Religious faith - points everywhere...and nowhere.

   

     Christian churches are not about the overarching message of the Protestant Bible, but rather about which interpretation of the book is correct. They all squabble with each other over the most inconsequential, ignorant, and petty things in their interpretations (Immersion vs. sprinkling, wine vs. grape juice, Saturday vs. Sunday...etc.) but they fail to address whether the bible is even worth basing an entire life-system on. (Full Disclosure: It's not.) Then, there's the matter of the Protestant Bible deriving from the Catholic Bible with its six extra books. Which one is the real "Christian" book? Does older mean truer and more reliable?

    Christianity's core is completely lacking in substance but has been protected, camouflaged, and embellished over the centuries spawning several offshoot industries and power centers all meant to conceal its main emptiness. They were designed to gloss over that emptiness and give it a veneer of authenticity, reliability, and truth. It is none of those things. It only pretends to be. 

    The Christians themselves sum it up with their vacuous "You just gotta have faith." What good does that do in proving the truth of something? If faith is all that is required, then Muslims are right about their faith. Mormons are right about theirs. Hindus are right about theirs... Who could ever be wrong if "you just gotta have faith?" 

It's time to grow up and realize gods were created by cavemen to explain thunder and lightning.

A Bungled End to the War in Afghanistan

It is finally over...almost The 18-year war the United States fought in Afghanistan, to defeat, er, rather, to bring to justice, that is, not lose any ground to…uh, Osama bin Laden, no-no, al-Qaeda, I meant, the Taliban, wait, we’ll just call it terror…has ended, maybe in 14 months, with a truce signed February 29, 2020, by the U.S. and Taliban representatives in Doha, Qatar. Strangely, it was U.S. envoy Zalmay Khalilzad, not Mike Pompeo, who signed for the U.S. even though Pompeo was at the signing, almost as if he knew there was dishonor in signing it. 
        The current Afghan president Ashraf Ghani was not included because “talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban are due to follow.” In other words, they haven’t started yet. This treaty, or truce, or whatever it is, is strictly between the U.S. and the Taliban. Trump left it up to the Taliban to make peace with the Afghan government. This took Ghani by surprise and he lashed out at several points Trump guaranteed the Taliban. For one thing, Ghani will NOT agree to release 5,000 Taliban prisoners! The Taliban immediately responded that they “would resume fighting Afghan forces.” Think there will be any lasting peace once U.S. and NATO forces leave?

In the name of peace......fire!

        While it appears this could be more of a withdrawal or retreat without surrendering (like a poor man’s version of the truce we have with North Korea where technically we’re still at war) than a treaty document, Pompeo claims the Taliban has committed to certain peace moves that aren’t clearly spelled out (about like Trump wrangled from Kim Jong Un at Singapore – a lot of words but no substance), but somehow this is a glorious day for our military and a bold move by Trump. The Taliban has however continued to gain momentum and last year the BBC found they were in control of 70% of Afghanistan. When the U.S. invaded in 2001, the Taliban controlled about 55%.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres urgently stressed "the importance of sustaining the nationwide reduction in violence, for the benefit of all Afghans" in the looming withdrawal of U.S. forces in areas that have been repeatedly contested. All the Taliban has to do is wait until U.S. forces flee and then any ‘contesting’ will be to their advantage. We are leaving the NATO troops to fend for themselves. We are leaving President Ashraf Ghani and the Afghan government high and dry, defenseless, and without a fallback plan. Trump is simply withdrawing our forces, destroying what equipment is left that we don’t want to fall into someone else’s hands, stuffing the flag in a bag and hightailing it out of Afghanistan like rats deserting a sinking ship. Surrendering is the foremost trait of a coward.

Did we win, draw even, or at least can hold our heads high? No.

