A screen shot that effectively demonstrates the mental cognizance and overbearing enthusiasm of the average Ron Paul supporter.

On that note: Commence with more personal attacks.

“Nothing is more difficult and nothing requires more character than to find oneself in open opposition to one’s time (and those one loves) and to say loudly: NO!” -Kurt Tucholsky

Nothing extracts from me greater inner turmoil and frustration than the Christian self-aggrandized claim that their source of morality is the greatest in the world. The bogus axiom is a sort of mantra of the Christian orthodoxy, so much so, that it rears it’s ugly face during every major election. Our favorite Joseph Smith worshiping candidate even added his two cents when questioned by Tim Russert on Meet The Press:

MR. RUSSERT: But when you say freedom requires religion, can you be a moral person and be an atheist?

GOV. ROMNEY: Oh, oh, of course. Oh, of course.

MR. RUSSERT: And participate in freedom?

GOV. ROMNEY: Oh, of course. Yes, this…

MR. RUSSERT: So freedom doesn’t require religion?

GOV. ROMNEY: Well, this–the, the context was talking about the, the founding of the nation and the, the sense in this case of John Adams describing the fact that our constitutional form of government and this American experiment required morality, which in turn required religion. And, and yet, of course, on an individual basis, you have many individuals of great morality and–that, that don’t have any particular faith.

How touching. I’m about as moved by Romney’s sincere tone as a dying country dog on a front porch. I know I’ve touched on the issue many times, but I can’t emphasize it enough; the general assumption, in all forms of media, that somehow, and someway, morality comes from a religion, is, absurdly offensive. I’ve seen debates, much like the one’s Dinesh D’Souza contributes, in which the particular non-believer on the other side seemingly gives a pass to the egregious falsity. I am not unlearned when it comes to the bible, and I am well aware how life lessons and morality can be deprived from the book.

The religious go from declaration of rights from the holy book, to denouncement of rights with the book, and continue to take credit for the morality of this generation, while ignoring the morality of previous generations. If a morality can be deprived with considerable effort from such an ancient text, this same effort should not be exhausted in the effort to exonerate themselves from the evils of their own history.

Morality is an accepted code of conduct. This is not a statement of “merely” but rather an authoritative pronouncement of certainty. One cannot paint a proper picture of the entire origins of the current Moral Zeitgeist, but one can identify the occasional leaps in understanding. Often, these turns come at the cost of human life and dignity, like the 1940’s Holocaust. Our general ability as a society to accept certain behaviors is sharpening the focus constantly away from transient barbarism to ever increasing levels of social ratiocination, humanity marches towards a generally better “accepted code of conduct”.

Christianity deserves credit for the commercialization of the most modern forms of morality. The ability to stamp ownership on the progress of human behavior is unique to the great Monotheism. Where every moral and bit of wisdom could claim origins in some other combined effort of social groups, it is with Christianity that the first real arrogant claims of moral development present themselves. The only thing worthy of this title is in fact, progress. Instead, society is told that the bible contains all the real world morality society needs. I disagree.

The New Testament is a decaying pasture of morality. Even when raked, sowed, and fertilized, often it’s with the carcasses of it’s own making, there is little, if any, practical standard of behavior to gain from it. If at anytime in humanity’s history the doctrine of Justice, Mercy, and Love were at the forefront of Christian past, I am willing to publicize my oversight. I believe that first and foremost principles in the early Christian and modern Christian religion is the doctrine of faith. Faith that God was a man, and a man was a god. Faith that man is born tainted, and must atone for this crime of being born by choosing to believe that this taint, this evil was cleansed by a man, 2,000 years prior. It is this faith that guided the marching armies of believers so many times throughout our history. It is through lack of faith that so many were put to death by so many who announced themselves of the most faithful. The doctrine of belief without reason first, is the doctrine that claims moral superiority over other creeds.

