Sri Lanka church attacks

Wtf! Why do these things happen?
I just don’t get it.
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Comments

  • ClimacusClimacus Shipmate
    Because for some people it's my way or the highway? They cannot stand to have people with different beliefs? I do not know...in some sense I'm glad I don't know what makes such people tick.

    My initial reaction, on Easter Sunday of all days!, was a wish for the perpetrators to be slowly cooked alive in the bubbling geothermal pools I am currently visiting. But I think my overwhelming reaction is that of extreme sadness. We humans can be utter arseholes.
  • Bishops FingerBishops Finger Shipmate
    edited April 2019
    It seems to be breaking news here in Ukland - it certainly wasn't mentioned at Mass earlier, and, if Father NewPriest had known, he would certainly have mentioned it.

    https://bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-48001720

    WTF indeed.....
    :cry:


  • It was known here by 7 am (no details though); I certainly mentioned it at the start of our service and asked for a moment of silent prayer.
  • Kyrie, eleison.

    Over 200 killed, plus 450+ wounded, in attacks on churches and hotels..but why both?
  • The hotels were apparently ones that were popular with tourists (you know, foreigners.

    :votive:
  • Yes, I wondered that - but, if so, why target churches? Or is it that Christianity, per se, is also considered foreign, and therefore target-worthy?

    A confused situation at the moment, but more details might emerge in due course.

  • Penny SPenny S Shipmate
    The Christians are very much a minority, so a soft target?
  • ISWYM. I daresay further news reports (if accurate) may shed some sorely-needed light....
  • One of my work colleagues is Sri Lankan. He tells me via social media that his and his wife's family are safe. They are Christian. One of the churches was close to his town, but not one either family attends. I don't know why Christians have been targeted.
  • It's so hard to comprehend, not only WHY such outrages occur, but also WHAT the feelings/reactions must be of those directly affected.

    What if, at some point during our morning Mass in 'safe' Ukland, mad murderers (for so they must surely be) had burst through our OPEN and WELCOMING door, and slaughtered us?

    :cold_sweat:
  • I think such attacks shouldn't surprise us, though they should shock us. From the massacre of Jews in York through to Srebrenica and beyond, this is what man sometimes does to man. If there is a better version of man that never commits such acts we have yet to invent it.

    Presumably a group will claim responsibility for the bombings and we can start to unravel the chain of misery that led up to it.
  • jay_emmjay_emm Shipmate
    It's so hard to comprehend, not only WHY such outrages occur, but also WHAT the feelings/reactions must be of those directly affected.

    What if, at some point during our morning Mass in 'safe' Ukland, mad murderers (for so they must surely be) had burst through our OPEN and WELCOMING door, and slaughtered us?

    :cold_sweat:

    Yes even so distant it's a sad day and one that must be unimaginable up close.
    Glad of the (as usual) worldwide condemnation and hopefully it will be listened too.
  • Pigwidgeon wrote: »
    The hotels were apparently ones that were popular with tourists (you know, foreigners.

    :votive:

    My husband has stayed in one of the hotels (the Cinnamon Grand, Colombo) twice post-2016 referendum, on a strengthening-links-with-commonwealth-countries-in-case-we-lose-European-business-post-Brexit basis.

    I've no idea how many extra Britons have been to Sri Lanka trying to create a Brexit safety net, but I'm sure my husband hasn't been the only one.

    However, given that it was Easter weekend, I suspect most of the hotel guests were holiday makers.
  • It's so hard to comprehend, not only WHY such outrages occur, but also WHAT the feelings/reactions must be of those directly affected.

    What if, at some point during our morning Mass in 'safe' Ukland, mad murderers (for so they must surely be) had burst through our OPEN and WELCOMING door, and slaughtered us?