         But I am celebrating the end of the U.S. involvement in the war. Not for a second do I believe the killing has ended. It is just the end of U.S. military forces doing a majority of the fighting, killing, and being killed. So, what did they ultimately die for? To Trump, what does that matter?
The U.S. suffered over 2,400 KIAs, over twice that number injured. NATO troops paid in blood with over 3,500 casualties. Between the Taliban and US-led forces, well over 50,000 Afghani civilians were killed simply to fight, or prop up, an unpopular government (that Bush and Cheney thought would do their bidding.) The U.S. tried to fight the war in a more streamlined way, yet in a similar fashion to the Soviets. It’s no wonder we couldn’t succeed. The British discovered the same damned thing earlier in the century. Afghanis have to settle Afghanistan’s problems and challenges. Anyone else involved in their ceaseless feuding unites the Afghanis just long enough to savagely bleed the invaders, drive them out, and then they go back to killing each other as they’ve done for centuries. Their fighting is religion-based with the Sunnis and Shiites believing the other holds a heretical view of Islam, deserves no mercy, and must be destroyed. The Taliban is the political and military muscle of the Sunnis in Afghanistan. As long as any religion is used to justify bigotry, hatred, differences, and divides, the killing won’t stop.

Does Trump deserve credit for ending U.S. involvement? Yes, in the same way that the driver who crashes a car into a wall to stop the pinging noise in the engine is responsible for putting an end to the annoying sound. Trump didn’t have many options in order to get out without actually surrendering. Plus, this is an election year; he needs something to brag about since the coronavirus and the slowing economic conditions around the world are going to impact how he is viewed. And while he’d never admit it publicly, the germ-o-phobe in Trump has him near panic over the coronavirus. This is what happens when you don’t read. Trump spends more time watching TV, refuses to learn or listen to others, and has the least scientifically-inquisitive mind of any president in history. Does anyone trust Trump to come up with a responsible plan that he just staples together on the fly? Trump is retreating from the world because he doesn’t know what to do, he doesn’t understand foreign policy, diplomacy, and honoring our word. So in order to avoid the realities of dealing with a world he’s too ignorant to understand and work with, Trump retreats from it like a turtle pulling back into its shell but puffing himself up to project a tough guy image to a world that is not even looking in his direction anymore.

        Here is Trump qualifying his ending the war, as reported by the BBC. Speaking at the White House, Mr. Trump said the Taliban had been trying to reach an agreement with the U.S. for a long time. (Yes, the Taliban has been trying to get the U.S. to leave for 18 years!)

        He said U.S. troops had been killing terrorists in Afghanistan "by the thousands" and now it was "time for someone else to do that work and it will be the Taliban and it could be surrounding countries". (If Trump is saying the Taliban will now have to kill ‘the terrorists,’ then who have our troops been killing for 18 years? The U.S. has been switching designated enemies from al-Qaeda or Taliban to terrorists since 2002 right after U.S. troops ousted the Taliban from Kabul. Who are the 'surrounding countries' who should now step into Afghanistan's affairs? Iran? Pakistan?)

        "I really believe the Taliban wants to do something to show we're not all wasting time," Mr. Trump added. "If bad things happen, we'll go back with a force like no-one's ever seen."

Check out Trump’s language: “If bad things happen, we’ll go back with a force like no-one’s seen.”

Really?

You’ll go back after you turned tail and ran? You got nothing for your treaty. The Taliban agrees to “not to allow al-Qaeda or any other extremist group to operate in the areas they control.” How about in areas they don’t control? How will that be enforced once U.S. and NATO troops are gone? What constitutes “bad things?” But the ‘reveal’ so to speak, might be the phrase “no-one’s seen.” If you don’t do anything, will anyone see it? Trump is a coward to his core. He’d no more go back to Afghanistan than he’d go back to Marla Maples.

This Afghan debacle is a war George W. Bush launched immediately after 9/11 in which we never should have been engaged. Afghanistan didn’t attack us, Iraq didn’t attack us. Elements of bin Laden’s al-Qaeda attacked us and they were spread across the Middle East; from Saudi Arabia to Indonesia, with a heavy concentration in Pakistan. Yet Bush chose Afghanistan because he thought - as primitive as they appeared to be - the Taliban would be easy to knock off and he could claim he was keeping the caves in eastern Afghanistan out of al-Qaeda's hands. Now, Trump is ending it like the fiasco it has been for the U.S. all along; like a cowering cur with its tail tucked between its legs, limping off the battlefield dragging the flag in the mud behind it. This is Trump’s foreign diplomacy. This will be his legacy. He has no honor, and he has no pride in anything except when he looks in a mirror.

