That has no bearing on that the man who blew up the Murrah Building was American.

Many/most people have never worried about the slaughter of innocents. The Bible is full of innocents who were slaughtered. Europeans slaughtered indigenous peoples all over the world. Before Europeans arrive in other lands, the natives slaughtered each other.

@Gwen_Wanderer Timothy was a nutcase.

People happily kill people. Thou shalt not kiil is broken by God's commands. Yet soldiers are trained to kill. But they used not to be trained.

@rogerbenham He was a nutcase, but there was a reason why he was a violent terrorist nutcase. I have read many times that the commandment should read, "Thou shalt not murder." This is a case of semantics. Psalm 137:9 says of Babylonian infants, “Happy is the one who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocks." That is murder but apparently, this was ok with the ancient Jews.

@Gwen_Wanderer That is an appaling image. Along with whoever it was circumcising 10,000 dead after a battle. He made Timothy look gentle. Semantics: kill or murder? The one is for political reasons, the other for personal?
Timothy lived a bit like I did except I was not obsessed with guns or explosives.

@rogerbenham "kill" is very general and if Xtians abide by it, they would not go to war or even defend themselves. Quakers were exempt from the military draft for this reason. "Murder" means deliberately taking the life of another human for several reasons. If the commandment were do not "murder," it would have a different meaning.

The Hebrews had no problem slaughtering the people in Canaan when they supposedly returned from Egypt when, in reality, those people were simply defending their homeland. It sounds SO MUCH better to say "god gave me this land" rather than, "we want your land and we'll kill you for it."

@Gwen_Wanderer And we arrived and realised the savages did not worship god so we slaughtered them, took their land and gave them healing illnesses and put the survivors into areas which appeared to not be useful to us. But our god stood with us and blessed our conquests.
And our god made it clear that the women amongst us were there to produce children and obey the men, because our god is a man.

@rogerbenham that pretty much sums it up. Religion was a mask, though--the invaders would have done the same regardless of being "religious" or not. Humans have the lust to control other humans and to amass fortunes and land.

@Gwen_Wanderer Golly!, I went seriously wrong somewhere. I had no desire to control other humans and it was one of the reasons I quit being a fancy engineer. I hated hiring and firing. My best feature was innovations but my seniority demanded I had staff.Well gave up $25 hourly in 1980 to receive no pay for 30 years ... so much for fortune lust. I did own 320 acres but it was aspen covered and marginal growth possible and not wanted but for sale as a chunk. I wanted the isolation.

@rogerbenham I used to be a substitute teacher--one could say that I controlled people.

I had a long-term sub job once and one of the students told me that the special ed teacher wanted to control him. I said, "No, she wants you to control yourself." He looked startled and realized that what I said was true. I don't know if it changed his actions when he was with her or not.

@Gwen_Wanderer As a fancy engineer I could not happily accept that most people were doing a job purely for pay and not feeling the enthusiam I felt. As a private consultant I was able to rise above the let's do it the way we did before. I only designed 3 500 foot offiice towers and so did not see obvious changes but I made a change in how shopping malls were done and also a municipal centre. That gave me interest then but my staff did not get to innovate.

@rogerbenham I have been teaching in higher education for over 20 years. I still have a love of teaching, but the vast majority of my students have no love of learning. They are in school to get a degree which, they think, will get them a high paying job when they graduate. If they get a degree--and most will because most school cater to students these days--I think that they will be surprised that they are not qualified for the jobs they want.

In the last couple of terms, I have had two 60+ year old students in an entry level composition class. They both planned to get degrees to become psychologists and get a practice in which they could make a lot of money. If they passed the class (and I don't think either did) and even if they managed to get a BA, they need an MA and PhD. Neither has the intelligence to do so. And even if they had the intelligence, they aren't going to get a job at their age. I didn't go for a PhD at 51 because I knew that no school would hire me due to my age. Now, the age still matters, but as full-time positions are almost as rare as hen's teeth, most people in school to become professors are doomed to be adjuncts as I am.

I am not complaining as being an adjunct has been good to me--but then, I know my material and I know what I am doing even if all three schools where I teach have told me that I grade too harshly. My grad students would not make it through program I went through in 1998-2001.

@Gwen_Wanderer Durham University offered for me to do a Fluid Mechanics PhD at which I had just aced my finals paper. I really liked the Dr who would supervise me and I'll admit that I found the prospect of an academic life rather appealing and I'd grown to love Durham. But my father strongly opposed the idea as he felt it would not help my career and he really wanted me to follow his profession. I was weak and took a Masters in his field. He was right in that a PhD would not have helped my profession and I reached the top within ten years but I live with the regret of not doing the PhD because had I done that I'd have worked on the Avro Arrow project, canned by the USA; but those engineers went to work for NASA,

@rogerbenham I never had any family pressure--my mother quit school after 8th grade and my dad basically did not go to school. He learned to read and write in the CCC. I do not regret anything per my education. I did not go for an MA when I finished my BA as I thought I wouldn't make it in a program. In in the '70s, an MA program was much more strenuous than it was when I got my MA in 2001. Now, an MA is more akin to BA, perhaps not even as strenuous as BA programs were in the '70s. Most of my students would not make it through the MA program I went through.

@Gwen_Wanderer I took mine in 69/70. It really was pretty easy. My father lost the family comany in 1959 and his inner prayer was that I'd get it back. I had been brought up with the idea of being the future CEO.

I agree. This does detract from McVeigh being just as much a terrorist as were the bombers of the WTC.

In Japan, Americans are seen as the bad guys in WW II. Had the Germans won the war, history would have written the Allies as the bad guys. As the old saw says, history is written by the victors.