Multiple Deaths reported in Boston Marathon Explosions

[Iceaxe]

FWIW: Mark Hoffman grew up on the same street I lived on five houses down from me, I knew who he was but never hung out with him. We bumped into each other through the years at neighborhood and church social events. I do know his story inside and out. His parents still live five houses down from my mother.

To keep it simple, Hoffman did what he did for greed and not religion, his bombing targets were also specific and well chosen in his goal to cover up his forgeries. I don't think Hoffman was a terrorist by definition, he was not attempting to create an atmosphere of terror, he was a criminal attempting to cover up his crimes by killing those who could implicate him.

Hoffman only targeted the LDS church with his "White Salamander Letter" after the church history department started to unravel his forgeries. The White Salamander Letter was Hoffman's attempt to discredit the churches history department. Outside of that Hoffman only targeted the LDS church because that's where the money was and it was what he knew.

YMMV

[Sombeech]

'Beech, thanks for the reply. My question to you used Mark Hoffman b/c I thought he would be somewhat familiar to you, would probably be branded a "terrorist" today, etc. FAIL. I guess the base question is, could you forgive such a "terrorist" or not? Kind of a personal question, I know. I'm not sure I could. I like to think I could, but not having faced the situation, I can only speculate. Lots of value in that, eh? :)

Check out Hoffman's story sometime. Pretty fascinating. I'm not sure how it could be used to indicate dislike for the LDS church, but it's easy and normal for the mind to filter in its own interest.

Well, from what I gather, he was attacking the LDS Church, not killing to promote it's domination. So it's pretty different from the Islamists who kill in the name of Islam.

Would a funeral be held at an LDS Church for such a man? Sure, I don't see why not. Many non LDS folks have their viewings and such in LDS Chapels because of the free service. I would assume the world would know that the LDS Church did not sponsor or condone the actions of the man attacking them. It also doesn't send the signal that the LDS Church supported what the deceased stood for just by holding a funeral within the chapel.

My point is simply, the Muslims need to take any advantage they can to fight this stereotype that they condone the violence in the name of Islam. When it comes to forgiveness, I'm not very well rehearsed on their philosophy of forgiveness, so I don't know if they should bury their grievances with the accused and host the funeral anyways. The LDS Church? I think it would be bad form to refuse the funeral service to anybody, no matter what kind of life they lived.

[Scott Card]

This is a good read. The account of the guy who was carjacked. http://www.boston.com/metrodesk/2013...JNN/story.html

[JP]