            Addendum-dum: On March 4^th, Trump authorized dozens of drone airstrikes on Taliban positions in southern Afghanistan after the Taliban launched numerous attacks on Afghan Security Forces on March 3rd, which is exactly what the Taliban said they’d do. They did not attack US forces, but Trump ordered US forces to respond. This will unravel any treaty and I fully expect Trump to accelerate withdrawal in an almost panic mode that will increasingly appear to be a rout of US forces.

Trump told reporters on March 3^rd that he spoke on the phone with the leader of the Taliban, He stated, “We’ve had a good conversation. We agreed there’s no violence, we don’t want violence. But we’ll see what happens.” Does that sound like a confident statement or that anything was ironed out? Less than 24 hours later Trump sends in the drones to attack the Taliban. How good was that conversation again?

Pennsylvania Driver Proves Religion Poisoned Her

When the late Christopher Hitchens penned one of his best selling and most controversial books “God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything” he said the title was meant to sound as brutal as it did. Because religious poison is at the bottom of some of the most idiotic things humans do when they let Bronze Age stories written by semi-literate goat herders dictate how they should live their lives. And when they believe they are under 24-hour surveillance by a supernatural agent who they think they can manipulate, it gets even worse.

Here is just the latest example of why religion is dangerous.

On January 7, 2020, near Weatherly, PA, Nadejda Reilly decided just reading the bible, praying, and going to church was not enough. She needed to put God to a test. The end result was nearly catastrophic when she deliberately drove into oncoming traffic and rammed another car with three people in it. She injured two of them as “a test” of her faith in that God. And it convinced her God passed her test with flying colors. 
Law enforcement authorities revealed that she showed no empathy for the injured people and no regret for her actions. When interrogated, the 31-year-old woman told investigator Trooper Bruce Balliet that she drove around the area ‘for several hours’ so this was premeditated. She claimed she was waiting for a sign or a calling from God but when she received nothing she decided to take matters into her own hands.

"Reilly related that God took care of her by not having her injured," wrote the investigator in an arrest affidavit. "Reilly expressed no concerns or remorse for the victims and stated she did not care if the other people were injured because "God would have taken care of them."

The injured were taken to the hospital for treatment. Reilly was charged with aggravated assault and other offenses and her $50,000 bail was also revoked as it was deemed she would do it again if given an opportunity.

While a verdict on Reilly is yet to be announced, her actions have been strongly criticized and Church leaders opined that her actions were not faith-based, but were delusional.

That begs the question: how can anyone say her actions were not faith-based? Do they know her mind? Do they know the depth of her faith and how she believes God works in her life? They immediately go to a “she’s delusional” excuse. They are correct about that - but she is delusional because of her faith, not in spite of it. She honestly "believes" -  because she has been indoctrinated since the time she was a young child to accept some adult's insistence that there is a sky daddy somewhere up there who performs magic. That is delusional. She believed some supernatural power would take control of her vehicle and guide it safely through traffic if she just had enough faith. That thinking almost got four people killed (Reilly and the three people in the car she rammed). Notice the woman never has to provide any evidence that those who survived were protected by a God. She just asserts it. That should not fly in any court in this country.

This is how religion, particularly Christianity in the United States, infects people to the point of trying to kill others and not caring about the end result because some God will take care of the collateral damage. It’s another version of the old blood-thirsty “Kill ‘em all...let God sort ‘em out” slogan.

This woman injured two people and didn’t give a damn because she believed that God would protect those she almost killed - if God loved them enough - so it wasn’t her problem. God saw to it she wasn’t injured, thus proving to her that God exists - in her mind. Obviously, God kept the others from being killed so what's the problem? There's no harm done.

