The second failure of reason springs from the first.  Reasonable people understand how badly people who do not believe in the God of Abraham much less any religion at all are treated.  They reason it is better to say they believe no matter how silly the story sounds to them or what they know to be true rather than risk being an outcast.  Historically those who didn’t believe were right to be afraid. Non-belief in every religion on Earth is seen as some form of heresy which often carries a death sentence.  Hate crimes against non-believers and heretics didn’t begin with modern radicals or even the Inquisition or the Romans killing Jews and Christians.  If you believe the Jesus story, he was killed for not preaching the locally branded form of Judaism.  In other religions there is evidence that goes even further back.  Being marked as a non-believer and heretic then and now has its risks.  While modern religionists seldom kill those who don’t believe, at least in most modern industrialized nations, there are definite social, political, and economic actions taken against non-believers.

With those sanctions in mind people often times lie and say they believe to fit in with the group.  You never know when you might need a job and the guy interviewing you knows you don’t believe what he believes or as a politician or business man you might need the backing of a religious group to stay afloat.  People lie about having faith in God to get ahead and ensure their kids future.  People also often reason they can tell this lie publicly and hold their real beliefs in private.  The problem with this sort of reasoning is the more you lie, the easier it is to believe your own lie.  You eventually forget your original doubts and belief system, because the lie you tell every day becomes more real to you every time you tell it.  The psycho babble term for this phenomenon is self delusion. To paraphrase Hitler and exemplify the Bush administration, “the bigger the lie (and more of them) you tell, the easier it is to pass off them as the truth to otherwise reasonable people.”

The third failure of reason is when intelligent logical people try and reason away the parts of a religion they don’t agree with.  This might seem harmless or even a win for the non-believer, but it is the worst failure of reason.  When one looks at a religion as a whole system of beliefs and says, “this just doesn’t seem right”, logic dictates you discard the system in its entirety and begin anew much as you would a scientific theorem.  This is where reason separates out those that become non-believers, from those who want to believe in a certain quantity of religious ideals.  Those who stick with reason go back to the beginning which says, “In the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth”, and ask the question, “what is God” and come back with what amounts to a circular logic that always fails the test of reason.

When reason fails, the otherwise logical intelligent person skips that question and begins with, “In the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless wasteland,” and says this this is an allegory for God created the primordial soup from which all life on this planet began.  This type of psuedo-scientific reasoning allows for scriptural interpretation and accepts God as the undefinable term , much like X in an algebra equation.   This loosely based formulaic system also fails the equation breaks if you factor god(s) in multiples or as a null value. Those that accept this formula refuse to solve for X, they simply plot God on the graph in relation to what ever other variables they want to interpret for.

When the failure of reason allows otherwise logical intelligent people to start tossing out sections of a religion they don’t agree with and can’t abide by under the guise of this is where the Bible should be interpreted rather than taken literally, it justifies the stupid, hateful, and prejudicial who do the same.  When one group argues Genesis is meant to be interpreted, but Mark is to be taken literally, it justifies those who eat shellfish and pork, but scream they hate fagots, or scream abortion is wrong but disregard thou shalt not kill when it is convenient for their purposes.  This system of floating interpretation fails all simple straightforward logic tests making it the biggest of failures of reason.

In the modern era religion still exists for three reasons.  Religion exists because logical intelligent people failed the test of reason.  Religion exists because logical intelligent people let fear or greed trump reason.  Religion exists because faith can’t be argued against, and faith is the bastion of the unintelligent and illogical who believe actual thinking is too much effort and wrong for mere mortals to do.  In the end religion continues to exist and will likely exist until it causes us to exterminate ourselves.  With any luck that won’t be until long after my existence has ended.

Because we are dealing a racist, a holocaust denier, and the Jews, we seem to care an extraordinary amount about this situation.  This is a large part of what is wrong with this country.   Yesterday, Holocaust Museum Security Guard Stephen T. Johns was just one of roughly forty five people murdered in the country. It was only news because of where it happened. While tragic for the family of Mr Johns, I am sure they would rather you remember him because he was a good guy doing his job to support his family rather than as the victim of a Jew hater.

