By Jim Downard
My heart and deepest sympathies go out to the families and friends of Razan Mohammad Abu-Salha, her sister Yusor, and Yuso’s newlywed husband, Deah Barakat, murdered wantonly and senselessly in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, by Craig Stephen Hicks, who styled himself an atheist. According to his wife, interviewed by the New York Times, Hicks believed in equality for all, but apparently that lofty sentiment failed to stay his trigger finger as he executed the trio in their apartment, whether over an argument over a parking space, or any other reason, all would be of utter irrelevance as justification or excuse for such a senseless act.
That Hicks qualified as an atheist appears clear enough (you’re an atheist if you don’t believe in any gods) but the atheists I know exemplify by their behavior what that means in their lives, and what Hicks thought to do in North Carolina puts him on another planet conceptually. Young Deah was doing volunteer work to offer free dental care to people in war-torn Syria, and all the atheists I know value individual creativity and accomplishment, so what manner of “atheism” could Hicks think he was furthering by doing such violence?
Others have noticed also the irony here, as critics of Islam (from Christian Kulturkampf ideologues to many in the atheist/secular community) have grappled with how “Muslim” the self-professed Islam-defenders in ISIS are. Everyone lives their philosophy by their deeds, and by their fruits shall ye know them, to borrow a phrase. Any atheism or religion that fails to respect and cherish the sanctity of the individual human mind and their accomplishments is nothing to respect or cherish.
As Hicks turned himself in to police afterward (unlike the parade of deranged gunmen who typically end their rampages in suicide), perhaps more will be learned about what Hicks thought he was doing as he turned into an execution squad in Chapel Hill. But whatever motives were running through Hicks’ brain as he pumped the trigger, I suggest they will hold nothing of value for this atheist.