Why is it religion seems to inflict stupidity on its believers? People do dumb things all the time but this woman's belief in her religion convinced her that ramming another car and walking away means God loves her. So the material and physical costs don't factor into how much love she just experienced. Nor, apparently, can she figure out a less destructive or less harmful way to test her faith. We can expect her to do this every time she drives, to see if God still loves her. (I wonder...what if God doesn’t care about the people she rams into next time? Should it be her call that they die that day all because she wants to test her faith in God?) Is this how God expects his flock to perform, by testing whether he’s paying any attention to them each moment? A God that ignores people is indistinguishable from a god that is imaginary.

Philippines President Duterte’s “God” Challenge

It’s hard to imagine someone less appealing on so many levels than the current president of the Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte. He is a singularly unpleasant gargoyle-ish man who brags about murdering people himself, ridicules other world leaders, insults anyone for just about any reason, and shows no regard for the rule of law. But last week, he made a comment that finally got me cheering for him if only a little bit.

          He stated that God was stupid.

 

Referencing the nonsensical Book of Genesis, Duterte said “This son of a bitch is…really stupid.” What Rodrigo claimed is that god was stupid based on what is recorded in the Bible. If that god knows all and sees all, how did it not know what was going to happen, especially in the Garden of Eden? It’s proof that that being is stupid. For example, why would god punish Adam and Eve for not knowing right from wrong when he created them that way? And if that supposedly supreme being did know - and yet let it happen with over 99.9999999…% of all humans who would live on this planet being condemned to Hell after death…it is stupid to a degree unimaginable. Who wants to worship a god that stupid? 

 

 Then, Duterte followed that comment a few days later with a challenge - if anyone could prove to him that god existed, he’d step down from the presidency immediately.

Talk about a win-win.

If no one can prove that god exists, just as no one can prove the Easter Bunny exists, it is solid evidence that belief in a supreme being is without merit and should be abandoned for the good of the world. But if god’s existence is proven, we get rid of Duterte. (Although even if some being did introduce itself, Rodrigo would probably claim that wasn’t good enough or he’d say he didn’t really mean he’d leave office.) But I can agree with his basic premise - prove to all of us that god...any god...exists! 

So many people around the world swear that god exists; they just can’t seem to agree on which one. They can’t all be right. But as many non-believers have repeatedly pointed out, they CAN all be wrong. All we are asking is provide the evidence that a god exists. Real evidence, not words in a book that cannot be verified as anything more than the ramblings of half-educated men trying to make sense out of a world they didn’t understand. Don’t point at the trees, the mountains, or the sunset and claim “see, that’s god’s handiwork.” Setting aside the immediate problem of identifying which god created it, you can’t find god’s fingerprints, signature, or DNA samples on any of it so stop the ridiculous nodding at nature and giving it supernatural qualities it doesn’t have.

 

                Two clowns holding hands

The baffling part of Duterte’s recent statements is that he claims to believe in a god…he just doesn’t believe in religion. So if he believes, why does he want someone else to provide proof of the existence of god? You don't need evidence if you already accept there must be a god. It seems as though Duterte is simply chasing and chewing off his own tail in a search for an imaginary being, or he wants confirmation that his delusion is valid. Duterte uses "God" just like many U.S. politicians and other Americans do: convince the gullible he’s just like them and then exploit those people. Duterte and politicians like Trump use it as a tool to attain power, not as a standard of morality, honesty, or humility.

Bizarre as it seems, such a thing as a god could quickly put an end to the debate about his existence once and for all…by providing unmistakable proof he exists. The fact that he doesn’t can only lead to one of two conclusions - that he doesn’t want to be found…or doesn’t exist. Which makes more sense?

Utah officially deems Mormonism a public health crisis

        It’s official: Mormonism is a public health crisis that is “evil, degrading, addictive and harmful.” At least in Utah.

        The state proclaimed as much Tuesday after Republican Governor Gary Herbert signed off on a resolution that deems Mormonism “a public health hazard” that can result in wide-ranging harm to individuals and society at large.

