The Twittersphere reverberates, in the aftermath of the dreadful loss of Germanwings 4U9525 on Tuesday, with popular knee-jerk buzzwords such as 'terrorist', hurled around by those who seem unable see wood for trees.
There is now no doubt that the first officer on the flight, Andreas Lubitz, deliberately flew the aircraft into terrain, locking the captain out of the flight deck when the latter went to the bathroom shortly after the aircraft had reached its cruising altitude. It has since become apparent that Lubitz suffered from depression, and that he was forced to take a career break to deal with a serious depressive episode.
A reporter set a number of Tweeters off on a rant when he asked what Lubitz's religious affiliations might have been. Everyone seems to have leapt to the conclusion that the reporter suspected Lubitz may have been an Islamist, bent on a fast track to paradise by carrying out a so-called terrorist attack.
I suspect the reporter may have been thinking along very different lines. The question in everyone's minds is this. We can understand a depressive seeing no way forward and resorting to suicide, but why take a planeload of innocent passengers - many of them children - with him?
I suggest that Lubitz's religious beliefs - I don't know whether he had any, but I would like to know - ought indeed to be investigated. If, like many people in today's world, he believed that death is not the end and that his passengers would go to a better place, then that is certainly a significant key to understanding how an apparently likeable man was able to bring himself to commit mass murder in pursuit of his own destruction.
Beliefs are often held to be private, but I contend that as soon as someone's belief affects (worse, shortens) the lives of others, then beliefs become a matter of public concern. Unsupported, unevidenced tales about heaven and afterlives, endorsed by popular respect for religion, might well prove to be deadly ticking time-bombs.
There is now no doubt that the first officer on the flight, Andreas Lubitz, deliberately flew the aircraft into terrain, locking the captain out of the flight deck when the latter went to the bathroom shortly after the aircraft had reached its cruising altitude. It has since become apparent that Lubitz suffered from depression, and that he was forced to take a career break to deal with a serious depressive episode.
A reporter set a number of Tweeters off on a rant when he asked what Lubitz's religious affiliations might have been. Everyone seems to have leapt to the conclusion that the reporter suspected Lubitz may have been an Islamist, bent on a fast track to paradise by carrying out a so-called terrorist attack.
I suspect the reporter may have been thinking along very different lines. The question in everyone's minds is this. We can understand a depressive seeing no way forward and resorting to suicide, but why take a planeload of innocent passengers - many of them children - with him?
I suggest that Lubitz's religious beliefs - I don't know whether he had any, but I would like to know - ought indeed to be investigated. If, like many people in today's world, he believed that death is not the end and that his passengers would go to a better place, then that is certainly a significant key to understanding how an apparently likeable man was able to bring himself to commit mass murder in pursuit of his own destruction.
Beliefs are often held to be private, but I contend that as soon as someone's belief affects (worse, shortens) the lives of others, then beliefs become a matter of public concern. Unsupported, unevidenced tales about heaven and afterlives, endorsed by popular respect for religion, might well prove to be deadly ticking time-bombs.
