Investigators said they were able to stop the potential massacre at Park Valley Church in Haymarket thanks to someone who saw troubling posts on Instagram and called police

Authorities arrested a man who they say was minutes away from carrying out a mass shooting at a church in Northern Virginia on Sunday morning.

Rui Jiang, 35, was taken into custody with a loaded gun and extra ammo at Park Valley Church in Haymarket. Authorities said he was on a mission to kill.

“This was a thwarted diabolical plot to kill churchgoers in Haymarket, Virginia … and local law enforcement stopped it,” Chief Kevin Davis of the Fairfax County Police Department said.

“Minutes. Minutes. The congregation was making their way into the church. He was in the vestibule of the church about to enter,” Davis said. “So, minutes or seconds away.”

  • ki77erb@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    20
    arrow-down
    22
    ·
    1 year ago

    Thank you. I’ll get hammered with downvotes but not everyone who believes in God is a moron, or a Republican, or a Trump supporter, or anti-science, or homophobic, or judgmental or any other shit like that. Some of us are pretty normal.

    • hoch@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      13
      arrow-down
      12
      ·
      1 year ago

      You must be a pretty terrible Christian, because the Bible is overwhelmingly anti-science and God’s stance on homosexuality couldn’t be any clearer. I don’t think you’re allowed to pick and choose what parts of the Bible to follow 🤔

      • Cylusthevirus@kbin.social
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        12
        arrow-down
        5
        ·
        1 year ago

        Christians are a diverse bunch. I’ve seen people claiming the label who do and do not believe the Bible is inerrant or sometimes even inspired. I’ve seen people who claim the label practice rituals that look very similar to what some Wiccans do.

        The reality though is that every Christian picks and chooses. People should be held responsible for how they behave, not the labels they claim or the trauma you’ve incurred by people claiming that label.

        I understand why so many take issue with right wing American evangelicals who can’t even manage to align with Jesus himself, but the bigotry I’ve seen today is just depressing.

        • afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          3
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          1 year ago

          Who cares that the rituals are a bit different? It is still the religion with the highest kill count and the source of worldwide problems. Just within my lifetime Christianity led a crusade into Iraq that killed a million people and sent crises all over the region.

      • ki77erb@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        10
        arrow-down
        4
        ·
        1 year ago

        Any person’s opinion of how “good” or “bad” of a Christian I am is meaningless to me. I think and do what I feel is morally right by me.

        • afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          2
          arrow-down
          3
          ·
          1 year ago

          You arent wrong. Neuroscience has proven that your God believes the same things you believe. Isn’t that amazing? The being that like 14,000,000,000 years ago made the entire universe and has been managing every moment with at least a precision of .000000000000000 00000000000000000000000000000044 seconds while managing 2-8 x 1,000,000,000,000 galaxies each containing 1-4 x 100,000,000,000 stars happens to agree with you about masturbation.

          Amazing.

      • idiomaddict@feddit.de
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        5
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        1 year ago

        You’re allowed to believe whatever you like. I’ve been an atheist since I realized the other kids believed in Noah, but let people keep whatever tiny thing gives them comfort, especially if they do it while expanding the church to accept anyone.

    • sailingbythelee@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      1 year ago

      You’re right. Believing in the literal existence of any god or supernatural entity obviously doesn’t imply that the believer is a moron in a general intellectual sense. There are plenty of highly skilled and academically-inclined religious people, including scientists. However, such beliefs do reflect an inability or stubborn unwillingness to align with a scientific worldview, which in turn suggests some form of psychological weakness. I mean, honestly, what would you think of someone who believes in the literal existence of fairies, ghosts, and invisible dragons and organized their world view around those beliefs? You may not actively dislike or discriminate against such people, but you would wonder at their psychological constitution and susceptibility to delusion. And surely you would be worried if they became a majority and started voting for politicians whose goal is to align your society with their invisible magic dragon worship. It’s just so…utterly ridiculous. That’s why atheists use the shorthand moniker “moron” when referring to religious people. We don’t mean that religious people are literally intellectually incapable, just that they hold an inexplicably stupid and inconsistent worldview. The negativity component doesn’t apply to the fairy-believers and dragon-worshippers because they are an unthreatening fringe. Christians and Muslims, however, are large, dangerous, and politically influential groups who have shown a tendency towards forcing their views on others. And a majority of Christians, especially the most vocal ones, do vote for Trump. I don’t hate all individual Christians or Muslims, who can be perfectly nice people, but I really do hate public and especially political religious expression.

      • ki77erb@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        1 year ago

        I can definitely agree with you that many religious people attempt to force their beliefs on others. Many also use faith for monetary gain or power. It’s a serious problem.

    • afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      5
      arrow-down
      4
      ·
      1 year ago

      I never once ever called a person a moron for believing in skydaddy. I know it simply isn’t true because I have worked with plenty of wicked smart skydaddy followers. Also I was one and didn’t get any smarter when I left religion.

      The rest of the stuff yeah sure you are all basically the same. Don’t really care that some of you pretend to be otherwise on the internet. I have seen how you vote and that is all the data I need. Sorry your Pope is having legal issues now.

    • Honytawk@lemmy.zip
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      2
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      1 year ago

      I’ll stop saying that when theists stop thinking atheists eat babies or are in league with some sort of archfiend that only exists in their own religion.

      • Cylusthevirus@kbin.social
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        1 year ago

        Excuse me, I know many Atheists who have a pact with a Great Old One. Some of them enjoy the flavor and better spell selection. /s