Religion
In reply to the discussion: It would be wrong to expect atheists or antitheists to answer for a murderer who used those labels. [View all]cbayer
(146,218 posts)Most believers will tell you there is no book of religion that declares killing another person god's will. There may be people on the edges who will use it to justify their behavior, but the vast majority would not. The same book says "Thou shall not kill". Do atheists have a book that says that?
What if this guy felt that pronouncements in some of his favorite books about religion being a disease and religious believers being dangerously delusional or that "Islam is the only religion that acts like the mafia, that will fucking kill you if you say the wrong thing" were declaration that killing others was righteous.
Trying to make a distinction here is wrong. This person is an anomaly. Whether he used the words of others to justify his behavior may be at issue, but the distinction you are trying to make does not lead to any resolution of the underlying problem.