When faith is obtained, enter the doctrine of Jesus sayeths. It is not enough that the man spoke first and foremost to love, which, I am ever convinced, that if the man existed, he was a morally superior, vastly progressive liberal, to which I cannot take this from the author of these teachings. These teachings failed when the first Christian put to death a non-believer. These teachings continue to fail everyday, whenever someone goes out of there way to make another person’s life more uncomfortable, more stringent, more adverse, more dire. These teachings fail the second those feelings of hate emerge when a Christian reads that others don’t agree with them. It is the greed and desire for immortality that pushes the Christians, and it is the doctrine of faith that cements it. It is with this version of morality that continues today. Whoever can speak loudest what they think should be derived from the texts, is the leader. We are superior in morality because we say so, and the morality we speak of, is right here, when I apply this particular utterance to everyday life. The commercialization of this sort of morality takes on this form. Nowhere does the bible forbid abortion, or slavery, or torture, but everywhere the Christians march with tape on their mouths in defense of woman’s reproductive slavery, comparable, but philosophically no different than the coercive enslavement and ownership of other peoples.

But I am not done, because it is with Christianity as well, that the most unimaginable and unmistakable evil is forged. If we are to give credit to Christianity for Western Morality, than we most give it credit for the most disturbing and unequal evil ever conceived by man. The doctrine of hell. Nowhere is there more evil buried, than in the concept of eternal torment. An everlasting pain. Everlasting fire. Everlasting torture. This concept, this unthinkable and mind-numbing revelation, is nowhere to be found in the Old Testament, and not within the understanding of the New Testament. The same effort that could be applied to remove the simple and dreamlike sequences of imagery of a hell, are instead implied to demonstrate the prowess of the text to explain the good behaviors of society.
They are to blame for the good, yet, allowed exemption from the evil?

Finally, ask yourself this. If the same effort to deprive morality from the New Testament, the non-literal, metaphoric understandings of Jesus, were equally employed in the understanding of the punishments described in the odd, and obviously metaphorical rantings of Revelations, would Hell be a distinguishable concept at all? And, given that this is an obvious answer, why then, even promote it?

It is my opinion that it is a stretch to claim that morality is sourced with Christianity, but it is not a stretch to see how the modern concepts of Hell are used to lure and keep people believing in the original commercialization on the religion.
Ask yourself, why, as a body and extension of society, has Christianity not rejected the doctrine of hell?

The answer is because it has no real monopoly on morality. It is in fact, a source of regression and decay. The anti-love. A reasonable and loving and just person rejects the concept of hell out of common sense. Yet, people still preach about it and attempt to scare others with the inconceivable evil, and at the same time, exonerate themselves from it’s fabrication and endless promotion. The most hateful and virulent forms of behavior done in modern times, are people who believe in a heaven and hell; themselves always the recipient of the eternal paradise.

I have raised money for Ron Paul, I have recruited people to the campaign, I have defended his positions, and I have stood out in the cold to help get signatures. I have also contributed over 300 posts to the Ron Paul Forums, and was considered a Senior Member.

After posting recently four major concerns about atheists and Ron Paul’s policies, the thread was effectively deleted. Upon pointing out that I did not violate any of the forum rules by criticizing his stances, (concerning abortion, separation of church state, racism, education, and his views on evolution and science)the new thread was also deleted, and I was banned permanently from the forums.

This is what a campaign begins to look like. The Ron Paul supporters can congratulate themselves, they are mainstream, and they are acting like it. I have no real equivalent explanation to the behavior. This is a campaign that swears on the Constitution and our freedoms, a quasi libertarian movement that attempts to be above everyone else, especially in regards to our first freedoms.

