Awol Posted July 25, 2011 Share Posted July 25, 2011 ^ I wonder how many European media outlets will now withdraw the "Christian Fundamentalist" tag they put on this story? I suspect the answer is not many. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rodders Posted July 25, 2011 Share Posted July 25, 2011 As for the Church and science, it is essential that science takes an undisputed precedence over biblical teachings. Europe has always been the cradle of science, and it must always continue to be that way well he's not totally bonkers then. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DanishVillan Posted July 25, 2011 Share Posted July 25, 2011 Well they are likely busy removing all the Al Queda references. To me though, he is a Christian as he considers himself "100% Christian". Just because he is capable of trusting science doesn´t make him an atheist. He may not be protestant, catholic or fundamentalist (whatever that means), but still a Christian. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gringo Posted July 25, 2011 Share Posted July 25, 2011 Well they are likely busy removing all the Al Queda references. To me though, he is a Christian as he considers himself "100% Christian". Just because he is capable of trusting science doesn´t make him an atheist. He may not be protestant, catholic or fundamentalist (whatever that means), but still a Christian.Sounds like he's more 'ethnic north european' than anything... Breivik writes in his manifesto that he is not religious, has doubts about God's existence, does not pray, but does assert the primacy of Europe's "Christian culture" as well as his own pagan Nordic culture. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DanishVillan Posted July 25, 2011 Share Posted July 25, 2011 Well they are likely busy removing all the Al Queda references. To me though, he is a Christian as he considers himself "100% Christian". Just because he is capable of trusting science doesn´t make him an atheist. He may not be protestant, catholic or fundamentalist (whatever that means), but still a Christian. Sounds like he's more 'ethnic north european' than anything... Breivik writes in his manifesto that he is not religious, has doubts about God's existence, does not pray, but does assert the primacy of Europe's "Christian culture" as well as his own pagan Nordic culture. One doesn´t exclude the other. He doubts the existance of what "God" though? I don´t agree with it but newspapers like to put everything and everyone in neat little boxes. In this case I would say Christian fits very well. Especially combined with the strawman "Fundamentalist". If he was a believer in Odin and the rest of that gang he wouldn´t be in a (fictive) KT group and he would certainly have aimed for Valhalla instead of being taken alive. Just compare with the lifestyles, reported by some of the terrorists, descriped as holy warriors for Islam. It´s all about boxes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mjmooney Posted July 25, 2011 VT Supporter Share Posted July 25, 2011 Religion. Sigh. Nope. Breivik instead hails Charles Darwin, whose evolutionary theories stand in contrast to the claims of the Bible, and affirms: "As for the Church and science, it is essential that science takes an undisputed precedence over biblical teachings. Might have known you lot would come out of the woodwork. That quote is taken from a fundie creationist website looking for a stick to beat evolution with. Have a look at it folks, it'd be hilarious if it wasn't so pathetic. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chindie Posted July 25, 2011 VT Supporter Share Posted July 25, 2011 UK Press now playing up alleged contact between Breivik and the EDL. Breivik himself has accepted responsibility for the attacks but not criminal responsibility. He has apparently decided he shouldn't be charged. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kiwivillan Posted July 25, 2011 Share Posted July 25, 2011 Has it Bin Dunne? Anyway I heart Charlie Brooker http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/jul/24/charlie-brooker-norway-mass-killings I went to bed in a terrible world and awoke inside a worse one. At the time of writing, details of the Norwegian atrocity are still emerging, although the identity of the perpetrator has now been confirmed and his motivation seems increasingly clear: a far-right anti-Muslim extremist who despised the ruling party. Presumably he wanted to make a name for himself, which is why I won't identify him. His name deserves to be forgotten. Discarded. Deleted. Labels like "madman", "monster", or "maniac" won't do, either. There's a perverse glorification in terms like that. If the media's going to call him anything, it should call him pathetic; a nothing. On Friday night's news, they were calling him something else. He was a suspected terror cell with probable links to al-Qaida. Countless security experts queued up to tell me so. This has all the hallmarks of an al-Qaida attack, they said. Watching at home, my gut feeling was that that didn't add up. Why Norway? And why was it aimed so specifically at one political party? But hey, they're the experts. They're sitting there behind a caption with the word "EXPERT" on it. Every few minutes the anchor would