Certainly this was diaried earlier in the day but this story is so horrific I have to say something if only for myself.
A 14-year-old, Mehran Khan, said about 400 students were in the hall when the gunmen broke through the doors and started shooting. They shot one of the teachers in the head and then set her on fire and shouted "God is great!" as she screamed, added Khan, who survived by playing dead.
From there, they went to classrooms and other parts of the school.
"Their sole purpose, it seems, was to kill those innocent kids. That's what they did," Bajwa said. Of the 141 people slain before government troops ended the assault eight hours later, 132 were children and nine were staff members. Another 121 students and three staff members were wounded.
http://abcnews.go.com/...
Condolences to the families in Pakistan. Maybe this will be a turning point in the fight against religious extremists' involvement in government. Maybe the people of the world will see what most religions have done historically: incite mass violence.
I'll let founding father Thomas Jefferson speak truth to power.
“On the dogmas of religion, as distinguished from moral principles, all mankind, from the beginning of the world to this day, have been quarreling, fighting, burning and torturing one another, for abstractions unintelligible to themselves and to all others, and absolutely beyond the comprehension of the human mind. Were I to enter on that arena, I should only add an unit to the number of Bedlamites.” — To Carey, 1816: N. Y. Pub Lib., MS, IV, 409
“It is too late in the day for men of sincerity to pretend they believe in the Platonic mysticisms that three are one, and one is three; and yet that the one is not three, and the three are not one . . . But this constitutes the craft, the power and the profit of the priests. Sweep away their gossamer fabrics of factitious religion, and they would catch no more flies. We should all then, like the Quakers, live without an order of priests, moralize for ourselves, follow the oracle of conscience, and say nothing about what no man can understand, nor therefore believe.” — To John Adams, 1813
“Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions. Ideas must be distinct before reason can act upon them; and no man ever had a distinct idea of the trinity. It is mere Abracadabra of the mountebanks calling themselves the priests of Jesus.” — To Van der Kemp, 1816
“Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of God; because if there be one he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear.” —To Peter Carr, 1787
Reason. Humans have been trained to avoid that. Science has been deemed bad by these people. School itself.
Sadly and patheticly mankind has been led down the path of evil by snake oil salesmen.