My point there, is that the church teaches ethics, but for the wrong reason. If the student loses the church, he loses the ethics. This is why secular ethical teaching is a much better choice.

Let’s be fair here. That isn’t necessarily true ? many of us were raised in the Christian church, lost the church, and didn’t loose our sense of morality and ethics. However, I do agree that teaching morality and ethics without also instilling fear of a supernatural being is a better way to go.

The reality in this case, like most others, is this individual was likely mentally unstable to begin with. The causes of his instability are unknown ? though I suppose they could be a product of his strict religious upbringing. A personal God is all about the individual, and is in essence, a severely narcissistic belief system. I could certainly see how this kind of indoctrination could lead to a sociopathic personality.

This was a crazy person that attacked those in the organization he felt wronged him. I don?t believe he was good before that and then lost his ethics when he was abandoned by his youth missionary training center.

Whether he was religious or not religious is no more relevant than whether his hair was long or short.

My point here, is that the church teaches ethics, but for the wrong reason (threats and fear, not humanism). If the student loses the church, he loses that basis for those ethics. If you’re not-quite-sane, that’s not good.

The other side of the coin here is that if the student believes in life-after-death, there is much less stopping him from killing (let God sort ‘em out).

And you base this brilliant deduction upon the actions of .000001% (maniacal nutcase exceptions to the rule) of all people who call themselves Christian?
Thank God for atheists…the world shall be made a better place thanks to their “ethics.”
If I could only figure out how evolution accounted for ethics…doesn’t seem to fit as a criterion for natural selection.

p.s. for those who’ve miseed me, this is just a “drive by”