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The Senator Leonard K. Bullfinch Newsletter #1

National Religion

My Fellow Americans, American morality seemingly has become a thing of the past. Our TV air waves have become a breeding ground for pornography. Our children openly curse, imitating their “role models” from the media. Young girls are wearing less and less. People everywhere are openly defying what used to be considered right and good. Even though the public polls say that the people are generally opposed to these affronts to normal decency--these things that we used to call sinful and wrong in more simpler times--they still continue. Every attempt that someone makes at curbing this onslaught of indecency is stopped dead in the courts by activist judges that have lost focus of what true justice ought to be.

Children are no longer allowed to pray in schools. Nativity scenes can’t be displayed on public property. Judges and teachers are forbidden from displaying the Ten Commandments in their offices and classrooms. And all the while, we are told we must tolerate such abominations as homosexuality. We are told that marriage is an option. Abortion is a valid choice. Evolution is the truth. And even such things as drugs and liquor are a valid life style choice.

The whole world has gone insane and there seems to be nothing we can do about it, all because we’re afraid of offending somebody else’s religious sensitivities. For instance, we are forbidden from leading school children in a simple prayer because we may force them to pray to a god that they find offensive. Heaven forbid that we should offend an atheist!

The problem is complex, but the solution is simple. I propose that the United States adopt a National Religion. No longer would we have to worry about anyone’s sensibilities being offended. No longer would we have to worry about radical parents suing school districts over the Pledge of Allegiance, judges not being allowed to post the Ten Commandments, or people being upset because “In God We Trust” is on our currency.

Whatever laws, whatever rules the chosen religion has will become the laws and rules for everybody. Think of the simplicity! If the National Religion opposes homosexuality, then the queers are out of here! If that religion says adulterers need to be stoned, the only question is where and when. If the religion says “Thou Shalt Not Kill,” then that’s what it is. Nobody gets killed for any reason. Period. Imagine how much money we’ll save on legal expenses alone!

Having a National Religion doesn’t mean that we wouldn’t allow other religious beliefs. This is still America. We still have freedom of religion. It’s just that there would now be no doubt that those other religions are wrong.

And obviously, since the National Religion would be the right religion, then only those who openly profess and can prove that faith would be allowed to participate in the government, including the electoral process. They would be the only ones allowed to vote, assuming that voting were even still necessary.

I propose that we put it to a public vote, that we create an Amendment to the Constitution. Whichever religion gets the most votes becomes the National Religion, unless, of course, it’s something really crazy, like Catholicism or Judaism. We don’t want our children having to cross themselves and pray to idols, or not be forced to believe in Jesus. And God forbid that it should be Islam!

Rationally thinking individuals can surely see that this is the only way out of the current quandary our government has gotten itself into. A Constitutionally mandated Nation Religion would solve everything. Abortions, birth control, capital punishment, divorce, equality, euthanasia, gun control, obscenity, prayer in school, privacy, same sex marriages, school curricula, sex education...the list goes on. There is nothing that a National Religion would not cover.

All that was once good and right in America can be good and right again. We can bring back those days, when everybody knew what right was, and everybody who did wrong was burned as the heathen witches that they were.

Thank You,

Senator Leonard K. Bullfinch

Let Your Voice Be Heard!

You gotta love this guy. He wants to amend the state constitution to make Christianity the official state religion. I got the text of his bill from the Chatter blog site ( www.chatterbyrondavis.blogspot.com ). Ron got it from Sater's official web page.


Whereas, our forefathers of this great nation of the United States recognized a Christian God and used the principles afforded to us by Him as the founding principles of our nation; and

Whereas, as citizens of this great nation, we the majority also wish to exercise our constitutional right to acknowledge our Creator and give thanks for the many gifts provided by Him; and

Whereas, as elected officials we should protect the majority's right to express their religious beliefs while showing respect for those who object; and

Whereas, we wish to continue the wisdom imparted in the Constitution of the United States of America by the founding fathers; and

Whereas, we as elected officials recognize that a Greater Power exists above and beyond the institutions of mankind:

Now, therefore, be it resolved by the members of the House of Representatives of the Ninety-third General Assembly, Second Regular Session, the Senate concurring therein, that we stand with the majority of our constituents and exercise the common sense that voluntary prayer in public schools and religious displays on public property are not a coalition of church and state, but rather the justified recognition of the positive role that Christianity has played in this great nation of ours, the United States of America.

What a guy! We need to show this brave patriot our support. I've already sent him an email, the text of which is reprinted below. I also sent him an appropriate Leonard K. Bullfinch Newsletter, which I reprinted above.

I'm encouraging everybody who regularly reads my blog (both of you) to send him mail. You can even cut and paste mine.

david.sater@house.mo.gov

Mr. Sater,

Bless you, sir, for trying to make Christianity our official state religion. But why stop there? After all, if we stick with just Christianity, then we will have to include the Catholics and the Mormons, not to mention those pesky Johovah Witnesses. Isn't there something we can do to keep them from witnessing to me all the time? That's so annoying when people try telling me something that I don't want to hear, much less believe. I'm in favor of making the Good Time Church of the Perpetual Weekend our state religion. Heck, why stop there. Let's make it the national religion. Then we could take every day off with pay, all in the name of God.

