Always, in the aftermath of another deadly slaughter of classmates in the latest school massacre, parents, teachers, fellow students and the media plaintively ask WHY? The interviews are as predictable as spring — "But he was such a good kid." "He was an intelligent, straight-A student." He was "Just the nice kid next door." "I can't believe he would ever do such a thing!" It is amazing how the media and the public can continue to be so totally IGNORANT of the blatantly evident CAUSE AND EFFECT! Here, in no uncertain terms, is the plain truth about WHY kids kill!

by Garner Ted Armstrong

The "trench coat Mafia" pair in Littleton, Colorado, were alleged gun nuts, war fanciers, and racists. Continually, the media hyped the "racist" overtones of the killings in the high school. However, only one black student out of fifteen was killed. As we watched the massacre in Colorado move the NATO bombings of Yugoslavia off the front page, we saw the media, inevitably, milking the tragedy for all it was worth; interviewing classmates, teachers, neighbors, friends, family, ambulance driver, police, school officials and the sheriff's department.

Later, it was the governor and the State Attorney General. The President and Vice- President were heard decrying the murders, expressing sympathy for the victims and their families. It became a massive, protracted media event, sparking yet another huge debate on gun control, school security and the like. The President made statements about "more police" patrolling our schools. Outcries against gun ownership became strident.

Yet, the two boys who carried out these mass murders began their assault in the school parking lot, far from any metal detectors, had they been installed! One sometimes wonders whether politicians say what they think the public wants to hear; try to "sound" like they are somehow aware, involved — that they are going to "do something" about such crimes.

Again and again, the news media looked blankly at the screen after hearing the latest repeat of "he was just a normal kid," and said, "no one seems to know what it was that set these boys off."

Yet, in the same television news broadcasts it was revealed they constantly watched violent slaughter in gangland, war-type movies; watched the slow-motion "splatter" scenes of huge holes opening up in the chest of victims as large-caliber bullets impacted their bodies; watched knifings, bombings, shootings, over and over and over again. Their favorite video games, played constantly, were of the same format; guns and rays zapping weird creatures approaching with weapons in their hands!

The two boys watched, over and over, the horrible murder movie "Born to Kill." They fed on murder; ingested violence, filled their minds with killing and death. They worked long and hard in a garage to make many, many home-made bombs, no doubt all the while chortling over just how much flesh such devices could shred; planning, preparing, plotting the moment when they would descend upon their helpless victims, guns blazing, bombs blasting, enjoying the shocked, stunned looks, the screams of their victims. The very fact of the home-made bomb factory proves long-term intent.

When a diary was found in the bedroom of one of the killers (whom the liberal media invariably terms "suspects." (Suspects? They are not "suspects," they are killers!), it was proved the boys had planned this mass murder for at least one full year! They had carefully planned to destroy the school on Hitler's birthday! Their plans showed they hoped to kill FIVE HUNDRED or more of their classmates; then to go through the neighborhood, killing more innocent victims; then skyjack an airplane, and crash it into a major city! The incredible, mind-boggling EVIL they planned is simply unimaginable, and virtually unexplainable in any human terms.

Still, the hand-wringing media and millions in the general public look everywhere except at the plain, stark facts to find out WHY. Many said it was the guns! But the latest pair to attack their own schoolmates used home-made BOMBS as well as guns! Furthermore, the guns they used were ILLEGAL to possess. It is a crime to possess a "sawed-off shotgun," which is a man-killing weapon, not a sporting weapon. To them, it was important to create the most violent, blood-splattered "killing ground" possible! One panic-stricken young boy who encountered one of the killers said "he looked like he felt nothing at all; like he was just numb!" This zombie-like state, as if in a trance, can only be explained by investigating the possibility of demon influence or possession! No such behavior is "normal" in any context.

Did Demons Influence or Possess Them?

