"But do remember," said the demon master Screwtape to his protégé Wormwood, "the only thing that matters is the extent to which you separate the man from the Enemy (God). It does not matter how small the sins are, provided that their cumulative effect is to edge the man away from the Light and out into the Nothing. Murder is no better than cards if cards can do the trick."

With the little that we still know about Jared Loughner, I do believe it is safe to assume that this young man is far from God.

In the aftermath of the Tucson, Ariz., tragedy that left six dead and several, including U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, seriously wounded, many liberal politicians, pundits, and the mainstream media who aid and abet them, rushed to tar the tea party, Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh, Mark Levin, Michael Savage (even the Congressional reading of the Constitution!) and anyone or anything else linked to conservatism.

How ironic and backward is it that the politics of those who have given us abortion on demand, gay marriage, funding for blasphemous art, removal of school prayer, removal of the Ten Commandments and constitutional rights for pornography now tells us that it is the right's fault when a seemingly deranged young man goes on a killing spree? I submit to you that the evil deeds of Mr. Loughner are much more a product of progressive values and influences than conservative ones.

Evidence of this has surfaced in a recent interview by ABC of Loughner's friend, Zach Osler. As Jesse Walker of Reason.com notes, "Loughner turns out to be a fan of Zeitgeist, a feature-length online documentary that is one-third arguments that Jesus never existed and religion is an evil fraud, one-third 9/11 trutherism, and one-third conspiracy theories about bankers."

Now tell me, which political ideology is most hostile to religion, especially Christianity, includes the "truthers," and is hostile to the banking industry? Exactly.

Also, George Will recently hinted at Loughner's progressive influences when he wrote, "A characteristic of many contemporary minds is susceptibility to the superstition that all behavior can be traced to some diagnosable frame of mind that is a product of promptings from the social environment. From which flows a political doctrine: Given clever social engineering, society and people can be perfected. This supposedly is the path to progress. It actually is the crux of progressivism."

In other words, liberals are driven by the idea that human perfection can be achieved through human means. Of course, that explains their lust for everything government. For decades now, liberals have been striving for utopia through government means. Trillions of dollars have been spent on nearly countless social programs in these attempts.

Also, in seeking to explain the world and all that is in it, most on the left have prostrated themselves before the alter of "science." Whether social, biological, chemical, physical, and so on, everything must have a scientific explanation.

As C.S. Lewis notes, "Science works by experiments. It watches how things behave ... But why anything comes to be there at all, and whether there is anything behind the things science observes — something of a different kind -this is not a scientific question."

Dr. Jeffrey Satinover, author of Homosexuality and the Politics of Truth, and a graduate of M.I.T., Harvard, Yale, University of Nice, France, and the University of Texas Medical School, says that "science cannot tell us what is right and wrong; it can only tell us what is."

For far too many liberals, science is their god. To them, religion, especially Christianity, is a crutch, something for the weak minded, and thus never to be taken seriously. Right and wrong, good and evil are arbitrary and cultural, products of human progress. Such a worldview leaves absolutely no room for the supernatural, and thus, no room for God.

Therefore, along with championing "social justice," for decades liberals have also fought vociferously to expel God from our culture. Of course, Loughner is what you end up with when God is shunned.

Of the liberals who do claim a religion, their faith usually takes a back seat to the godless worldview of those who share their politics. Thus, the modern Democratic Party is synonymous with abortion, sexual promiscuity, removal of the Ten Commandments, redefinition of marriage, the welfare state, earth-worshipping environmentalism and so on.

These "values" are then championed by the TV, film and music industries, including the mainstream press. Day after day we, especially our youth, are bombarded with glorification of violence, sexual perversions, foul language and all manner of godlessness. With such influences in our culture, the amazing — perhaps miraculous — thing is that we are not turning out more Jared Loughners.

The Christian worldview, which is rampant in conservatism, sees the Tucson tragedy in the following light: Simply put, Loughner is a product of sin in a fallen world. His deeds are evil and he is responsible for his actions, which deserve just consequences, even death.

However, the Christian worldview also recognizes that Loughner has a creator who loves him and desires his repentance. Only a proper recognition of such offers any real hope for him and any real comfort for his family, his victims, their families and the rest of us.

Trevor Thomas is a Gainesville resident and occasional columnist.