29-year-old Uber driver Jonathan
Rinderknecht hiked to a trailhead near Topanga State Park as it neared midnight
on December 31st, 2024. According to investigators, he then used a
lighter to ignite the bone-dry brush, causing flames to spread rapidly and race
toward nearby homes as Rinderknecht watched.
That fire was extinguished by the Los
Angeles Fire Department but apparently continued burning--unseen and undetected--
in root systems underground. According to the San Francisco Chronicle:
It
then rekindled on Jan. 7 and grew into the Palisades Fire, one of the most
destructive wildfires in California history, killing 12 people and laying waste
to the affluent Los Angeles community that is home to many members of Hollywood
royalty. Thousands of people fled the flames.
The Chronicle again:
Months
before the Lachman Fire ignited, Rinderknecht confided in a family member that
he had burned a Bible, according to the affidavit, written and signed by an
investigator with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives,
whose name was redacted. He was reportedly exhilarated by the experience and
confided in ChatGPT: "I literally burnt the Bible that I had. It felt
amazing. I felt so liberated."
Just because you gleefully burn a Bible doesn’t mean the
truths it contains no longer apply or exist. And, in this case, doing so made many
thousands of others go through hell. Rinderknecht needlessly yet
deliberately subjected all of these folks to an inferno on Earth. In so doing,
he may have sentenced himself to a hellish prison and eternal inferno.
How “liberating” is that?!
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