Shooting at Munich shopping mall

[Hurlshort]

If the psychiatric help fails so much they become mass-murderers, why doesn't it fail that way more often in people that hold other or no religious beliefs?

 

There are quite a few examples of mass murderers that were not religious in recent years.  Sandy Hook, the Batman movie theater premiere, etc.  

 

Of course, trying to pigeonhole any of these people is dumb.  There are often numerous factors at play, and focusing on just one (Islam or mental illness) is folly.  Also trying to paint large swathes of people with the same brush because of a very small percentage is dangerous.  

[Volourn]

Is Turkey a religion?

[Hassat Hunter]

 

There are quite a few examples of mass murderers that were not religious in recent years. Sandy Hook, the Batman movie theater premiere, etc.

I was talking more about Europe. Mass-murders are a bit more common in the US, for various reasons we got other threads about.

[Malcador]

Is Turkey a religion?

See Thanksgiving.

[Chilloutman]

Is Turkey a religion?

 

What I read was that he was Shia and some Sunni turks were picking on him in school because of his religion (or it was otherwise I am not sure)

Edited July 25, 2016 by Chilloutman

[Hurlshort]

Is Turkey a religion?

 

Only on Thanksgiving.

 

Gah, Malc beat me to the joke by an hour, and I was daft enough to miss it.  Sorry Malc!

Edited July 26, 2016 by Hurlshot

[Varana]

He was bullied by Turkish so he murdered Turkish people his own age. That's what I read here anyway.

 

How is that not "try to murder strictly X" and clearly that does have religious undertones.

Where is "here" where you're reading this?

Ethnic, maybe. Religious, not really. Bullying, mostly.

I find that apparent need to put this into a religious context interesting. Why?

We can probably infer from his parents being Iranian and his name, that they are Shiite Muslims. That's all. Absolutely no information we have up to now suggests anything about the boy being motivated by religion. The same goes for the bullying.

Then why depict it as such?

[Malcador]

And now some idiot shot a doctor and then himself in Berlin

[Hassat Hunter]

Where is "here" where you're reading this?

Here = local media.

[Darkpriest]

And now we have an explosion in front of immigration office in Zirndorf- Germany. Hard to say who is responsible atm because the explosive device was left in some kind of a package/briefcase. I would not be surprised if this was some unhappy German for once though. Fanatics tend to go out with their packages and praise allah

Edited July 27, 2016 by Darkpriest

[Volourn]

If youa re setting up bombs so random innocent people can be killed YOU are auto fanatic. It doesn't matter what 'cause' you fight for - even if in ofitself it is 'moral' (the cause not the bombing).

[213374U]

If the psychiatric help fails so much they become mass-murderers, why doesn't it fail that way more often in people that hold other or no religious beliefs?

 

It does, actually. About 4,800 men took their own life in the UK in 2013 alone. But it seems we only care if they yell "Allahu Akbar" before doing themselves in (and whoever's around). Mass murder isn't an Islamist exclusive by any means, either.

 

Suicide rates are more or less a constant throughout developed countries. This means you are far more likely to willingly kill yourself than be killed by a jihadi. Statistics are fun like that.

 

Of course, the cop-out that chalks these cases up to insanity is just as bad as the "because Islam" explanation you get from the other camp.

Edited July 27, 2016 by 213374U

[Hassat Hunter]

How exactly is suicide mass murder again?

 

If anything; you're just reinforcing my point.

Edited July 27, 2016 by Hassat Hunter

[Hastur]

Yeah, suicide, as I understand it, is far more often a cause of death than homicide. I think the generalization and conflation of the two issues is thin, but it's a complicated issue. Suicide involving only the individual or people involved with the individual in some way is different than out and out insanity which is itself different from someone who follows a doctrine of murder and suicide. To diminish the Islamic jihadist's organization, motives, and methods because of generalized violence is something akin to diminishing the liability of a car manufacturer knowingly allowed an unsafe design because the total number of car related deaths dwarfs the number of death associated with that design. Moreover, what if the car manufacturer increased production of that design and came up with more unsafe designs to release on the streets? What if the total number of deaths continued to dwarf the design related deaths, but number of design related deaths nevertheless rose quickly over the course of several years?

 

I think the governments (and I use plural on purpose) have done themselves a great disservice by trying to depict these acts in a certain way that is not always consistent with the motives. That was true for the Spanish government back when it tried to pass an Islamic terrorist act as Basque some years ago. That's true when the Obama administration uses the term 'man caused disaster' in lieu of terrorism or claims that the Fort Hood shootings were of the type and kind of 'work place violence.' The police in Germany, in trying to avoid a theoretical backlash against Muslims have created some amount of distrust with the public. If that's true because they make assertions before the facts are known, then it's incompetence. If they make claims in order to confuse or mislead the public, then it's malfeasance.

 

I don't think we should jump the gun and attribute Islamic terrorist motives to every shooting. I do think the government should do its damned job and level with the public so the public can trust them one way or the other. Right now, conspiracy theories sound a little less like the tin hat variety and more like president's men variety when public officials speak, which doesn't serve the public or faith in government at all.

[213374U]

If anything; you're just reinforcing my point.

 

What was your point again? That only "Islamatic" people commit murder-suicide? Sorry, not true. That only "Islamatic" people kill themselves despite being in treatment? Also not true. A combination of both? Nope, no dice. Perhaps that only "Islamatic" people carry out mass murders? Yeah, no.

