Originally posted by dadudemon
I think it is understated at how deep his Christian based ideals went. Our government needs to start looking a lot harder at these very much, christian based trends. The individual can profess agnosticism, but that doesn't change the origin of the ideals, which was my point.If those ideals weren't around, would Tim have invented them? I think not. Seems a very big stretch to think he would invent the Christian conservative idea that "the gummunt is eeeee ville and needs some overhaulin'!"
1) there are 2 movements. The survivalist movement and the christian patriot movement. They have bled together since the 70s, but it is wrong to confuse the two. McVeigh seems to be much more of a survivalist who used the oportunities presented by the christian patriots (there are few non-racist survivalist communities remaining anyways, if there ever were many) than a christian patriot proper. There is no evidence that his religiosity was a primary motivating factor in his violence. History isn't black and white, so it isn't that he is one or the other, but it is far too much of a generalization to understand McVeigh or the ideology he came from as a single unitary movement.
2) There are two issues here. There are the issues of McVeigh's personal motivations to violence, and there is the issue of Christian patriots in general. McVeigh, as in, what he talks about and what he says motivated him, is related almost exclusively to "New World Order", anti-government conspiracy. Yes, this is part of a greater ideology held by the Christian patriots, but that doesn't mean religion played a role in McVeighs action, per se. You might as well blame Edmud Burke, because you can use enough words and connenct the ideas of the two.
3) Here is my biggest issue. What you are saying is like saying: "Hamas violence is religious violence". There may be undenyable religious undertones to the situation, but you could remove religion from the equation and still understand why Hamas is violent. This is an important distinction, because when one looks at Al Qaeda, this is not the case (and this is why Al Qaeda gets less support in the arab world than these nationalist struggles do). Bin Laden, for all of his other excuses, makes very little sense without the perspective of religion. So, for as much as McVeigh benefitted from sharing ideas with christian people, the FLQ benefitted from the Catholic culture of Quebec during their violence. To then say either religion was an important motivating factor in these people is not, imho, correct.
If you have some data you think supports your point better than "well, he hung out with Christians who believed the same thing", I'm thinking you are overgeneralizing the ideologies of two groups that require distinctions.
For instance, the FBI just arrested a bunch of people who were plotting to kill police officers. These people were from the Christian patriot movement. The Michigan Militia, a survivalist-esque group, immediatly condemned their acts as being those of a religious cult. It is almost certain the Michigan Militia is at least sympathetic to the views of those who fear the NWO.
EDIT: Hamas isn't as good of an example as Hezbullah or Kashmiri insurgents, but it does work (though the entire Israeli-palestinian conflict does require some religious perspective to figure out). I used Hamas because I've already dropped the Basques and FLQ, and didn't want to just sound like I was name-dropping obscure resistance groups.