        “We hope that people hear and heed this voice of warning,” Herbert said at a signing ceremony. “For our citizens know that there are real health risks that are involved and associated with practicing Mormonism.”

Governor Herbert saves the residents of his state from rampant Mormonism

        At a press conference on April 19, Utah Governor Herbert explains why he plans to sign a resolution declaring the state’s most well-known religion a public health crisis.

        The resolution, passed through the state legislature, recognizes a need for education, research, prevention and changes to policy to address the issue.

        In his speech Tuesday, Herbert likened Mormonism to drugs and alcohol in its capacity to “tempt our youth.”

Religion leads to a lot of bad habits

        “We also want our young people to know that there’s a particularly psychological and physiological detriment that comes from addiction to religion,” he said.

        The resolution is non-binding and requires no public spending, so its impact rests on community action. Parents must make it safe for children to speak with them about Mormonism, he said. Communities must mobilize to limit its access, for example, in places that offer free wireless internet access.

        “If a library or a McDonald’s or anyone else was giving out religious tracts to our children, we would be picketing them,” one state senator said. “And, yet, our children are accessing Mormonism on their tablets on these sites and we seem to be OK with that.”

 Protect your children from false gods.

        “This is a $7 billion industry,” the senator added. “Help us protect children from your evil, degrading, addictive, harmful substances. If adults want to do that, that’s their choice, but we’re talking about developing adolescent minds of our nation’s future.”

        In an e-mail, a spokesman for the Mormon Church called the measure an “old-fashioned hate bill.”

        “What we should be concerned about is not Mormonism or any religion, but with bills like this that traffic in shame and censorship,” said Mike Stabile, the Free Speech for Mormons Coalition’s communications director. “We should live in a society where religion is spoken about openly, and discussed in nuanced and educated ways, and not stigmatized. We all should work together to prevent non-adults from accessing religious material.”

A Mormon contemplates a little innocent pornographic sin.

        In addition to the resolution, Herbert also signed into law a related bill that sets new reporting standards for computer technicians who find religious propaganda in the course of their work.

Under that measure, failure to do so could result in a penalty.

Did I say Mormonism? I'm sorry, I meant porn, Pornograpy is the word I should have used in place of Mormonism or religion. I always get those mixed up. My bad!

Mormon-themed porn is a booming industry in those sultry undergarments of theirs.

Insanity meets Insanity in the Orlando Sentinel

Insanity - The dictionary describes it as a relatively permanent disorder of the mind, state or condition of being insane; a defect of reason as a result of mental illness, such that according to the law, [the defendant] does not know what he or she is doing or that it is wrong.

Keep that in mind when you read the Opinion column in the Orlando Sentinel on February 9, 2016 written by Pat McFarland, a member of the Orlando Sentinel Advisory Board. Her letter is titled “Learn to Recognize Insanity and Face your Fears with Faith”. What she is suggesting is facing insanity with another form of insanity.

After listing several issues that reflect insanity on the part of the perpetrators…from the woman in Las Vegas who used her car to drive over and kill people on the city's sidewalk, more soldiers killed in Afghanistan, and Climate Change denial to a 12 year old being gunned down by Cleveland Ohio police, a retched wealthy teen who’s affluence blinded him to right from wrong as he killed four people, spending more to incarcerate people than educate them, and Donald Trump’s latest blathering…she goes completely off the track by then quoting from the bible as a stab at Trump. Quoting from a book that promotes genocide (you know...the flood, the destruction of the Amalekites and Midianites, etc.), slavery, talking serpents and donkeys, and a blood sacrifice as an effective method of salvation is not just wrong, it is delusional, a mental illness, and it defends a being who appears to not know right from wrong.

