Open call to all you religious moderates out there: 'Splane dis to me...

I had planned to do something on the budget, but I came across a couple of items in Skepdic that I just HAD to deal with.

Please take a moment to read THIS and THIS.  Now, lest you think these are anomolies, let me assure you that there are TONS of examples of this kind of gut-wrenching outrage throughout Skepdic's "What's the harm? Archive"

Now I've made no secret here about my disdain for organized religion.  And I already know what your very first answer to me will be; and this will be the same wether you are perfectly moderate and reasonable or standing in middle of a field with your underpants on your head, waiting for the mothership:  But we're not LIKE them!  They're CRAZY!

OK... Here's the thing... It occurs to me that there is basically a 1:1 (perhaps greater) correlation between how religious you are and how crazy you are.  Very Religious = Very crazy. (See above) Not an extremist = Not very crazy.  And of course, crazy people never KNOW their crazy,  but if you ever consider someone MORE RELIGIOUS than you are, do you ever notice how they usually also seem a little bit crazy, at least compared to you, from your own POV?

So here's my question...

Knowing that the degree of one religiosity is directly proportional to their insanity, why should anyone want to have this force in their life at all?

Please tell me why this is any different from saying, "Oh, I only use a little Cocaine.  Just to make me feel a little better.  I'm not going to be like those crazy Coke-heads, screwing up their whole life."

Tell me how that statement is any different!

Tell me why any good that comes from religion, can't come independently of the insane baggage they ask you to carry!  And yes, some churches ask you to carry very little, but why should I carry ANY AT ALL?! 

I have never noticed a positive correlation between how religious one is and how good a person they are.  Biggoted, hateful, judgemental and downright batshit crazy? Yeah, all those things seem to increase with one's religious zeal.  But charity?  A non-judmental, unconditional love of your fellow man?  Nope.  NEVER seen that. Even though Christ seemed to embody it, his loudest followers seem to be allergic to it. 

And don't think I'm just bashing Christianity here!  Islam has all the social and philosophical problems of Christianity, and then some.  And they have just as many more crazies as you'd expect, given their greater overall zeal!  How about Hinduism?  I'll say this for them: They don't take converts.  You have to be BORN a Hindu.  (I guess the whole reincarnation thing gets messed up otherwise.)  So I respect that they don't go around prostelytising and trying to force everyone else to covert to their way.  That takes a lot of the disfunction out of it.  OTOTH, the amount of absolutely absurd stuff you'd have to belileve in order to REALLY believe is as many times greater than it is Christianity and Islam as their number of Gods is!

(And BTW... if you pick and choose what parts of any religion you will accept and which parts you'll ignore: WHY BOTHER?  You're not following that faith, you're just MAKING IT UP AS YOU GO ALONG!  And you can do THAT without the damned Church! In fact, from the POV of most churches, YOU ALREADY ARE!)

So in closing, I'll say it again: I truly don't judge anyone for believing whatever they want, as long as it's kept out of the science room, out of our laws and out of my face.  And I'm putting this out there in all seriousness.  This is NOT a rhetorical question! I would really like for some moderate, liberal defender of religion to try and convince me of it's inherent goodness. Because the way I see it, if the Amount of Crazy you are is "X" times the amount of Religious you are, why would I want "X" to be anything but ZERO?