ask, "What kind of picture is emerging?" or "What sense are you getting of who might be responsible?" and every few minutes they explained this was "almost certainly" the work of a highly-organised Islamist cell. In the aftermath of the initial bombing, they proceeded to wrestle with the one key question: why do Muslims hate Norway? Luckily, the experts were on hand to expertly share their expert solutions to plug this apparent plot hole in the ongoing news narrative. Why do Muslims hate Norway? There had to be a reason. Norway was targeted because of its role in Afghanistan. Norway was targeted because Norwegian authorities had recently charged an extremist Muslim cleric. Norway was targeted because one of its newspapers had reprinted the controversial Danish cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad. Norway was targeted because, compared to the US and UK, it is a "soft target" – in other words, they targeted it because no one expected them to. When it became apparent that a shooting was under way on Utoya island, the security experts upgraded their appraisal. This was no longer a Bali-style al-Qaida bombing, but a Mumbai-style al-Qaida massacre. On and on went the conjecture, on television, and in online newspapers, including this one. Meanwhile, on Twitter, word was quickly spreading that, according to eyewitnesses, the shooter on the island was a blond man who spoke Norwegian. At this point I decided my initial gut reservations about al-Qaida had probably been well founded. But who was I to contradict the security experts? A blond Norwegian gunman doesn't fit the traditional profile, they said, so maybe we'll need to reassess . . . but let's not forget that al-Qaida have been making efforts to actively recruit "native" extremists: white folk who don't arouse suspicion. So it's probably still the Muslims. Soon, the front page of Saturday's Sun was rolling off the presses. "Al-Qaeda" Massacre: NORWAY'S 9/11 – the weasel quotes around the phrase "Al Qaeda" deemed sufficient to protect the paper from charges of jumping to conclusions. By the time I went to bed, it had become clear to anyone within glancing distance of the internet that this had more in common with the 1995 Oklahoma bombing or the 1999 London nail-bombing campaign than the more recent horrors of al-Qaida. While I slept, the bodycount continued to rise, reaching catastrophic proportions by the morning. The next morning I switched on the news and the al-Qaida talk had been largely dispensed with, and the pundits were now experts on far-right extremism, as though they'd been on a course and qualified for a diploma overnight. Some remained scarily defiant in the face of the new unfolding reality. On Saturday morning I saw a Fox News anchor tell former US diplomat John Bolton that Norwegian police were saying this appeared to be an Oklahoma-style attack, then ask him how that squared with his earlier assessment that al-Qaida were involved. He was sceptical. It was still too early to leap to conclusions, he said. We should wait for all the facts before rushing to judgment. In other words: assume it's the Muslims until it starts to look like it isn't – at which point, continue to assume it's them anyway. If anyone reading this runs a news channel, please, don't clog the airwaves with fact-free conjecture unless you're going to replace the word "expert" with "guesser" and the word "speculate" with "guess", so it'll be absolutely clear that when the anchor asks the expert to speculate, they're actually just asking a guesser to guess. Also, choose better guessers. Your guessers were terrible, like toddlers hypothesising how a helicopter works. I don't know anything about international terrorism, but even I outguessed them. As more information regarding the identity of the terrorist responsible for the massacre comes to light, articles attempting to explain his motives are starting to appear online. And beneath them are comments from readers, largely expressing outrage and horror. But there are a disturbing number that start, "What this lunatic did was awful, but . . ." These "but" commenters then go on to discuss immigration, often with reference to a shaky Muslim-baiting story they've half-remembered from the press. So despite this being a story about an anti-Muslim extremist killing Norwegians who weren't Muslim, they've managed to find a way to keep the finger of blame pointing at the Muslims, thereby following a narrative lead they've been fed for years, from the overall depiction of terrorism as an almost exclusively Islamic pursuit, outlined by "security experts" quick to see al-Qaida tentacles everywhere, to the fabricated tabloid fairytales about "Muslim-only loos" or local councils "banning Christmas". We're in a frightening place. Guesswork won't lead us to safety. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LondonLax Posted July 25, 2011 Share Posted July 25, 2011 Yeah I read that and went over to the the comments section of the daily heil for a look see. Plenty of "if the governments in western countries would only listen to the people they are supposed to be representing then this kind of thing wouldn't happen". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bose Posted July 25, 2011 Share Posted July 25, 2011 I want to throw up when I see this picture. