I don't think so at all. He doesn't present the ability to think clearly, or to express any coherent thoughts. He just demonstrates the reactions of a hidden person that's haunted by the severely damaging experiences of his upbringing. It's clear he doesn't know who he is and has been in constant panic, because of that. His behavior and expression is simple reaction that opposes the elements of the experiences that haunt him. He's psychotic and it appears it was caused by lifetime experience and lack of it, rather than having occurred naturally, as in std. schizophrenia, or brain damage by drug use, ect... I think this guy just ended up somewhere short of developing a multiple personality.
"It honestly looks like he “turned the corner” and if he wasn’t already a flat-out Satanist he was quickly on his way to becoming one,"
I don't think he could make any choices. He had no foundation, or concept of self. Note that no where does Murray ever claim to see, which means understand. The only points of reference he had were bad experiences, accompanied by confusion and contradiction. Grabbing what appeared to have been opposites, was simply a reaction to his prior bad experiences.
"his obvious anger towards G-d"
He had know idea who God was, so it's impossible to have Hated him. What he hated was the contradiction, confusion, experience and utter isolation that left him empty and unable to function in the world.
"Combine that with his grudge against Christians"
His dad wasn't around much. He spent all that time with his mother, that did a number on his head. His grudge was with what was done to him. If you'll notice, the others on that board escaped and healed from the damage of their former experience, because their minds remained intact. They weren't isolated like Murray was and learned how to escape and heal. Murray never got that.
But if we're speculating, I think there is a definite spiritual element that was part of this, so I don't see it as only a case of someone being mentally ill... but as I said, I don't want to come to conclusions, I'm just sharing my thoughts based on what I've seen so far.
Yeah, at the link posted just above - http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/12/11/colorado.shootings/index.html - it gives some details about his upbringing:
Murray complained that because of his mother's concerns about video games and popular music, "I remember having to listen to everything in secret, at very low volume levels or with headphones, whether it was video games, TV, DVDs, or music/radio. My mother would search EVERYWHERE on a regular basis."
Oh, man! You sure nailed it when you said, "severely damaging experiences of his upbringing"! What a surrealistic hell he had to live through as a child! What kind of a demon-possessed mother would search through her child's things and take away his Halo Blood & Gore III video game and his Death Rock genre CDs and Satan Rock genre CDs and Mayhem & Violence genre CDs?
No wonder he turned out so warped with a mother like that. Fortunately for his sanity, he did manage, in spite of his mother, to eventually get ahold of plenty of music with lyrics oozing suicidal death wishes, and violent video games that teach practical tactics and methods, including complete equipment lists, for your budding neighborhood adolescent mass murderer.
But unfortunately, by the time he was able to fill his existence with all these positive wonderful things, the damage to him had already been done by the evil actions of his wicked mother.
By severely damaging, you mean that by his perception they were severely damaging. Which ties into your next point.
He had no foundation, or concept of self.
Right. He appropriates all these other people's victimologies as his own. The guy in "Teen Training." The girl whose mom beat her. The guy who called into some show. But when it comes down to detailing the wrongs done to him, he wasn't allowed on a missions trip and some Christians were hypocrites and other Christians didn't answer all of his epistemological questions to his satisfaction and some other Christian kids didn't invite him to their parties. That's not "severely damaging."
The only points of reference he had were bad experiences, accompanied by confusion and contradiction.
He focuses only on confusion and contradiction. It gives him an out. He wants no answers. You could have told him 2+2=4 and he would have said, "maybe to you." He invites contradiction. He is not an innocent bystander witnessing it. He seeks it out.
His dad wasn't around much.
You know this how? It might be a reasonable assumption. But it is an assumption.
They weren't isolated like Murray was and learned how to escape and heal. Murray never got that.
Not everyone wants to heal. Mr. Murray chose to stop therapy (apparently both counseling and pharamacotherapy). He refused help on multiple occasions. He mentions that Christians even tried to help him. He simply views their actions as inadequate. Likewise with the counselor. He clearly thinks he has suffered more than anyone, ever, comparing his suffering to sexual abuse (though he never makes an accusation of sexual abuse). So, it's not anyone's fault that he didn't learn to heal other than his own. He didn't even make a good faith effort. And if you don't make a good faith effort to get well, you must like being sick.
Some good points, imho.
However, I’m not at all in agreement that he no longer had choice.
. . . there was a certain kind of logic to his convictions . . . a twisted logic but largely sensible from HIS REALITY.
I also am not convined that he was psychotic to the degree so many seem to insist he was.
There evidently was SOME TRUTH to
1. the horrors with his mom
2. the absence of his dad
3. the real and significant hypocrisies of far too many Christians and Christian leaders in his life in too many ways he experienced as personally affronting, abusive, rejecting . . .
4. the satanic music etc. and websites of disaffected Pentecostals et al . . . served to provide a rationale, justification for; reference group; pseudo family etc. harboring and feeding his twisted rationale and rebellions. But it should be kept in mind that in at least some respects to some degree—any sane person would have rebelled against a good measure of what (A) he really experienced and (B) certainly against what he perceived that he was experiencing.
5. He made plenty of very calculated, rather precise, very targeted, very relational, very historically connected choices about who he wanted to exact vengeance on.
6. He made very good choices—from his perspective—about how he was going to achieve a realtively high level of vengeance against large numbers of people associated with the focus of his outrage. Thankfully his plan failed. But it could well have succeeded massively. His plan did not fail because he was an irrational, frothing at the mouth, staggering around, ravingly irratic loon. His plan failed because God had a fine tuned opponent in his way.
7. He made—from his perspective—sensible choices on the net in terms of leaving very pointed outrage very calculated to stab viciously but very surgically and precisely at the heart and core values of his mother and every spiritual leader involved.
I realize that there’s plenty of ‘justification’ to apply various DSM IV labels to his consciousness, behavior, state.
I just do not find those labels anywhere near sufficient descriptors of the whole of what was going on with this kid. I think they are too simplistic; come out of too much of a secular bias; leave out major chunks of this kid’s reality.