How could Ms.McFarland have such a firm grip on the baffling events (or as she calls them, the madhouse, where disordered minds exist…an insane asylum) happening around the world, and then quote from one of the most baffling and insane books ever written as a way to face down her fears over what all the insanity represents? She claims she is “helped by the bountiful love and compassion that God allows all of us to receive daily”. How does she know just WHERE that comes from?  She indicates it’s the same God whose “bountiful love” created a place called hell to send us to if we don’t love him back enough, a compassionate God who, according to the Genesis account of Noah and the flood, drowned virtually EVERY LIVING THING in the world…toddlers and babies, all the animals, birds, reptiles, fish, insects, even the plants. What did any or all of those do to offend God? Only an absolute lunatic with a complete defect in reasoning…the very definition of insanity…could do that. Yet, it's that very same vile monster that Ms. McFarland says is filled with “bountiful love” for us. By threatening us with hell? That’s what a terrorist does. Do as I say or I’ll throw you into a lake of fire and leave you there FOREVER! By allowing the torture, slaughter and supposed death of his son in order to forgive us for being exactly as He designed us? Why resort to this kind of insanity when he could just forgive us. Or, when Adam and Eve are in the garden, don’t put the tree you don’t want them to touch where they can find it? How hard would that have been, especially given God KNEW what was going to happen but allowed it anyway, knowing 99.99999999...% of all the people who ever existed will end up in hell? That sounds like someone with a permanent mental disorder. It’s insanity on a universal scale. And it can all be laid at the feet of the being Pat McFarland says we should call on in order to face our fears. That beast sounds like something to fear far more than the stupidly insane things people do every day on this planet.

Ban all Religions Until the Test Results Come Back Positive

        

        Last week Donald Trump, in his usual inimitable fashion, again made an incendiary comment that aroused great anger, from fellow Republican presidential candidates, and almost everyone to the left of Trump. But not to his supporters; they loved it. They can’t wait to have Trump banning Muslim immigrants...actually anyone they don’t like...and ignoring established U.S. laws, policies and regulations….”Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses...and turn them away."

         But as wrong as I think Trump is, he may have stumbled onto a very good idea. It just isn’t restrictive enough. Let’s run with his idea of banning a religious group. If I agreed with his position, then we shouldn’t stop there; we should go even further. Let’s not just ban Muslims from entering the U.S., let’s ban ANY religious person. Yes, ban them all… until they’ve passed a test indicating they understand the separation of church and state, that they will uphold and defend that separation, and that our Constitution supersedes ANY law that's in someone’s holy book.

        This ban would not just apply to foreigners hoping to resettle in America, but also to anyone who already lives here. For example, if Christians promote an interpretation of their God’s laws as somehow overriding the Constitution, they need to be removed to another place, say, the Vatican, until such time as they take a test proving they understand this is a secular nation and the Constitution is the ONLY law of the land. They can practice whatever religion they want in their own homes or in a place of worship (that would no longer be tax-exempt), but they cannot claim their God’s law is higher than Constitutional law.

        It doesn’t matter if the believers are Hindu, Mormon, Buddhist, Shinto, Zoroastrian, or they worship of a pile of rocks. They must show, via both written and verbal testing, that they acknowledge their religious laws stop at our border. They do not supplant any U.S. law at any time…period!

         If they are Muslim and disagree; Iran, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Yemen, and even ISIS are all trying to implement Sharia. Let them live there and practice their faith. Or if they are Mormon and believe that what Elohim says overrides U.S. law, expel them to one of the uninhabited islands of the Alaska archipelago until testing confirms they fully understand and comply with the Constitution.

         Trump's not the first. Whether anti-British, anti-Chinese, anti-Japanese, anti-black, or anti-Commie...down through history, Americans have loved vilifying and repressing others.

        

         Now, far be it for me to point out to the oh-so-wise and well-informed Trump, who clearly hasn’t studied U.S. history, we already tried banning certain groups…the Chinese in the late 1800s, the Japanese in World War Two, and Communists during the 1950s. It just doesn’t work, and won’t work, even if we turned this nation into a completely fascist dictatorship like, say, Nazi Germany. So rather than banning, the best step is to make sure everyone understands we are not bound by the religious laws of any gods, or any religious sects.  

