified in the soul, by orientation to grace and truth (JOHN 1:14), by the power of One Holy Spirit, by one expectation from Heaven (PHILIPPIANS 3:20-21) and by occupation with Christ Jesus (PHILIPPIANS 3:10). By advancing together in such a way, results of intrinsic good are bound to eventuate (GALATIANS 6:8; PHILIPPIANS 1:9-11). We believe that ancillary results of this advance include influence toward the preservation of the freedom, safety, and stability of our nation (ISAIAH 33:6) and victories in the angelic conflict, which complement the strategic victory of the Lord Jesus Christ (1 JOHN 3:8; cf. ROMANS 16:20; 1 JOHN 2:13).
To keep mission-focus it is crucial that the pastor-teacher sticks to his core-capability of studying and teaching (1 TIMOTHY 4:14-16; 2 TIMOTHY 2:15) regardless of historical or volitional trends that may exist at any given time (2 TIMOTHY 4:2-4). This demands that the burden of administration falls to an able body of deacons and staff, and that the important functions of helps, hospitality, giving, ministering, mercy and other core-capabilities in the assembly (ROMANS12:5 ff.; 1 PETER 4:10 ff.) function in the power supplied by God in the filling of the Spirit. Under this mission, all the members are priests (1 PETER 2:5, 9) with equal access to the throne of grace (ROMANS 5:2; HEBREWS 4:16). All are ambassadors, representing Christ (2 CORINTHIANS 5:19-21). All are commanded to pray (1 THESSALONIANS 5:17; 1 TIMOTHY 2:1 cf. LUKE 18:1). And all are commanded to maintain unit-integrity with the attitude of humility (EPHESIANS 4:1-3), the attitude demonstrated without deviation by the Lord Jesus Christ throughout His First Advent, even to extent of death on the cross (PHILIPPIANS 2:1-8). The only way that an individual soul or an organization can have in itself the attitude that prevailed in Christ Jesus is to have a consistent priority-focus on the one thing that Jesus deemed needful (LUKE 10:42). That one thing, exemplified in Mary, is fixed faith and attentiveness on the words of our Lord Jesus Christ (LUKE 10:39; 11:28 cf. JOHN 6:63; COLOSSIANS 3:16; 1 TIMOTHY 6:3).
i saw a more recent picture of the killer on tv yesterday. it doesn't even look like the same guy. he looks as if he physically deteriorated along with his mental state.
Sherry,
I know the photo that you're talking about and, yes, he looks very different.
Looking at his youtube video, I think he actually looked somewhere in between the first flattering photo and the other unflattering photo.
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