On the one hand, society seems to revel in ghost stories; ghastly, grisly movies about possession — movies like "The Exorcist," and many others, wherein it is freely admitted (and acted out in gruesome horror) that demons, which are rebellious, fallen angels who serve Satan the devil, can and do possess human beings!

Millions LOVE to fill their minds with the "horror" movies! They seem to believe it is wholesome and healthy to be "scared out of their wits" by dark, demonic, ghoulish murder, dismemberment, and death. Zombies, werewolves, poltergeists, trolls, dragons, monsters; all are portrayed to the delight of fascinated audiences.

What those same millions do not know is what they are playing around with; what it is to which they may be opening their minds!

The demon which possessed Hitler did not die in the "Fuhrer Bunker" in 1945! Was it Satan himself? Satan entered Judas on the night of Christ's last supper, and carried out the assassination of the Son of God! The point is, these evil spirits ARE in existence, and they DO wish to influence and POSSESS the minds of those humans who are either careless enough, or fascinated enough, to allow it!

No demon can possess a sound mind, especially when that mind has been begotten with God's Holy Spirit, and has the protection of God. James said, "Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you" (James 4:7). Christ REBUKED Satan, who then had to flee from Him (Matthew 4:10, 11).

Satan is the "Lord of the dead" in the sense that he masquerades as "Samhain," the evil spirit worshiped by the Druids. He delights in human suffering and death, for he knows that some day those same humans, begotten and eventually BORN of God (I Corinthians 15:50-52), will JUDGE him and his rebellious demons. Paul wrote, "Know ye not that we shall judge angels? how much more things that pertain to this life? (I Corinthians 6:3).

A clue as to the final fate of these wicked, fallen spirits is found in the book of Jude, where they are described as "...trees whose fruit withereth, without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots; Raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame; wandering stars, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever" (Jude 12, 13).

Satan HATES God and hates God's law! He HATES mankind, made in the image of God for the purpose of becoming a member of God's own family! It is his vicious intent to DESTROY the human race, if he can!

It is so obvious that the minds of the people who write, design, produce and sell the indescribable, bloody violence which is called "entertainment" today are heavily influenced, if not directly possessed, by Satan or his demons. This is NOT GOD'S WORLD! SATAN is the "god of this world!" Notice it, "But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost:

"In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them" (II Corinthians 4:3, 4). Paul described how Satan influences, deceives, controls this evil world: "Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience:

"Among whom also we all had our conversation [Greek: "conduct"] in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others" (Ephesians 2:2, 3).

Since the two boys who viciously, heartlessly, unemotionally shot to death so many of their own classmates without any compunction; without mercy; said to have faces that seemed empty, devoid of emotion, and since they are now DEAD, it is impossible to determine whether or not actual demon possession had occurred. One thing is obvious, however. The fact that they FED on continual death and murder eventually made them into zombie-like dispensers of murder and death! If Satan did not directly CAUSE what they did, he certainly rejoiced when they did it!

We Are What We Eat

You and I are composed of matter. We have developed from the time of conception as a result of ingesting, from the beginning in our mother's womb, and, after birth on our own, the foodstuffs that come from the ground.

Not a one of us would deliberately ingest poison. Yet, we all do. We ingest insidious amounts of poisons on a daily basis. Our foods are grown by spraying chemical fertilizers on the soil, then dousing the plants with herbicides, fungicides, insecticides and growth-enhancing chemicals. In the harvesting and food packaging and distribution process, it is not uncommon for other chemicals to be added. Our prepared foods, such as breakfast cereals, canned goods, TV dinners, frozen meals and the like have an ingredients label that reads like a lengthy paragraph in a chemistry textbook.

Millions of us, as a result of ingesting our pre-packaged, preserved, pre-boiled, pre-cooked, compressed, hydrogenated, artificial color and flavoring added "foods," suffer from a myriad of diseases; crippling arthritis, emphysema, lung cancer, diabetes, lupus, gout, skin diseases, multiple sclerosis, cirrhosis of the liver, heart disease — a nightmarish list of debilities and sicknesses which defy description, and among them a virtual national condition of obesity, which brings on all kinds of diseases from simply breaking God's laws against "eating the fat."

