Last week, there was a shooting at a Cleveland high school.
Columnist Mitch Albom wrote about the killer and described him this way:
The shooter, a 14-year-old named Asa Coon, reportedly was into Goth music and dress, claimed to be an atheist and worshipped shock rock singer Marilyn Manson. He wore a Manson T-shirt the day of the shootings — although many were quick to deny any connection between the music and the shootings.
To be sure, Albom isn’t making up the idea that this kid might have been an atheist. He’s going off of what has been reported.
But just as there’s no good connection between the music and the shootings, there’s no reason to think his supposed atheism had anything to do with it, either.
And if the word “atheist” was replaced with “Jew” in Albom’s sentence, you can bet there would be a bigger uproar right now.
Dave Silverman wants to know what proportion of crimes (specifically, things like school shootings or gang activity) are committed by self-identified religious children versus self-identified atheist children. Would the results show that atheists commit less crimes or more?
There’s a possible free 6-month membership to American Atheists for the person who can find the relevant information!
[tags]atheist, atheism[/tags]
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