The Kansas police made short work of this crime; they’ve apprehended the guy who is alleged to have killed abortion doctor George Tiller. (No surprise since alert churchgoers wrote down the car’s license plate number.) The story is reported in the New York Times today, along with this bone-chilling statement:
Scott Roeder, 51, of Merriam, Kan., whom authorities have described as a suspect in Sunday’s fatal shooting here of George Tiller, the doctor who had been a focal point for abortion opponents for decades, was once a subscriber and occasional contributor to a newsletter, Prayer and Action News, said to Dave Leach, an anti-abortion activist from Des Moines who runs the newsletter. Mr. Leach said he and Mr. Roeder had met once, and Mr. Roeder had described similar views to his own. Of Dr. Tiller’s death, Mr. Leach said, “To call this a crime is too simplistic,” adding, “There is Christian scripture that would support this.”
I wasn’t aware that Christian scripture had anything to say about this; but at any rate we can be thankful that secular law trumps Christian scripture in Kansas.
(Thanks to Tom, whose post brought this to my attention.)

Though the Bible is silent on abortion, it does have many instances where the tribe is instructed to kill the “sinners” among them (e. g. Joushua).
The bottom line is that “believers” are only tolerable because they choose to ignore much of what is in their “scriptures”; they become intolerable when they start taking their books seriously.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqwusM_aGDk]
see about 1:45 into it.
To be fair, that headline should have the word “alleged” in it.
To funny, do you really think someone like Jerry Coyne cares about such details when it comes to a story like this where religion is involved? I’m sure you were just being thoughtful and not “dissing” Jerry. But, it is pretty funny. If he changes now, it will an after thought, maybe thanks to you, don’t count on it.
How about instead of “alleged” this more accurate phrase: “the man driving the getaway car that the murderer used, who conveniently also matches the physical description given by the eyewitnesses.”
Charles, good one, I almost foolishly gave the impression he was a suspect. I think your point is well taken and with red face will say; yes, as is illustrated by Charles, he is obviously the murderer.
I wouldn’t doubt if they got the right person, but ‘heaven’ forbid if we start down that road of convicting before trial, oh wait, sorry, foolish me.
Dave, here’s a hot PROTIP:
No one was talking to you.
He talks to himself often. Just don’t listen to his sniping.
Here’s Bill O’Reilly’s crusade against Dr. Tiller, if you haven’t seen it. It’s done pretty well, with the videos and links, one of which goes to a good story that appeared on Salon.com.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/06/01/bill-oreilly-crusaded-aga_n_209665.html
This is the first I’ve seen of O’Reilly’s statements made regarding Dr. Tiller, there are a few I found exceptionally alarming.
I also ran down the “operation rescue/save America” statement. The headline is all you really need to see, I think; “George Tiller – Killed!” They even throw in a Bible quote to find justification for the killing. Already they’ve started the counter campaign by painting the media to blame for portraying Christians as lunatics because of this, interesting they knew the murderer was a Christian before he was caught (or did they just rightly assume, like the rest of us? Yea, yea, I know, but who can blame me).
http://www.operationsaveamerica.org/555.htm
I’ve noticed his unthinkably long rants but never actually bothered to read them. I guess every blog needs a resident version of kairosfocus.
Hah! that’s funny after I did some searching around.
Here’s description of kairosfocus form a blogger dissecting the strange world of kairos;
“As Jon Rowe puts it, he’s in the habit of writing “book-length ponderous posts” in strident defense of his strange views. kairosfocus typically doesn’t really win an argument. He simply wears his opponent out.”
Perhaps the only relevant difference between kairosfocus and I (beside the fact I’m atheist) is that it can be said he actually WINS arguments.
As if we need more evidence of how worthless I am, I obviously misread that very simple comment. Well, it can be said that I don’t even wear out my opponents, more like ignored by opponents after being mocked (there, that’s better).
Off topic… but it seems Chris Mooney is getting all schoolmarmish towards Professor Coyne again.
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/intersection/2009/05/31/civility-and-the-new-atheists/
Indeed. I am preparing a response to Mr. Mooney but I have to do my day job first. It’ll appear tomorrow.
jac
Greatly looking forward to it. Cheers.
Thanks for that link, mk.
Although I tend to agree with Mooney, Matt Nisbet and especially Massimo Pigliucci in some of their criticisms concerning certain other atheist, there’s a point which Mooney simply overstates his case and is mistaken.
It focus’ primarily around this idea:
—-“why is he criticizing people like Miller and Giberson for their attempts to reconcile modern science and religion?”—-
What bothers me when I see something like this coming from Forrest and Mooney is that they are a part of the skeptical movement, Barbara is absolutely wonderful at what she does and I greatly admire Chris.