Take a moment and think before you make a big deal about the wrong parts of this story. Every day 45 murders, 261 rapes, and 1153 robberies are committed. Each one of those crimes has a victim who is just trying to make it through their day. It is fine to take a moment to regret the death of one security guard. However, if you can’t take a moment to ask yourself what you can do for every other victim who didn’t make the news or to prevent future crimes then you are as unenlightened as James von Brunn.

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We are committed to living, as far as it is possible, by the moral precepts taught by Jesus Christ and by the whole counsel of God as revealed in the Bible.

What this really says is they are going to use whatever financial and political power they can muster to force you to live this way too.  What they fail to mention is when the scriptures says different things they will decide for you what it means and will try to force you to live by that rule to.

Right To Life: We believe that every human deserves the right to life—from conception to death—and that we do not have the right to kill unborn children nor to murder the elderly through active euthanasia. We do, however, support the death penalty.

Does anyone see the irony here?  I know this is a long standing argument so I won’t beat it to death other than to call them hypocrites by throwing their own words back at them.  “We believe that every human deserves the right to life.”  How does that fit in with the death penalty?  Men are foulable (and women according to the Old Testament are brain dead idiots incapable of thinking without their husband, son, father or brother doing most of it for them), this is proven by your notion that some people need to be killed.  If men are foulable, who then stands fit to judge whether a person should be put to death?  If evidence later proves the condemned and executed was not guilty do we let Biblical justice be carried out on the jurors, the prosecutors, the witnesses for the prosecution, the investigators (ie the police), the judge and the accuser/victim?  I believe an eye for an eye, and such would be the proscribed retribution here, but while they are at it we should make sure any punishment such as beatings and rapes dealt out by other prisoners while waiting to die should be answered for by these people to. What do you say?  It sounds fair in a traditional biblical sort of way doesn’t it?

We support the God-ordained institution of the family, which is a union of a man and woman, with or without children—and is based upon marriage, blood, or adoption.

I noticed they left out all the parts about casting aside barren wives, the ability to give back unsuitable brides, obedience to men, and most of all the polygamy that is so prevalent in the bible.  If Solomon was the wisest man of the bible, would not the rest of us men be wiser with extra wives, mistresses and concubines?

Religion Reaches Out To Teach Children Traditional Values. It some how forgot to make t-shirts saying women are the property of men.

Homosexual behavior is explicitly condemned in both the Old and New Testaments as an abomination and a violation of God’s standards for sexuality.

It is all well and good for them to condemn such behavior for Christians since it is pretty clear in Leviticus queer behavior just isn’t acceptable for those that believe.  I do notice the hypocrites left out all the other prohibitions and rituals of Leviticus as inconvenient reminders to the women and farmers they want the support of.  I am pretty sure the good and often highly conservative farm folk of Iowa would be less than supportive of the coalition if they were told that hog farming was going against the bible and put them in league with faggots.  Shall we also touch base on how Leviticus says women should act?  If you are unsure how women should act try reading the bible stories written for children.

We oppose the normalization of sodomy as well as cross-dressing and other deviant sexual behaviors in our culture.

They should make sure that they spell that out because in every traditional sense of cross dressing women who wear pants are exhibiting deviant sexual behavior and that must be opposed.

Frequently, this person (anyone who looks at porn) acts out his sexual fantasies by molesting children, raping girls, and committing other sexual crimes—including murder.

I am asking for their proof.  I am calling them to task and asking them to support this with proof not just their deluded and as I have proven (and will continue to prove) hypocritical sense of moral values.  Please show us the statistics that millions of us with Playboy subscriptions frequently go about raping, molesting, and murdering.  If I were to murder anyone over a Playboy it would be some religious fanatic who tried to keep me from exercising the free will they believe God gave me to make decisions for myself.

When fascism comes to America, it will be waving the flag and carrying a Bible.

Patriotism, Loyalty To Country, And Political Involvement: We believe that we are to be good citizens. This means we are loyal to our nation (not blind loyalty, however); we are to support our Armed Forces, law enforcement officials, and we should participate in the political process. We live in a free country but we will not remain free if we do not exercise our rights as citizens.