Tell me, sir, did you ever read your history books back when you were in school? Yes, the Constitution may include the word God, but does it include the word Jesus? Or are you assuming that when they said God, they meant Jesus? A pretty big assumption, considering that Adams and Jefferson (among others, such as Paine) were Deists. You do know what a Deist is, don't you? Heck fire, Franklin was an atheist. You do know what an atheist is, don't you?

I've attached one of the newsletters from the esteemed Honorable Senator Leonard K. Bullfinch. A kindred soul, I'm sure.

Sincerely,

Michael Soetaert
a pesky voter

More Marquees, More Fun

So I was driving toward Jeff City the other day and I saw a church marquee that said, "If you stand for nothing, you fall for everything." Clever, but what the hell does it mean? The two are not inclusive of each other. You can stand for nothing and not fall for everything. I suppose it's even possible to stand for nothing and fall for nothing. And besides, isn't standing for nothing truly standing for something? My brain hurts.

Do you suppose there's some publication out there, some web site perhaps, where preachers can turn to for trite marquee sayings. Maybe even have it where they can build a whole sermon around it? I wonder if they have to subscribe to it.

Rough Riders

I was in a public bathroom the other day and noticed a condom machine. Which reminds me of a bumper sticker I saw: "It's easier to change a condom than a diaper." I like that. But back to the bathroom. A public bathroom. A nasty, stinking public bathroom. Ok, so there's this condom machine selling Rough Rider Condoms.

I realize I'm not in marketing, but that just really seems like an awful name for a condom. I mean, I wouldn't want to put anything rough on my boys. In fact, I want nothing that has anything to do with sex to be rough. But then, I suppose the name Easy Rider has already been taken.

Obeying God

As humans stumble through every day life, we are haunted by those ultimate questions: Why are we here? What does god want? and What must I do to get to heaven? Of course, those questions usually take a back seat to those more mundane questions of: What will I eat today? Where will I sleep tonight? and How can I get across this street without getting blown up? But I digress.

Ultimately, either there is a god or there isn’t. There is either an infinite creation or an infinite creator. Both ultimately require a leap of faith. The decision, for all practical purposes, comes down to whatever you’re most comfortable believing. Or you could flip a coin.

Of course, one way of looking at it is that if there is no god, nothing we do is truly going to matter anyway, as far as our immortal souls are concerned, namely because we don’t even have immortal souls. So if we choose to believe in an infinite creator, and we’re wrong, what have we lost but a few Sunday mornings and 10% of our income (well, probably closer to 3%)?

Should you choose to believe in an infinite creator, either he, she, it, or they is good or bad. In other words, either god is malevolent or benevolent.

If god is malevolent, then he’s created us solely to mess with us. On a worse case scenario, we’re all part of some sick, demented joke and regardless of what we do it’s not going to matter because ultimately we’re screwed. On a best case scenario, a malevolent god just doesn’t care. Either way, there’s nothing that we can do that will ultimately matter. Have a nice day.

Of course, there’s always the possibility that we – people, maybe even the entire earth (if not more) – are side effects of some greater plan, and god is completely unaware of us. Or, he is aware of us, but we really don’t matter. Humans are the fleas on god's dog, so to speak. Of course, that could disallow the conventional definition of god, that of being all-knowing. But then, there are those who will argue that god can do as god wants. Just because god doesn’t follow our logic, he doesn’t cease to be god.

Whether god’s unaware of us, or if he is, but we just don’t matter, it all works pretty much the same as a malevolent god. If either case is true, then all bets are off anyway. All bets, that is, as far as our trying to figure out what it is that god wants us to do, or its really mattering even if we do.

Most people, understandably, chose to believe in a benevolent creator. Even if they’re wrong, what difference will it make? Here’s the rub, though. What someone chooses to believe may not ultimately make a difference to a non-existent god, but how that person chooses to worship that god could make a lot of difference to everyone else. But I digress.

Assuming that god is good, that we have been created for a positive purpose that is all part of god’s plan, the next question is: What does god want? Namely, what does god want us to do? Or, in a more selfish vein, what do we need to do to make god happy so that someday she will reward us, either with a more tolerable life now or eternal happiness in the hereafter? Or, preferably, both.

For instance, is it really necessary to chant Latin psalms and burn incense while throwing blood on an altar to make god happy? Did god really make us solely so we could sing her praise continuously? If so, wouldn’t that make god rather egocentric? And so, we’re back to the malevolent god again.

What is probably more close to true, is that god wants us to be happy. That’s it. I mean, think about it. If god doesn’t want us to be happy… Wow, how messed up is that? Of course, our happiness has all sorts of social strings attached, namely that our happiness can’t cause others to be unhappy, which requires knowing the consequences of our actions, and, ultimately comes down to our need to make others happy as well as ourselves. Truly, our happiness ultimately depends on others being happy, too.

