Feds: School bomb plotter wanted to kill Jesus - CNN.com

errr -- I'm not sure what to say.

Do you think it's someone else's fault other than his own?

Directly, no - he is responsible for his own actions. But I suppose indirectly one could look to what might have caused him to develop this way - you'd need more information to make any kind of analysis on that. But I would guess the best one could do is attribute it to society as a whole, a systemic failure to detect his troubled state earlier, organized religion etc.

One thing that seems a bit odd is he gets charged with "attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction". I thought that term was reserved for nukes, bio-weapons, etc (such as in the failed search for them in Iraq, pre-invasion, and post-invasion for that matter).

I wondered about the WMD reference too.

I'm interested in knowing what the end is to this tendancy of yours to assign responsibility to people other than the individual who made a choice. Say, for example, say society caused this freak to develop that way, and in turn is responsible in some part for his choices. What is it you want to change in society so we don't cause any other people to develop that way?

Hey I am jumping in on the bandwagon here..
I too was struck by the WMD term, why that?..that is massive..maybe there is more going on here than at present has been cut loose from the press..say others who are plotting..just guessing.

I often wonder if gene pool plays a part here as well...like mental illness. What kind of childhood did the boy exist in? was it too much for his mind as a child to fathom? there must be more to the story..the kid is an A student..it doesnt make sense..

Who knows where the illness originally derived from..many kids are exposed to things and people that they never should have experienced, sexual abuse drugs,,it can take over your mind and poison it. We really dont have enough information, but when will all this madness with the young people end? why are they so intent on killing their peers and inflicting pain..I just dont understand it.

Sherri

I've said before I don't have any specific 'manifesto' of change that I believe would 'fix' society. To think that I personally had all the answers would be an extremely egotistical view. What I do believe is that awareness is the first step in moving towards a solution. If people understand or are willing to accept that there are underlying factors in everything, it helps work towards a future where those causes and factors are addressed. A standpoint of always looking for causes, to me, seems the way to fix the problem, over time.

It's analogous to a disease. You don't just treat symptoms, you look for causes and treat those too, otherwise the problem will simply recur. In some cases it may also be apparent that it is appropriate to treat a mode of transmission - contain an outbreak as it were. As for the details of the cures for the causes of 'diseases' (both real and metaphorical), those are achieved through long term policies of research and discussion by experts. There is no instant overnight quick-fix.

I will clarify though - that causes do not completely excuse an individual's actions - if they did we would always be able to rationalize everything and absolve absolutely any crime at all. Free will is also a part of the equation. In terms of the analogy, if we just excused the individual on the basis of there being societal causes, that would be similar to researching cures without treating symptoms.

That's reasonable.

Hmmm... doesn't he know Jesus isn't around on Earth anymore? He should blame himself he's the screwball in the woodpile.

terabyte1

I think he wanted to meet and kill Jesus in the afterlife.