There is NO reason not to apply skepticism to Giberson’s and Miller’s attempts to reconcile science and faith. In fact, it invites a very strong dose of skepticism to be used. In Skeptical Inquirer and Skeptic magazine (as well as Free Inquiry), we would also find criticisms of both men’s books, and why not? These aren’t the first books of their kind and certainly the skeptical literature has taken them to task continuously. Much of the criticisms would actually mirror that of Coyne’s, and in some cases much, much tougher.
I think what is happening is part over reaction. I find it very unfortunate because there are very good reasons to criticize Coyne, and harshly, even as part of the essay mentioned, but this is just not the way to go, the generalization by Mooney is simply mistaken.
I think there is starting to be some serious concern regarding claims and comments made by certain atheist and this may simply be part of a campaign to calm the waters, but in my opinion it is wrong as a general approach. I think skepticism and criticism of those certain atheist needs to be stronger and more focused, which this is not.
In order for this to be a fair view, one would have to basically say people like Paul Kurtz, Michael Shermer and Kendrick Frazier need to stop, that they’ve been wrong all these years (take with him them countless others who have contributed to the cause).
In Michael Shermer’s excellent contribution to the discussion started from Coyne’s, Seeing and Believing, essay over at Edge.com, I think he gets it exactly right.
—-“I agree with Jerry Coyne’s appraisal of both Giberson and Ken Miller as being “thoughtful men of good will” with “a sense of conviction and sincerity” in their books, and in his final assessment that “in the end they fail to achieve their longed-for union between faith and evolution…for the same reason that people always fail: a true harmony between science and religion requires either doing away with most people’s religion and replacing it with a watered-down deism, or polluting science with unnecessary, untestable, and unreasonable spiritual claims.”
But I go even further than Coyne. And knowing both Giberson and Miller, I believe that they are both close to the position I shall herewith articulate: I don’t think a union between science and religion is possible for a logical reason, but by this same logic I conclude that science cannot contradict religion. Here’s why: A is A. Reality is real. To attempt to use nature to prove the supernatural is a violation of A is A. It is an attempt to make reality unreal. A cannot also be non-A. Nature cannot also be non-Nature. Naturalism cannot also be supernaturalism.”—–
It is a mistake to try and reconcile science and religion for the most part, Stephen J. Gould got it right.
Actually, according to the Bible:
“If men strive, and hurt a woman with child, so that her fruit depart from her, and yet no mischief follow: he shall be surely punished according as the woman’s husband will lay upon him; and he shall pay as the judges determine. And if any mischief follow, then thou shalt give life for life, Eye for eye, tooth for tooth . . .”
–Ex. 21:22-25
The punishment for murder, and a lot of other sins, is death. But since the punishment for causing a miscarriage isn’t death, abortion isn’t murder.
Hi, I got this from Twitter
” Operation Rescue is trying to hide this page with comments from Tiller murder suspect Scott Roeder. http://bit.ly/EL9mJ”
It’s a Google cache of the page, they must have removed it.
Thought you might like to know.
Cheers.
The video they link to on that page (called “Tiller the Killer”) is one of the most callous and uncaring things I’ve ever seen.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-505011165214919567
If you’re flashing text over aborted foetuses to the beat of a song, in my opinion you clearly don’t give a rat’s ass about the foetuses.
Seriously, watch that video. Download it so they can’t delete it. I can’t see this video as NOT promoting violence against the man.
The end of the video creates a sense of urgency, requests that people “put an end to George Tiller”, and in my opinion it obliquely suggests that this would be justifiable homicide.
Yeah, it’s worth sharing around.
Someone followed their rhetoric and they couldn’t wash their hands quick enough.
It would be funny if someone wasn’t dead over it.
Very manipulative video. There’s a scene where Tiller’s clinic places a 911 call, at one point the text says that the caller puts the 911 dispatch on hold while a woman’s life is “quickly slipping away.” As I hope most people would know, the ambulance would have been dispatched regardless of how much information is given by the caller at this point. The dispatch only wants additional information to pass along, not to decide if an ambulance is needed.
The last part “There is Christian scripture that would support this.” is not on the webpage of the NY Times anymore? Or am I missing something?
Ralph–
Yesterday here I posted the paragraph from the Times story that Jerry later quoted in his blog piece. I’ve tried to find it again just now, and I think you’re right. The last part of the reported quote from Dave Leach, an anti-abortion activist from Des Moines, seems to have been edited out.
Why? It most directly addresses the central issue in this case: how a deranged person can justify killing another person. He has a magic book that tells him it’s OK.
As a poster suggested here earlier, it’s only when believers take care to ignore the absolute teachings of scripture that we can tolerate them. When they begin to mete out the kinds of punishment the “good book” explicitly sanctions, then we have to lock them up.
Still leaves the question why that part has been edited out by NY times, because it is indeed the central issue. Casting responsibilities on the supernatural authority instead of taking them on your own.