Hey everyone, Uncle God wrote this months ago but couldn’t find a disciple to type it up for him.  He’s not so good with computers.  He makes a typo, He throws a wrathful lightning bolt, He waits 5 weeks for HP to recover His damaged hard drive.  You know how it goes.  –Jesus

Many true believers have looked at the Virginia Tech massacre and asked themselves, “How could God have let this happen?”

I’ll tell you how: I work in mysterious ways^tm. Now that I’ve answered that question to everyone’s satisfaction, I will join the rest of the punditry in parading scapegoats through a lineup to see which one gets the highest ratings. I assume there a prize for the winner.

Scapegoat #1: Atheists

Rush Limbaugh has joined a chorus of Christians who concur that future attacks can best be avoided by introducing mandatory religious indoctrination to our universities. Like many of them, Rush is uniquely qualified to comment on higher education because he actually experienced it (albeit briefly) during the two years it took him to flunk out of Southeast Missouri State University. He writes:

Maybe they’re not too young to learn that there are many things in life larger than self, and maybe being able to take comfort in a relationship with that which is larger than self ( i.e., God) would have a calming effect on some of these people who go absolutely nuts and lose their sanity.

As the only thing in the Universe larger than self, I do tend to have a calming effect on people who go absolutely nuts. Most people get a little flustered about murdering innocents, unless they’re confident in My support. Then they can calm down and take a steady aim. I’m not sure why Rush would prefer that, but to each his own.

Omnipotent though I may be, I am not the greatest in the Universe at calming the crazy. That title goes to Allah, whose devout followers can board a plane with a straight face minutes before killing thousands in His name. That brings Me to the next scapegoat: Muslims.

Scapegoat #2: Muslims

If the problem isn’t too little religion, then by elimination it must be the wrong religion! That’s why one of My favorite hellbound pundits, Debbie Schlussel, blames Islam. If there’s one coherent theme in Cho Seung-hui’s video rant, it is his devotion to Allah, who he honors by not mentioning at all. He did frequently mention Jesus, in a transparent attempt to smear My nephew’s name.

Scapegoat #3: Immigrants

Scapegoat #4: Video Games

Scapegoat #5: Television

Scapegoat #6: Too Many Guns

Scapegoat #7: Not Enough Guns

Scapegoat #8: Apples

Ken Ham, of Answers in Genesis fame, attempts to explain why I let this happen:

So, it’s not God’s fault that there is death and violence in the world—it’s humanity’s fault, because we rebelled against our Creator. … we have just a taste of what we really asked for in Adam, when the head of the human race disobeyed God’s instruction not to eat the fruit of one particular tree.

I like this guy. This crime isn’t My fault, it’s yours. Your ancestor shouldn’t have eaten one of My apples. Now look what you did! When something terrible happens, you were asking for it, and you’re just lucky nothing far worse has happened.  Now stay out of My damn orchard.

Scapegoat #8: Science

Ken Ham also blames science, which was(n’t) Cho Seung-hui’s major:

We live in an era when public high schools and colleges have all but banned God from science classes. In these classrooms, students are taught that the whole universe, including plants and animals—and humans—arose by natural processes. … The more such a philosophy permeates the culture, the more we would expect to see a sense of purposelessness and hopelessness that pervades people’s thinking.

Science introduces students to logic and facts. Neither of those two qualities was apparent in Cho’s video, but they are certainly undesirable.

Scapegoat #9: Tolerance of Homosexuals

The Westboro Baptist Church is best known for protesting dead soldiers’ funerals, because they believe I killed the soldiers as punishment for the nation’s tolerance of gays. They will be protesting the funerals of the massacre victims, too, and employing the same argument: all bad things happen because people are too nice to gays. This leaves them with precious little room to blame everything on apples.

Scapegoat 10: Fishing

Following Debbie Schlussel’s type of logic, I point you to this ABC News photo and analysis, which they describe as:

In the video, Cho wore a khaki-colored vest similar to what fishermen wear.

Coincidence? I think not. Ban fishing. Bass are a bad influence.

Scapegoat #11: Insanity

No, nevermind. This one’s boring.