A Hunger For God

 On May 23, 2014, Elliot Rodger, a disturbed 22-year-old filled with pent up rage over being spurned by women, went on a rampage, leaving seven dead and several others wounded in Santa Barbara, California. Elliot Rodger was the son of the assistant director for The Hunger Games movies. Ironically, The Hunger Games are largely the glorification of young people killing each other at an annually televised death match, orchestrated by a totalitarian regime. The secular media has been quick to point the blame at misogyny and mental illness as the driving force behind Rodger's murderous killing spree.

   Truth be told, Rodger was sick, but the postmodernist culture which rejects God, and the Vatican II sect which has robbed humanity of our connection to the Creator, only makes good people bad, and sick people worse. I will now explore what I believe led to the tragedy.

1. A Background Of Violence

 Let's consider what we call "entertainment" in this country, and peddled to children.

 In The Hunger Games (a trilogy of books, now movies, which Rodger's father helped to make), we find there are two major themes – rebellion and murder. The story-line is that the post-Apocalyptic Capitol (formerly North America) holds an annual televised event called “The Hunger Games.” Each district must draw the names of a boy and girl between the ages of 12 and 18. There were originally 13 districts before the Capitol destroyed one, leaving 12. Altogether, there are 24 youths chosen to become contestants (called “tributes”). They must fight to the death in a vast arena. The lone survivor returns home to wealth and fame.
 Michael Graham, at his blog "The Natural Truth" summarizes the books/movies very well:

"They are ridiculously, and unnecessarily cruel.  If your idea of “escapist fiction” is to watch kids stab, shoot, strangle, poison, chop and bludgeon each other to death—this is the book series for you. If you like reading books about young people getting starved, tortured, burned and maimed—your dream has come true!  If you think your 10-year-old should spend her (tween girls are the target demo for these books) time reading about their “heroine” plotting to murder people—and then doing so, graphically and cruelly—you got it in The Hunger Games.

I talked to the mother of a 12-year-old yesterday who is taking her daughter to see The Hunger Games this weekend. Her daughter read the first book at age 10 and, while Mom acknowledge that, yes, “the books are a little cruel and violent,” she was glad her daughter read them because “she needs to learn what the world is really like.”

Uh, no. No, it’s not.  We live in a stupid and sometimes cruel world, but we don’t kidnap people’s kids, give them axes, bows and swords and then put them on national TV to watch them kill each other.  We don’t watch people have their flesh ripped off by acid or getting ripped apart by backs of genetically-altered dogs for fun.

What we DO do, apparently, is take our 10-year-old kids to movies so THEY can watch all this “fun.”"
(See http://michaelgraham.com/what-is-ldquo-the-hunger-games-rdquo/)

  Think about it: if this garbage were called "The Rape Games" where the contestants have to avoid getting raped in order to win, do you really think it would be popular? NOW would be decrying it as misogynistic and portraying violence against women as acceptable. It escapes them that if torturing someone to death is seen as "entertainment" then rape appears almost tame in comparison. Welcome to the home life of Elliot Rodger.

2. Hate-filled Hearts Without God.

 Rodger belonged to an "Anti-Pick-Up Artists" site called PUAHate.com, where men denounce and deplore the women who rejected them. Last year, Rodger posted this message on the site:

"If you could release a virus that would kill every single man on Earth, except for yourself because you would have the antidote, would you do it? You will be the only man left, with all the females. You would be able to have your pick of any beautiful woman you want, as well as having dealt vengeance on the men who took them from you. Imagine how satisfying that would be.”

 After the killings, several members called Rodger a "hero." Not surprisingly, over 90% of "MRAs" (i.e. "Men's Rights Activists") are atheists (See http://freethoughtblogs.com/almostdiamonds/2014/04/13/but-how-do-you-know-the-mras-are-atheists/)

 3. Satanic-Spawned Lust
   Elliot Rodger’s worldview was shaped by popular media with the constant glorification of “hooking up,” in such movies as Love & Other Drugs (a woman has casual sex with a pharmaceutical salesman and finds "love"), What's Your Number (after hearing a statistic that women who have TWENTY sexual partners will never marry, the "protagonist" Ally, puts a cap on her nineteen sex partners. She goes back and searches for all of her 19 exes, to find "the one."), and Friends With Benefits (two friends decide to have casual sex without the "emotional attachments" of marriage). People who remain celibate and single are ridiculed in The 40-Year-Old Virgin. Christianity is mocked as a man gives up casual sex as "penance" for Lent (!) in 40 Days and 40 Nights. Is it any wonder young men and women feel odd and "abnormal" if they're not heathens by the time they graduate college? In contrast, the Bible and Church teaching makes it clear that singleness can be a desirable gift from the Lord. In fact, the apostle St. Paul reveals that the single person is even more blessed than his or her married friends if his or her focus is on the Lord (1 Corinthians 7:6, 8, 25-39). The Council of Trent dogmatically defined that virginity and consecrated celibacy is superior to the state of marriage.

4. A Life Without God

 Rodger left a 137 page "manifesto" entitled "My Twisted World." In Rodger’s thoroughly godless manifesto he mentions, “They took me to church a few times and I hated it.” The only "god" he mentions is himself:

“I am the closest thing there is to a living god…I will truly be a powerful god, punishing everyone I deem to be impure and depraved.”

 Elliot Rodger rejected God and moral absolutes ("Who am I to judge?") and therefore, like every other atheist, had no moral compass based on objective morality to guide his life. He was left with nothing but his  own wicked heart; permeated by  feelings of lust, envy, jealousy and hatred, all fueled by the demonic forces in our world. Elliot Rodger desperately needed Christ, but if he went to the local Vatican II parish, He would not be there. The Real Presence is no more. The Mass and sacraments are gone. Antipope Francis tells us atheists can go to Heaven, so why even bother to look for the only answer that gives life meaning? I'm not suggesting that Rodger didn't have mental health problems, but the evil of  this world, and the lack of Grace from the eclipse of the True Church, is a recipe for making a bad situation a million times worse.
 The hunger for God and His One True Church is no game.