The point is obvious. No one used a potato masher to force into our mouths all the foods we have ingested. We did so willingly, consciously, voluntarily. Simple cause and effect. The case is made, and the obvious need not be restated over and over again.

In like fashion, our moods, attitudes, emotional responses, and subjective thoughts are the precise result of what we have taken into our minds. "..as he thinketh in his heart, so is he" (Proverbs 23:7).

What is called "entertainment" is generally so evil that I wonder if there is a single TV program on any network or independent cable company Jesus Christ would watch if He were here in the flesh. Violence and sex, sex and violence — a never-ending theme of human sins and crimes which cater to the darkest impulses of evil human nature — these are the kinds of motion pictures which are produced by the purveyors of swill in Hollywood. They cater to the darker lusts and appetites of carnal human nature. They know, from decades of experience, that sex and violence SELL. They know the law cannot touch them; that they are free to explore the darkest, most demoniacal kinds of vicious human depravity, and get away with it! They know it is what the young people of today WANT.

Human nature is a mixture of vanity, jealousy, lust and greed. It is wholly SELF-centered; seeking only to satisfy and gratify the SELF. God said, "O that there were such an heart in them, that they would fear me, and keep all my commandments always, that it might be well with them, and with their children for ever!" (Deuteronomy 5:29). God's laws include instructions about marriage, the home, and child-rearing. Because society has rejected God's laws, it is in a toboggan-slide of divorce, "live-in" arrangements, desertions, child abuse, illegitimacy, abandonment, mayhem, and murder. In many cases "homicide" is truly "home-icide," for very large percentages of America's murders and assorted forms of violence, such as wife-beating, take place in the home, or between family members. The brutal killer in Springfield, Oregon murdered his own family which begat him, nurtured him, clothed him, fed him, and loved him. They also allowed him to feed on the same kind of satanic swill that is the common entertainment diet of much of America's youth!

Unbridled human nature can very quickly become brutal, calloused, unfeeling, if it is not curtailed by the right kind of discipline!

God defines human nature as "DESPERATELY" wicked and evil: "The heart [the innermost human mind] is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?

"I the LORD search the heart, I try the reins, even to give every man according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings" (Jeremiah 17:9, 10). Also, the natural human mind deeply resents God and His laws! Paul wrote, "For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.

"Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be" (Romans 8:6, 7).

Some of the most blatant rejections of God's laws are found in modern "child psychology." With the advent of permissive child psychology and the nationwide movement against physical punishment in any form, especially in "spanking" (which the child psychologists inevitably called "hitting") a child, the schools swung to a liberal extreme of no discipline, no punishment. Encyclopedic volumes could be written documenting America's determined destruction of public education; the introduction of homosexuality into the classrooms of young pupils barely out of diapers in order to justify "same sex" "marriages" (a blasphemous and ridiculous term by itself) wherein a child was living in a home with two men, or two women.

Add to this evil brew the concoction of drugs, alcohol, broken homes, peer pressure, television, movies, video games, "rap" and "heavy metal" and you have a witches' cocktail of Satanic garbage which is guaranteed to twist, distort, pollute and wreck any impressionable young mind. Throw in ignorant, unknowing or uncaring parents, plenty of family arguments and fights, or a broken home, and you have a full-course banquet of poison which is positively guaranteed to turn any child into a calloused, brutal monster who has no conscience, no feelings of compassion toward others.

The "Spock marks" are plainly visible in American society. Millions of young mothers were fed a steady diet of permissive child rearing; told it was virtually criminal to ever spank a child; told it was merely a passing phenomenon, called the "terrible twos" if their child hit, bit, kicked, scratched, grabbed, pushed, or threw screaming tantrums. To this day, millions read such ridiculous tripe in the various "parenting" kinds of magazines and books.