Let us decipher this.  “We are loyal to our nation, but not blindly loyal.”  The meaning is very clear.  They will be loyal so long as it suits their fanatic religious needs, but they will turn traitor, break the laws, and work against national interests if it doesn’t look to be in their interests.  “We support our armed forces, and law enforcement officials.”  Meaning without subverting these institutions the radical left might impose their will on us.  Alternate meaning by infiltrating these institutions we can use them to smite anyone who just doesn’t agree with us, not to mention use the military to spread the Christian word in the name of fighting terrorists.  “We should participate in the political process.” The meaning should be pretty clear to anyone who has witnessed the last sixteen years of religious fanatics trying to impose their religious agenda on the secular world through politics.  The last notion is not only laughable it is scary.  I can hardly believe they have the audacity to say the only way they can keep us a free country is buy using political activity to deny others their god given freewill.

It is never wrong when you think you are in the moral majority.

We support free enterprise, limited government, low taxes, and personal responsibility. We believe in self government, not self indulgence. We do not believe that the federal government should extend its power over every aspect of our lives. The best government is the one that governs the least.

This is easy to sort out.  Fuck employees, fuck anyone not in the majority, its our money fuck anyone that wants it, and anyone who can’t make it doesn’t deserve to make it because god doesn’t love them.  They believe the government should leave people alone, except when the government says it is okay to act in ways the coalition doesn’t like.  They want a weak federal government because it is the only power strong enough to protect minorities from mobs riled up by demagoguery.  Last but not least if those fucking liberals are in power we want them to stay out of our lives, but when we have the power we aren’t governing we are carrying out god’s will.

Religious Freedom: We are advocates of religious freedom. We believe the First Amendment to our Constitution gives all of us the right to freely exercise our religious faith and that religious faith is the cornerstone of freedom in this nation. Our Founding Fathers supported religion, purchased Bibles, established congressional chaplains, and sent missionaries to witness to the Indians. They enacted the First Amendment to protect religious freedom, not to stifle it

If you notice the wording, it says their religious freedom.  Fuck anyone who might get in their way or want to practice a different religion is The Coalition’s motto.  Simply put their version of Christianity, which would appall even the most devout of the Founding Fathers, is the only thing that matters.  Everyone else must step aside and shut up about their heresy and misinterpretations of the bible.  If these people want to claim religion was founding value in this country and therefore should persist to this day then they must also accept chattel slavery, subjugation of women, children and those with no property were also founding values and should be continued.  I would ask why aren’t these traditional value fanatics demanding we collar the president elect and his family until they can be sold off to the highest bidder, starting with his little girls first, then I remember how many of that group are calling for just that.

We believe in “discrimination” in the good sense: choosing between good and evil, right and wrong, the better and the best. We believe in discrimination in the sense of being discerning between good and bad choices.

It is easy to justify discrimination when you are the ones deciding what is good and what is evil, especially when you are convinced you are the only good people and anyone who believes differently than you is inherently evil.  In their mind the good choice is to shut up and do whatever they tell you to do.  The bad choice is to use the free will they claim god gave.

Not only are these people hypocrites, but they are fascists deceiving the public by waving a cross and wrapping themselves in the American flag.  They want to pull on your heart strings as much as on your puppet strings.  They will lead you where they want you to go and close the curtain on you if you desire to act of your own accord.  If you embrace their version of traditional values, you give up the most traditional of all values, freedom of choice.  They may claim they are only upholding tradition, but should we really be upholding the traditions of oppression simply because it is traditional?

Maybe he was just another victim, maybe he was a party to Madoff’s Ponzi Scheme. We will likely never know now. Either way, there is no honor from simply killing yourself when you are involved with the defrauding of so many.  While there are some that are no doubt happy about this, I would have preferred he have a public trial of his own. I want the tough questions asked by all involved and any found guilty to find out why they call it the pokey.

In the end the world may be denied dishing out its own form of justice, though with the legal system the way it is, I highly doubt he would have received adequate justice for any crimes he was found guilty of.  La Villehuchet is dead by his own hand and likely won’t be the last to go that way.