    :cold_sweat:

    I can’t comprehend it.
    Which makes me feel so powerless.
    How should we respond to these things?
  • I simply cannot comprehend what such terrorists think they are achieving.
  • Martin54Martin54 Shipmate
    Righteousness.
  • Martin54Martin54 Shipmate
    edited April 2019
    This will be 'Islamist' terrorism on the soft underbelly of Western culture. My Muslim boss and colleagues will be aghast, being Westernized to various degrees, but they will feel wounded by the term Islamist. They always claim that such suicide-mass murderers are apostate and nothing to do with Islam and why don't we identify Christian terrorists? I nod and say I understand. Is there another term they would find acceptable?
  • But if it is terrorism done in the name of Islam- however inaccurately labelled - it's hard not to call it such? I don't understand how any person who is truly religious (of whatever religion*) can consider it a righteous or godly act to attack people who are simply gathered randomly in public areas - like hotels etc - or are trying to draw closer to their God, at worship; seeking a more holy life. It must be a peculiar kind of evil that takes people's better urges, and innocent pre-occupations (like holiday-making) and targets them especially; defenceless as they must be. A deliberate relinquishment of basic humane principles to satisfy a perverse arrangement of 'what God wants', when it's nothing more than the extreme manifestation of hatred of one's fellow human beings.

    The York massacre is regarded as a despicable murderous lowpoint of prejudice against the Jews, for the same reason, and undoubtedly done in the name of the Christian God; as well as the bigotry of the ignorant.

    I think when bigoted ignorance gets conflated with perverted religious principles, it's important to call out all the elements involved. The Crusades highlighted a perverseness of an application of Christian 'love' for the world that should've been rejected; but so suited the prejudices and political machinations of the times that were in it, were hardly considered unusual let alone wrong.

    We really need to disappropriate God for our own particular purposes.

  • Martin54Martin54 Shipmate
    Oh it's truly religious all right. Only the binding that is religion - its roots according to Lactantius since Constantine - can blind that much.
  • Martin54Martin54 Shipmate
    Behind the bitterness is the monkey sense of unfairness.
  • Martin54Martin54 Shipmate
    It's so hard to comprehend, not only WHY such outrages occur, but also WHAT the feelings/reactions must be of those directly affected.

    What if, at some point during our morning Mass in 'safe' Ukland, mad murderers (for so they must surely be) had burst through our OPEN and WELCOMING door, and slaughtered us?

    :cold_sweat:

    How are they mad? In what clinical sense? We have the privilege to be open and welcoming, that in itself is an insult, competitive, predatory, disrespectful, blasphemous, unclean, dangerous.
  • Martin54Martin54 Shipmate
    Pigwidgeon wrote: »
    The hotels were apparently ones that were popular with tourists (you know, foreigners.

    :votive:

    Rich, privileged, infidel, unclean, dangerous invaders.
  • Martin54 wrote: »
    This will be 'Islamist' terrorism on the soft underbelly of Western culture.

    Or Buddhist extremists. Or Tamils. Both of whom have history of attacking innocent people, the former on religious grounds, the latter using suicide bombers.
  • Martin54Martin54 Shipmate
    Not as much as Christians and all the other Peoples of the Book. This is Islamist.
  • Martin54 wrote: »
    Not as much as Christians and all the other Peoples of the Book. This is Islamist.

    Prove it. Buddhists have been attacking Muslims in Sri Lanka in the last few months and years. The Tamils were the first to use suicide bombing. In any other location you might be fairly certain of being right but the fact is that we simply don't know right now.
  • Martin54Martin54 Shipmate
    edited April 2019
    Yes we do. It's been on the BBC for hours and it was obvious before that.
  • Martin54 wrote: »
    Yes we do. It's been on the BBC for hours.

    Then post a fucking link rather than gnomic assertions.
  • not entirely menot entirely me Shipmate
    edited April 2019
    No one has actually admitted to it so far.
    Regardless of who carried it out it’s still awful and no reason for us to hate on muslims.
  • Martin54Martin54 Shipmate
    Nothing gnomic about it. It was immediately obvious who had done it and why. Buddhists are certainly capable of genocide, like any other religion, it's the downside of our altruistic eusociality after all, and this isn't ten year delayed payback by 80% Hindu 20% Christian Tamils.
  • Martin54 wrote: »
    It's so hard to comprehend, not only WHY such outrages occur, but also WHAT the feelings/reactions must be of those directly affected.

    What if, at some point during our morning Mass in 'safe' Ukland, mad murderers (for so they must surely be) had burst through our OPEN and WELCOMING door, and slaughtered us?

    :cold_sweat:

    How are they mad? In what clinical sense? We have the privilege to be open and welcoming, that in itself is an insult, competitive, predatory, disrespectful, blasphemous, unclean, dangerous.