But children who are not lovingly disciplined when they do such things may end up killing their own parents some day! It is not only ignorant, misled parents who produce violent children. Today, any God-fearing parent must spend a great deal of time PROTECTING the minds of his children from Satan's witches' brew of filth which pours forth from the "one-eyed monster" called television, sitting in millions of living rooms. As one set of parents of the killers in Columbine High School plaintively said, "we are struggling to understand WHY this happened..." Just as surely as we are what we eat, physically, so we are what we take into our minds, mentally, emotionally, psychologically, and spiritually!

How could a 10-year old neighborhood boy know about the bomb factory in the garage, when the parents allegedly didn't know?

From The Families Of The Killers —
An Apology And A Plea

The Associated Press carried written statements from the families of the two "trenchcoat Mafia" boys who murdered fifteen of their classmates, and carried a large number of explosive devices into the school. Said the family of Eric Harris, "We want to express our heartfelt sympathy to the families of all the victims and to all the community for this senseless tragedy. Please say prayers (for) everyone touched by these terrible events. The Harris family is devastated by the deaths of the Columbine High students and is mourning the death of their youngest son, Eric." The family of Dylan Klebold said, "We cannot begin to convey our overwhelming sense of sorrow for everyone affected by this tragedy. Our thoughts, prayers and heartfelt apologies go out to the victims, their families, friends, and the entire community. Like the rest of the country, we are struggling to understand why this happened, and ask that you please respect our privacy during this painful grieving period."

One can have no doubt the parents of the killers are deeply grieved. However, their carefully-worded statements leave much to be desired. Written by an attorney, perhaps? Worried about liability, perhaps?

If determined smokers can receive judgements from the tobacco companies in the millions of dollars because they contract lung cancer; if the families of murder victims can sue the gun makers and the gun dealers because of the misuse of a gun, can the families of high-school murder victims sue the factory that produced the killer — the home and parents which fostered them? The answer is yes! Many have done just that! For example, when three teenagers were shot down in a West Paducah, Kentucky school, the relatives of the slain children sued the killer's parents, the killer himself, at least six of his friends, and the owner of the guns used in the murders. There were originally 45 defendants in the case, but the judge dismissed all but 10 of them, retaining the killer, Michael Carneal, his parents, and Carneal's friends.

In a separate lawsuit also filed in West Paducah, the plaintiffs took on the entertainment industry, alleging it profited from the sale of the violent images which inspired the boy to murder his classmates. In this suit, the people who produced and released "The Basketball Diaries," a violent motion picture in which the leading character kills his teacher and his classmates while he is shown in a "dream," has also been named. Also sued are several Internet pornographic sites and various computer game companies. It is too bad there are not MILLIONS of such lawsuits pending; so many that ALL THE PORNOGRAPHERS; ALL THE VIOLENT FILM MAKERS; ALL THE VIOLENT VIDEO GAME PRODUCERS would be doing nothing except defending themselves in massive lawsuits! The trouble is, the only people who win, usually, are the attorneys, who charge large fees for conducting the legal actions!

What a tragedy it is, however, that even now, with all the media publicity about the two boy's habits of continually talking about guns; of threats to "shoot someone"; of their fascination with violent movies and television; their continual playing of violent video games, the parents are "struggling to understand WHY this happened." It is OBVIOUS to any thinking person — especially, any person who has God's Holy Spirit; who has repented, and been baptized, and has become a submissive, obedient child of God, and who believes the Word of God.

It happened because the two filled their minds with murder! It happened because each real or imagined slight; each real or imagined insult heaped upon them by others fed their desire to "get even"; to get revenge. Their jealousy of the football players (including blacks) was often stated. The root cause of all this can be traced back to the very earliest age; the formative years from one to five! By the time any child is two years old, and a parent has not managed to control the child; has not managed to teach the child to be respectful, loving, and obedient, it may well be too late!

