*A Southern California business owner was shot and killed Friday by a man who objected to an LGBTQ+ Pride flag displayed at her clothing store, officials said.
San Bernardino County sheriff’s deputies responded to the Mag.Pi clothing store in Cedar Glen, Calif., at around 5 p.m. local time for reports of a shooting.
Deputies discovered the victim, 66-year-old Laura Ann Carleton, suffering from a gunshot wound. Carleton was pronounced dead at the scene, the San Bernardino Sheriff’s Department said in a news release.
The suspect, who was not identified by officials, fled the scene on foot.
According to deputies, the man made “several disparaging remarks about a rainbow flag” that stood outside Carleton’s store before ultimately shooting her.*
I think a lot of Christians misunderstand hell and damnation, probably because of the imagery used in the Bible. The important thing to take away is that it’s a state of guilt and regret (i.e. internal torment), not one of active punishment (external torment). But then we have depictions, such as Dante’s Divine Comedy, where there are devils and fire and whips and whatnot going on to actively torture and punish sinners.
But that’s not the real problem, the problem is religious leaders stirring people up and preying on their fear to encourage devotion.
So I don’t think it’s the fault of religions themselves, but the various leaders that rile people up. Just like I rarely blame political ideologies, but instead the leaders that twist them for their own purposes. There are certainly genuinely evil ideologies and perhaps religions, but the problem is with how people use them, not the ideologies themselves. For example, Buddhism is widely recognized as being a peaceful religion, yet it has been used to justify violence despite violence being expressly against its tenets.
So my contention isn’t with religion or any given ideology (with a few exceptions), it’s worth extremists.