        Trump’s pandering to squeamish, anxious white xenophobes gets great press, but it won’t get him elected president. However, if he’d go along with a test given to every religious person immigrating here, or living here, so we can get them up to speed on how the Constitution works, then he and I might have some common ground to discuss ideas.

Know your Constitution

Religious poison in Israel - The attack on the Gay Pride parade

Boy, do I miss Christopher Hitchens. I have read his book “God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything” seven times. Each time I gain greater insight into what he was telling the world. He did not suffer any religion quietly, tacitly or gladly, challenging all of us to see how and why it’s become a threat to the world, and continues to be the source of unadulterated hatred wherever it is found.

He would be having a field day with the latest news out of Israel.

Dateline Jerusalem July 30, 2015 – “An ultra-Orthodox Jewish man who had recently been released from prison after serving 10 years for stabbing participants in the annual Gay Pride Parade here in 2005 struck again Thursday, stabbing and wounding six marchers in this year’s parade, according to the police.

Yishai Schlissel 2015

After slashing and stabbing the six, the assailant, Yishai Schlissel, was pinned to the ground and arrested by police officers who were stationed along the route. Emergency services said two of the victims are in serious condition.

Yishai Schlissel 2005

In 2005, Schlissel told police that he was planning “to kill in the name of God” and that “such abomination cannot exist in Israel.” He was convicted of attempted murder and sentenced to 12 years in prison. During that attack, police said that Schlissel dodged in between marchers, stabbing at random until he was pinned down by the police. The Israeli news media reported that he was released from prison three weeks ago.

If anything proves religion poisons everything, you can’t do much better than this. Schlissel stabs three people 10 years ago because in Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13, the Talmud condemns sex between males with death. Three weeks after his release from serving a ten year prison sentence for the first crime, he does it again, only this time he wounds twice as many, with two still in serious condition as of this writing. Is anyone surprised an “ultra-orthodox” believer thinks he has the right to act as god’s executioner?

There isn't any.

“Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.” Christopher Hitchens quoted that line so often he will eventually be given credit for the saying even though its originator is Dr. Steven Weinberg. Mr. Schlissel used his orthodox religious beliefs, which have been promoted as a profound good, to do something purely evil, yet he thinks he acted in the best interest of god. That’s an excuse any killer could use as justification for their action.

Every religion's God seems to love the sight of spilled blood.

This kind of religious poison isn’t anything new for Israel. Who can forget Dr. Baruch Goldstein who managed to gun down 29 Muslim worshippers and injure 125 others in the Cave of the Patriarchs massacre near Hebron on February 25, 1994 before being beaten to death by survivors? Yet even given the horror of that slaughter, at Goldstein's funeral, Rabbi Yaacov Perrin used it as an opportunity to claim one million Arabs are "not worth a Jewish fingernail". And what is it that separates Jews from Arabs? The belief that a god gave each side Palestine, all of it. Each sees the other as illegal occupiers. The poison of their religions will continue to kill thousands of people for the foreseeable future unless we finally realize that all religions…all of them…are man-made fairy tales and deserve no further attention, promotion, or endorsement in our societies. The sooner they are gone, the better off humankind will be.  

             Religions are not peaceful. They are mind control, even the pacifist ones. You surrender your free will to an ancient belief. And if that belief has an ancient book full of fairy tales, fake history, and mythical accounts that vilify another group of people, any "ultra-orthodox" interpretation of those passages will lead the reader to insist god meant for that group to be exterminated. Last week’s attack on a peaceful parade shows that Judaism is just as guilty as Christianity or Islam in warping a person’s behavior. 
           The problem with any religion is that the people who believe those myths want everyone to believe or abide by their myths too, and will go to any lengths to make that happen. The parade marchers, who were doing no harm to anyone, were assaulted with the intent to murder because years ago a parent or rabbi convinced Mr. Schlissel that some gobbledy-gook they read was god claiming He didn’t like those people, and since god wasn’t there to stab them himself, well….then it was up to Mr. Schlissel. For that reason, Mr. Schlissel should never see the outside of a prison cell again.