    Sorry, Martin, but I really don't see what you're getting at. How is being open and welcoming an insult, for instance?

    (I'm not sniping at you BTW - I just need you to unpack your remarks a bit!).

  • Three of the children of a local landowner (local to me, though he actually a Dane) have been killed. We have sent a card and are in prayer but it is just tragic.
  • Bishops FingerBishops Finger Shipmate
    edited April 2019
    That really brings it home. Truly, we live in a Global Village.

    <votive> for the children, and for their family.

    But......yet again, the Christian Church (so much maligned, written off, and discarded - like its Lord, only the other day) is there to uphold, pray, and just BE.

    <Cathscats> and congregation.
  • What @Martin54 is saying reminds me of the way I keep being told holiness agendas must be respected. I reject both completely; they're both a way of using religion to sacralise pure fear and hatred of the perceived other.
  • Bishops FingerBishops Finger Shipmate
    edited April 2019
    Well, yes. How is 'holiness' achieved by the indiscriminate slaughter of others?

    Yes, I do appreciate that the same question could be asked of the Crusaders, those who slaughtered the Cathars, etc. etc.
  • Martin54Martin54 Shipmate
    edited April 2019
    Martin54 wrote: »
    It's so hard to comprehend, not only WHY such outrages occur, but also WHAT the feelings/reactions must be of those directly affected.

    What if, at some point during our morning Mass in 'safe' Ukland, mad murderers (for so they must surely be) had burst through our OPEN and WELCOMING door, and slaughtered us?

    :cold_sweat:

    How are they mad? In what clinical sense? We have the privilege to be open and welcoming, that in itself is an insult, competitive, predatory, disrespectful, blasphemous, unclean, dangerous.

    Sorry, Martin, but I really don't see what you're getting at. How is being open and welcoming an insult, for instance?

    (I'm not sniping at you BTW - I just need you to unpack your remarks a bit!).

    You're a good person Bishops Finger, nay bother. ISIL were able to remotely groom a man in to driving a truck over men, women and children. I assume that he and they were perfectly sane. What could induce them to do that? Stories. The power of stories. Western thinking and behaviour of any and all kinds is anathema to those that are trapped by such stories. They are utterly, inimically other. We use openness and welcome as a weapon. We seek to change others by being open and welcoming. A thousand years ago our Crusaders ate their co-religionists. They never forget. That is last week. Infidels desecrated the Holy Land of Arabia to attack other Muslims. They support heretics (Shia) and worse (Jews) against true believers. It's an absolute maelstrom of victimhood. They are using religion to sacralise pure fear and hatred of the perceived other. Of the oppressor.

    We must not.

    We must love our enemies in ways that go completely beyond the soft power thin end of the Western wedge.

    As a wonderful French guy said on Hard Talk, give them chocolate.
  • Thanks, Martin. I still don't quite see your meaning, but yes, stories do have long lives (and memories). I can also begin to see (I think) how our Western 'values' and behaviour may be anathema to some from other less liberal cultures.

    If (and it's a big 'if') our 'open and welcoming' churches are 'open and welcoming' PRIMARILY to CHANGE people, them you may have a point.

    Should we (Christians™, I mean) therefore be less 'open and welcoming'?
  • It is such a stark counterpoint to the destruction of the edifice that began Holy Week.

    Like:

    Look at your Christianity! A building burns and the world mourns, grieves, wails, and throws money, but your own people are killed and it's Thoughts and Prayers and Business as Usual.

    If Western values have not yet been thrown into stark contrast prior to this (and I still can't believe that people can't see the world clearly) then I fear there will be more of same to come.

    The week's events have literally brought me to my knees.

    AFF
  • @AFeminineForce, yes, a stark contrast, indeed.

    But.....the faith that is underlined by the existence of buildings like Notre Dame de Paris (which, ultimately, like all churches, is dispensable), is not destroyed by the acts of terrorists (or whatever they may call themselves).
  • Colin SmithColin Smith Suspended
    edited April 2019
    It is such a stark counterpoint to the destruction of the edifice that began Holy Week.

    Like:

    Look at your Christianity! A building burns and the world mourns, grieves, wails, and throws money, but your own people are killed and it's Thoughts and Prayers and Business as Usual.