So if that’s the case, if god wants no more from us than to be happy, then does god really care if we go to church? If we could only be happy by not believing in god, would god truly care? Would god really damn us to eternal misery simply because we chose not to believe in her? Or because we believed in the wrong flavor of any particular faith? Or we were so isolated that we never heard of her at all? If that’s the case, it seems like we’re back to the malevolent god again, because god ultimately doesn’t care if we’re good, only if we jump through the hoop.

But here’s the catch. Once you’ve decided that there truly is a god and that she is benevolent, and you’ve further decided that what that god wants is for us – all of us, not just a chosen few – to be happy, content, free from hunger and fear and repression and all the nasty things that humans have been doing to each other ever since we figured that rocks make pretty good weapons but certainly can be improved on, then how does religion fit into that?

We cannot throw out the logic of god simply because it doesn’t fit into the logic of some religious text that was supposedly given to us by god. (The fact that it was given to us by god should be suspect, because chances are you only know that text comes from god because it says so in the text to begin with.)

In other words, if the Bible, for instance, tells us we should smite our enemies, but that goes against the whole idea of god’s (not necessarily the god of the bible) wanting all of us to live happily together (especially since the only reason that they’re our enemies is that they don’t believe in the God of the Bible) then maybe…just maybe…it is the Bible that is wrong. Of course, that is blasphemous, according to the Bible.

It doesn’t matter if the Bible, or any other text, is historically accurate. The true question is whether or not it makes logical sense. After all, there are lots of things that are historically accurate that truly make no sense. The Greeks, for instance, truly believed in Poseidon, but that doesn’t mean that he’s still living under the sea spearing things with his trusty trident. Or that he ever did live.

The problem is, always has been, and always will be, that if you set out to prove something to be true, you will. There are PhDs who believe the earth is flat and they have proof. It bears repeating: It doesn’t matter how silly or illogical something might be, if you want to find proof that it is true, you will. Just look at all the complex mathematical models that were created to prove that the earth was in the center of the universe. We should never make our logic fit something that we believe to be true, that we want to be true, especially something we believe to be undeniably true. We should use logic to decide what is true.

Whether there is an infinite creator or an infinite creation. Whether there is a benevolent god or a malevolent god. Whether we believe that we are part of some great plan or just a by-product of a cosmic-scale industrial accident. It doesn’t matter. We should be kind. We should try our best to make the world a better place for everybody, not just a select few. We should try to be aware of the consequences of all of our actions and then always try and act in a socially responsible manner that will ultimately make the world a better place, once again for everybody. And hopefully along the way, we’ve found personal happiness. And when we die, that should be enough. Whether or not there is a god. But if there is a god, and if that isn’t good enough, do you really want to hang out with him for all of eternity anyway?

The Senator Leonard K. Bullfinch Newsletter #11

Smoking

My fellow citizens,

After considerable consideration, I would like to weigh in on a subject that is important to many of my constituents, as well as some of you who are not. And that is smoking in public. Many people consider smoking in public, in particular, second hand smoke, to be a health hazard to those non-smokers forced to breathe this tainted air. Not that I am unsympathetic to their plight, but I disagree with outlawing smoking in public. In fact, I have decided to fight for legislation that will make it against the law not to smoke in public.

Universal smoking would be beneficial to our society. First of all, it would benefit our tobacco growers, which are almost wholly an American industry. Many farmers would, in fact, find it profitable to farm tobacco over those crops they’re now trying to grow, like wheat, soy beans, and rice. A strong American industry, such as the tobacco growers, manufacturers, and distributors would would mean a strong America. And who could argue with that? It is possible, as well, that some of those who are now growing such harmful crops as marijuana might actually abandoned their illegal ways and take up growing tobacco instead.

Universal smoking would also benefit other industries. For instance, it would help guarantee a strong health care industry, not to mention other peripheral industries, such as the funeral services industry.

Universal smoking would help to reduce unemployment. First of all, we would be employing more Americans in American industries. And who can deny the logic in that? And secondly, the entire problem with unemployment, after all, is that there are too many workers for a limited number of jobs. The fewer the workers, the lower the unemployment rate, and the better America becomes.

Smoking would also help to reduce crime. A non-smoking criminal would no longer have an advantage when trying to outrun a 3 pack a day cop. Can anyone truly argue that we want to make it easier for criminals to get away?

And Universal smoking would help to make America a more homogenous society. No longer would we be plagued by the perennial battle of smokers versus non-smokers. No longer would anyone find offense with another’s smoking. No longer would anyone have to be suffered the indignity of being treated like some second-class citizen, relegated to the back of the restaurant, or denied entry all together, in order to enjoy an after diner smoke. We must protect our civil rights!

Now I know that there are those of you that say all of these things would occur if we universally gave up smoking altogether. However, let’s be realistic. Expecting everyone to quit is just not going to happen. Smoking, after all, is a serious addiction. It is much easier, and much more realistic, to expect those who do not now smoke to begin, than for those who now smoke to quit.

When all of America finally lights up, it will be like the smoke that Francis Scott Key struggled to see through when he was inspired to write the National Anthem. America will become more than the home of the brave, when there are liberty, justice, and cigarettes for all.

God Bless,

Sen. Leonard K. Bullfinch