 

Perhaps you should just clarify what your point is?

[Zoraptor]

Yeah, suicide, as I understand it, is far more often a cause of death than homicide. I think the generalization and conflation of the two issues is thin, but it's a complicated issue. Suicide involving only the individual or people involved with the individual in some way is different than out and out insanity which is itself different from someone who follows a doctrine of murder and suicide.

 

There would be a fair bit of overlap. There are at the basic level two types of people who commit suicide; one group which is largely irrelevant to this question have a severe underlying mental condition (usually chronic capital D Depression of some sort) while the other group is more of an acute situational response to stress or or a severe feeling of disconnection/ worthlessness, and is relevant. The former probably does not increase chances of deliberately becoming a suicide bomber or similar but the latter certainly does as religion or any other belief system gives a sense of belonging and worth which can readily counter acute depression but is often self reinforcing verging on addictive and can be used for bad purposes as well as good.

 

There's also a fair amount of statistical overlap between suicide bombers and suicides. You get more men becoming suicide bombers and fewer women (more men commit suicide, though more women attempt it they are a lot less likely to be successful and use low lethality methods), suicide bombers tend to be young and disaffected people with low self esteem or some sort of severe emotional trauma and many have mildly to severely obsessive personalities. It's just that if you get obsessed with most other things you tend to survive long enough to grow out of your obsessions- not so much if you've joined ISIS instead of becoming a goth or a missionary or are playing too many computer games or even developed a mild drug habit.

 

The question of whether the 'acute' depression type is a Mental Illness in the absolute sense is an open one though, since opinions seem to be divided even amongst professionals with a tendency to use less absolute terms like 'temporary mental imbalance'.

Edited July 27, 2016 by Zoraptor

[Hastur]

That's the sort of statistical analysis that I reject, though.  Not because there isn't some possiblity of one being a cause or indirect cause of the other, but because it argues over minor subsets.  There are many disaffected and/or depressed people who turn to religions that don't become suicide bomber.  Undoubtedly some of them turn to Islam, never kills themselves nor kill others.  We're putting too many variables in the mix.

 

I guess we could establish the specific confidence level of our liking and then test the hypothesis, but I would simply point out that, much like the car analogy I used above, it won't matter.  What matters is the car manufacturer putting out unsafe models for our purposes, not the entire set of car fatalities.  This is like risk assessment parity arguments that say, "you worry about terrorism, you fool?!  You're more likely to die by [x]."  Sure, but in world war 2, you were more likely to die of infection than the initial wound, but only a fool would jump in front of a bullet because he was sure there happened to be a new supply of antiseptics and antibiotics on hand.  Statistics can help explain things, but the world is not so clinical a setting.

 

On the other hand, I'm maybe playing both sides just a bit.  What I'd like is for the government to give us its best assessment after going over the facts and not trying to hide or confuse the results.  That's all I'm saying.  If it turns out an attack is Islamic terrorism, neo-Nazi terrorism, or simply some nutter going gonzo, we can debate what that means and what we should do after the fact.

[Darkpriest]

BTW, you realize that a lot of these "troubled" refugees fake a mental illness because then they cannot be deported from the country to the country of origin? Because in Arab/muslim world a mental illness means a death sentence as it is widely believed that it's a punishment from Allah. So if they get diagnosed some sort of mental disorder and that's put in their papers the same entry makes the deportation extremely hard.

[BruceVC]

BTW, you realize that a lot of these "troubled" refugees fake a mental illness because then they cannot be deported from the country to the country of origin? Because in Arab/muslim world a mental illness means a death sentence as it is widely believed that it's a punishment from Allah. So if they get diagnosed some sort of mental disorder and that's put in their papers the same entry makes the deportation extremely hard.

So then these fakers should be booked into  a mental asylum.....I imagine after a few months they would be "  cured "  

 

Imagine not being depressed but people think you are so you are forced to accept treatment. It reminds me of the movie the Changeling with Angelina Jolie and how she was   illegally sent to that psychiatric hospital. That story is based on a true story

 

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christine_Collins

[Varana]

BTW, you realize that a lot of these "troubled" refugees fake a mental illness...

Source for that claim?

 

I certainly don't doubt that there are a lot of refugees with mental problems - coming from a war zone, losing family, taking the grueling pseudo-Darwinian route to Europe ("only the strong survive")...

How does someone know that "a lot" fake that?

[BruceVC]

 

BTW, you realize that a lot of these "troubled" refugees fake a mental illness...

Source for that claim?

 

I certainly don't doubt that there are a lot of refugees with mental problems - coming from a war zone, losing family, taking the grueling pseudo-Darwinian route to Europe ("only the strong survive")...

How does someone know that "a lot" fake that?

 

Yeah, imagine living in Afghanistan...during the 1980's you had the USSR invasion, then a civil war where the Taliban won and ran a violent and barbaric form of government and the USA invasion due to 9/11....so you argue the country has been destablized for over 30 years

 

Now imgaine the mental state of some of the people living there .

[Darkpriest]

Check your local office for immigration and get information on the deportation process of ME immigrants, including "mental health" issues. Then look how many of those, that have difficulty of getting asylum papers sign up with your local psychologist.