    If Western values have not yet been thrown into stark contrast prior to this (and I still can't believe that people can't see the world clearly) then I fear there will be more of same to come.

    The week's events have literally brought me to my knees.

    AFF

    Notre Dame is part of Western secular culture and is familiar from many films and stories. I feel something for its destruction that I do not feel for the death of hundreds of people in a part of the world I know very little about. That you are a Christian and they are Christian gives you a particular connection with them, but Christianity no longer binds people in the way it once did.
  • Martin54Martin54 Shipmate
    Thanks, Martin. I still don't quite see your meaning, but yes, stories do have long lives (and memories). I can also begin to see (I think) how our Western 'values' and behaviour may be anathema to some from other less liberal cultures.

    If (and it's a big 'if') our 'open and welcoming' churches are 'open and welcoming' PRIMARILY to CHANGE people, them you may have a point.

    Should we (Christians™, I mean) therefore be less 'open and welcoming'?

    My apologies for not making my meaning clear. Put yourself in the mind of the guy in the truck in Nice. I can. Play the role. Less liberal culture is human normal. Still. And always will be until we evolve big time.

    We should be wise. We should be penitent. Islam is a socially conservative religion. Broad and deep and beautiful and ghastly. Like all others. But a tad more so. It is the most highly evolved religion to date at accommodating and constraining human nature. As Ash said of the alien, it's perfect.
  • The most extensive violence in Sri Lanka in recent decades is an ethnic and religious conflict involving Hindu's and Buddhists I believe.
  • Martin54Martin54 Shipmate
    It is such a stark counterpoint to the destruction of the edifice that began Holy Week.

    Like:

    Look at your Christianity! A building burns and the world mourns, grieves, wails, and throws money, but your own people are killed and it's Thoughts and Prayers and Business as Usual.

    If Western values have not yet been thrown into stark contrast prior to this (and I still can't believe that people can't see the world clearly) then I fear there will be more of same to come.

    The week's events have literally brought me to my knees.

    AFF

    Notre Dame is part of Western secular culture and is familiar from many films and stories. I feel something for its destruction that I do not feel for the death of hundreds of people in a part of the world I know very little about. That you are a Christian and they are Christian gives you a particular connection with them, but Christianity no longer binds people in the way it once did.

    Appallingly I wept for Notre Dame but not Sri Lanka.
  • O dear. I'm still at sea. Perhaps later, after SOUP......
  • Martin54Martin54 Shipmate
    That's my fault. Get rid of all Western thinking. Read https://www.theguardian.com/world/2003/mar/09/terrorism and the like.
  • You all know that Sri Lanka was colonized by several European (ie Christian) powers, right? And that Buddhists and Hindus resisted?
  • My Sri Lankan workmate has the word Don as one of his surnames. I accused him in jest of being a Prince, and he told me that one of his ancestors had worked with the Portuguese and they had rewarded him. It's also why his family is Catholic. I don't know if that's a thing with Sri Lankan Christians in general.

  • The Shangri-La hotel in Sri Lanka which was bombed is where my wife and her team stay when they are there - about 4 times a year for 2-3 weeks at a time. Fortunately, none were there this weekend. I was there with her last June. The restaurant which was destroyed was where they eat breakfast every day, right beside the window that was blown out by the bombers, and they likely would have been there at 9:00 on a Sunday morning. Some of her team were to be there in 2 weeks time, and she and the rest of the team nearer the end of May. The trips will likely be cancelled, or at least postponed. She is wondering how many of the staff she knew will not be there next time. The chef who made special gluten free muffins for her every morning? The maitre'd who greeted her by name? The coffee guy who poured her coffee and knew he didn't have to bring cream?

    If she was there, she would be dead.

    It is very real for me.
  • When I heard about Notre Dame Cathedral and all the wailing and crying, I was completely unmoved. Whoop-de-doo, a BUILDING burned. Am I evil? No. I'm just tired of people putting much more importance on a structure and billionaires rushing forward to donate their money so a stupid building can rise from the ashes. Meanwhile, in other news, children are still being sold into sexual slavery and made into suicide bombers or being starved to death. La di da, oh well, someone else's problem.
  • sharkshooter, I will pray for you and your family. All of this is horrid.
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