Murder, Suicide, Genocide

Murder: The crime of unlawfully killing a person especially with malice aforethought.

Suicide: The act or an instance of taking one’s own life voluntarily and intentionally.

Genocide: The deliberate and systematic destruction of a racial, political or cultural group.

I’m writing on this subject because of the different emotional responses we have when we hear these words.

Our greatest response is to an individual murder. We see a picture of the murdered little girl when she was happy and innocent. We do not think of the awful violation of the holiness of God. Nevertheless, we are appalled.

We are not as appalled with a suicide unless it is a murder-suicide and it is within a family.

Genocide is normally on the other side of the world, Bosnia, Ruanda, or Darfur. The numbers are big and all of the people are faceless and anonymous both the murdered and the murderers.

In Iraq we call them suicide bombers. We do not call them mass murderers. We do not circulate pictures of the deceased when they were happy and innocent.

We don’t want to get emotionally involved.

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