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gompedyret Posted July 25, 2011 Share Posted July 25, 2011 As for the Church and science, it is essential that science takes an undisputed precedence over biblical teachings. Europe has always been the cradle of science, and it must always continue to be that way well he's not totally bonkers then. He's not bonkers at all. That's what makes it so chillingly terrifying. He's spent the best part of ten years planning this, cynically considering all possible outcomes and obstacles underways. Several traits usually connected to psychopathy are displayed: delusions of self grandeur, pompous and grand visions and plans, paranoia (although not so much on a personal level, but more in a "the muslims are out to destroy my culture and the government deserves to die for abling them"! kind of way), extreme ego centrism, megalomania, total lack of ability to connect with other people on an emotional level, lack of empathy. The last two might go some way to explain how he managed to end up capable of doing (and indeed doing) such atrocities. He's made himself unavailable for other persons, other thoughts, never exposing himself to alternative ideas, never having his increasingly twisted world view and ideas challenged. All his actions has been deliberate and considerate, leading up to this expressed goal. The thinking behind is obviously perverted and insane, but the guy himself? He knew exactly what he did. All the way. One cold, cold fish. That's really what gives me the shivers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CarewsEyebrowDesigner Posted July 25, 2011 Share Posted July 25, 2011 The danger is that he's planned to be caught and he wants (and makes no secret about it either) his message out there too. He's exactly the type of bonkers that governments don't like. Someone with extreme political views, but with the ability to articulate those views and rationalise them to himself, and to convey all this to weak-minded individuals. He's planned to be a type of martyr. This needs dealt with extreme care. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maqroll Posted July 26, 2011 Share Posted July 26, 2011 Scrutiny is now being put on the police for not investigating the shipment of fertilizer that he used to make the bomb (apparently it caused some concern, but they didn't follow up on it), and for the clumsy response to the shootings (the first boat they took to get there began to take on water because too many people were in it, so they had to turn back)..... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JulieB Posted July 26, 2011 Share Posted July 26, 2011 To take a guess I think this guy is a very disturbed psycopathic narcissist using religion and politics to justify his actions. Unfortunately the debate on Insanity V Personality Disorder rages on. He knew what he was doing.... he wasn't insanse ... he's just wired differently and very dangerously! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maqroll Posted July 26, 2011 Share Posted July 26, 2011 You can slaughter 80 people in Norway and the maximum prison time you'll do is 21 years. This asshole will be out when he's just 53 years old. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bose Posted July 26, 2011 Share Posted July 26, 2011 Isn't there something in the law about them being able to hold him longer if they think he's still a threat after he's served his time? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DanishVillan Posted July 26, 2011 Share Posted July 26, 2011 Indeed there is, it´s called "Forvaring". They can hold him forever. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
regular_john Posted July 26, 2011 Share Posted July 26, 2011 You can slaughter 80 people in Norway and the maximum prison time you'll do is 21 years. This asshole will be out when he's just 53 years old. That's only the max sentence for those not considered a threat to society, which this guy clearly is. He'll be in prison till the day he dies. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
norton65ca Posted July 27, 2011 Share Posted July 27, 2011 This particular tragedy has shaken me. It is devastating as the details of the young people senselessly slaughtered by this cold hearted individual come out, the talents, dreams and hope in their lives cut off. There are no more words for this appalling loss of young lives. RIP, prayers for the Norwegian people and especially the families and friends of the lost. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chindie Posted April 16, 2012 VT Supporter Share Posted April 16, 2012 Breiviks trial has started proper today. He has accepted he committed the acts, but predictably he's pleaded not guilty, claiming he acted in self defence. Despite initially being found mentally unstable, he's been reassessed as sane. The trial intends to decide if he is sane or not, leading to a decision whether he would be committed into psychiatric care or jailed. Tomorrow he will be given the stand. Norway is rightly worried he will use that as a grandstand so will be putting precautions in place to prevent him using it as a rally. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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