In an article entitled "Parent Time - Parenting A to Z - What Makes A Child Violent?" published on the Internet, David Rubin of Parenting magazine wrote of a Seattle couple who were frustrated by their two boys' aggressiveness. The boys, ages 10 and 12, were frequently fighting. The school called the parents to report a shoving match on the playground. The older boy once slammed the younger lad's head in a door, and then held it there, like a vise.

According to the mother, being the parent of two "active, physical quick-tempered sons was like being a firefighter." She said, "You await the next alarm, and then race to subdue yet another flare-up."

The article quoted the parents' plaintive explanation: "We work hard to be good parents...we're very conscious of trying to be consistent in our discipline. We spend a lot of time trying to help the boys find ways to work things out on their own, without fighting. There's no violence in our house: We've never spanked..."

Incredible. Unbelievable. The "terrible twos" had caught up with these two parents at last; parents who described themselves as "exhausted" because of the constant aggressiveness of their two boys. The mother said, "...this boy energy is a very primal thing...don't get me wrong, they're both terrific kids. But sometimes I just watched them go at it, and I wondered, where is all this coming from?"

Notice the language. Spending time, allegedly, "trying" to be consistent in discipline is very different from using discipline. These parents, like millions of others (many of whom are showing the "Spock marks" of the horrific, and false, "child psychology" of the fifties and sixties) had already decided they would never spank their boys.

Bowing before the false god of "child psychology," which is based upon evolution, they, and millions like them have given in to Satan's obscene hatred of God; have decided that any form of discipline and punishment is "brutal," (the Devil believes this — for he knows what is awaiting him!) and to be avoided. But God says, "For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.

"If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not?

"But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons.

"Furthermore we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence: shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live?

"For they verily for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure; but he for our profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness.

"Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby" (Hebrews 12:6-11).

As God said through Solomon, "Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it," and "Foolishness is bound in the heart of a child; but the rod [meaning "switch," like the shoot of a willow, not a metal or wooden "rod" in our modern sense] of correction shall drive it far from him" (Proverbs 22:6, 15).

It is because America, through its government, through its courts, through its school, and through its families, has REJECTED THE LAWS OF GOD that we are suffering such terrible consequences of sin and crime. God says, "As for my people, children are their oppressors, and women rule over them. O my people, they which lead thee cause thee to err, and destroy the way of thy paths" (Isaiah 3:12).

Today, if a parent were found spanking a child exactly as God commands, it is likely the child would be taken away, placed in a foster home, and the parent arrested! And because this is so; because divorce is outstripping marriage in many urban areas; because "live-in" couples are cohabiting without benefit of marriage; because millions of Americans are "single parents;" because the courts have not outlawed gratuitous VIOLENCE in entertainment; because, under the shield of "free speech" the pornographers and purveyors of bloody violence are allowed to make millions of dollars from impressionable youths — it is because of all of this that God says, "Make a chain [representing the linking of one evil act to another; the continuation of crime and violence] for the land is FULL OF BLOODY CRIMES, and the city if FULL OF VIOLENCE.

"Therefore [in the light of this: because of this!] I will bring the WORST of the heathen, and they shall possess their houses: I will also make the pomp of the strong to cease..DESTRUCTION cometh, and they shall seek peace, and there shall be none" (Ezekiel 7:23, 24).

Unless America can REPENT before God, individually and collectively; unless our GOVERNMENT, our COURTS, our SCHOOLS, our CHURCHES, and our FAMILIES REPENT, then we shall surely go the way of ancient Rome! Our civilization is DOOMED unless we turn to God and His laws! It is not enough to point out that there are many "good" people, as government apologists are quick to do; not enough to point to the many young people who acted bravely; who stayed with a bleeding teacher at the risk of their own lives. The point is that there is massive violence and crime on a huge, national scale, and unless it is stopped, it will surely destroy America from within.

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