What can I say about this? This is representative of the campaign and the movement. I have received personal return mail on the positions of every candidate or campaign except Ron Paul. One can only assume that he is offended by my non-belief, which means he will be offended by your non-belief. The grassroots campaign has become a cult whose rabid fans continue to expouse freedom as a qualifier of their authority under the guise of Christian Dominionism oozing with distant echoes of white supremacy. The real libertarians have been ejected from the role they started in the grassroots effort. In its place, this, an odd collection of pseudo-intellectual self-appointed arbiters, who believe in some sort of political panacea who, armed with single sentence cliches, run to the defense of Ron Paul’s policies despite the goatse like holes that have gone unfilled.

Am I bitter? Maybe. I don’t exonerate myself from a part in any of this… It was not like I was a troll or an obnoxious presence. I have merely been a presence of dissent that was deemed dangerous enough to the campaign to delete and ban permanently, without even a defined reason.

I believe in freedoms. There isn’t a freedom that someone could convince me to with enough reason and rationale.

What is this? This is what it has become? Suppressing a dissenting opinion? For what end? What reason, other than the fear that what I have to say may in fact reach a few people?

In no way do I intend to imply that I lost support for Ron Paul because of this event. I apologize for that misconception. My opinion changed because of issues I have yet to discuss. I would like to point out this post was more about the hypocrisy of being banned from a Ron Paul Forum in light of the claim of supporters to adhere to the principles of freedom. Many Ron Paul supporters have also attacked other forums for deleting threads about Ron Paul.

1. I did not endorse another candidate.
2. I did not break any of the forum rules.
3. I brought up a long list of issues and concerns in my consideration for Ron Paul as a candidate.
4.  Thread was deleted
5. Bringing up the deletion got my account banned.

Savvy?

Discussion on Facebook.

Remember when a Ron Paul Thread was deleted by Sean Hannity Forums?

Eric Volz was freed.

Our friends at Connecticut Valley Atheists, who are only a short drive down the road, received another shout-out from a rather insightful columnist. The short article highlights a sort of “can’t help but laugh at yourself” feeling towards Holiday time creche.

I actually laughed when I read this part:

“But the clock was ticking this year; there was nary a creche debate to speak of in Connecticut. According to reliable sources, several opinion professionals said a little prayer to God, who, on short notice, brought forth onto the Earth the Connecticut Valley Atheists, to give us something Christmas-like to quarrel about.

There it was, in early December, a billboard kind of a sign thing, in Rockville’s Central Park, to acknowledge the “winter solstice,” and, of course, to advertise the notion that the World Trade Center towers might still be standing, if not for religious insanity. “Imagine No Religion,” the atheists communicated.

Bravo, you crafty little atheist troublemakers. It was a creche practical joke in reverse. Instead of despoiling the public square with Jesus stuff, or competing Hanukkah stuff or nondenominational reindeer, the Godless Ones not only dumped on the Son of God at Christmas time, but also question whether Dad is a source for good.”

Nate Montana, son of Joe Montana, is going to be a walk-on player at Notre Dame. An unranked High School backup from California, I watched some of his videos, and well, he’s actually really good…

Would you consider an equal lawsuit for MIDDLE SCHOOLERS who had to endure “A Letter From Hell.“?

Well, a teacher showed her class. Welcome to the culture war my friends.

(The video is pure evil. Don’t watch it unless you enjoy twisted sick shit.)

SO get this: Advocates of Faith and Freedom, an ultra-theocratic advocacy law firm, is representing a student of an Orange Country School District who claims his first amendment rights were violated by Dr. James Corbett, an AP European History Teacher by “convey[ing] a governmental message that students holding religious beliefs are outsiders and not full members of the community. This hostility towards religion is a violation of the establishment clause.”

Dr. Corbett apparently “spends an extended period of time at the beginning of each class discussing topics that are not only irrelevant to history but also inflammatory and often altogether inappropriate for high school students.”

This student, Chad Farnan, brought in a tape recorder and recorded some of the teacher’s rants, including this:

What part of the country has the highest murder rate? The South. What part of the country has the highest rape rate? The South. What part of the country has the highest … church attendance? The South. Oh, wait a minute. You mean there is not a correlation between these things … You know, you go down to Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, all these states that are as red as they could possibly be, as right-wing Republican as you could possibly be. When you first present these people with the economic policies of the Democratic party, they are all Democrats. Virtually all the social programs, they like. They lead the Democratic party on social issues. That’s it. Social issues, can you imagine what they’re saying on Rush Limbaugh now? About, ‘Middle school people in New England giving people birth control pills. My God. What next?’ I love Rush Limbaugh. A fat, pain in the a—liar. And, boy, is he a liar. Unbelievable.”

Sheer comic genius. Give this man the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Seriously. I wish I had one teacher like Dr. Corbett in High School.

No. Let me explain this a little better. This lawsuit has been done before, and this language is the language of the previous attempt, the secularists. This is not original. This is merely more proof of the copycat approach to morality and the legal system by the religious dominionists. It isn’t enough that the school system is still a breeding ground for religious indoctrination, and non-believers and other people who would rather teach their kids at home about religion have been ostracized and having failed previous attempts to bring these lawsuits to the courts, this Fascist Law Firm decides to copy the work of organizations like the ACLU. In these previous cases we, the secular taxpayers, have been found to not have standing. Our only victory was erasing mandatory prayer from school and the occasional Lemon Test success, but Christian proselytizing from the podium is not a phantom. If this brings about the demise of teacher’s personal freedoms of ranting about religion from either way… it is a victory for us. Dr. Corbett’s glorious and hilarious rant is what they ask for when theists demand that we allow “mandatory” prayer back in the school system. They ask for the competition of ideas on religion, and they are going to get the opinions of the occasional intelligent man like James Corbett chiming in…

I hope Chad was offended. I hope many people were offended. Not because I’m a cold-hearted anti-theist spewing my hatred into the nethervoids, not at all; it is because it’s an opportunity to learn, to know what it is like to be unlike an authority, and to question authority. My classes were filled with very anti-secular, anti-atheist rhetoric that would make Jonathan Edwards grimace (whose infamous sermon was also taught in my school with reckless literal abandonment). I’ve heard every horror in history, including the Inquisition, unexpectedly blamed on non-believers. My school hosted Heaven’s Gates and Hell’s Flames! No, if anything, this will give our friend Chad that opportunity to faithfully disagree with his professor in a healthy way… it’s an AP course for goodness sake! I am who I am today because I disagreed with my professors, and for every professor who has proven his worth to me, in being unequivocally wrong and out of order, I applaud you.

Alas, I don’t think it is right. My stance is neutrality, although I definately think there is room to discuss the failings of Christianity in a history class. If they win this lawsuit, which they probably will, consider the fallout in our favor. Where we have failed, they will succeed, and close themselves further out of the public tax supported spectrum. For this, Dr. James Corbett, is an American hero.

And for good measure, (I could listen to this guy all day) let’s see what other bits of wisdom our friend has:

The Boy Scouts can’t have it both ways. If they want to be an exclusive, Christian organization or an exclusive, God-fearing organization, then they can’t receive any more support from the state, and shouldn’t.” In the industrialized world the people least likely to go to church are the Swedes. The people in the industrialized world most likely to go to church are the Americans. America has the highest crime rate of all industrialized nations, and Sweden has the lowest. The next time somebody tells you religion is connected with morality, you might want to ask them about that.

Well, we know abstinence doesn’t work. And we know one other thing, and that is, once people become sexually active, they often don’t stop for, like, 40 or 50 years. I mean, generally, when you start you don’t, like, have a conversion and try to become re-virginized, you know. It’s not going to happen.

Sound.

An appeals court has overturned Eric Volz’s conviction. Maybe the system does work in the end. Although not yet free, I am happy for him and his family, and I hope he doesn’t forget the many people who have pulling for him and writing their senators. I don’t know the whole story, but I imagine our State Department put pressure on the Nicaraguan courts.