The rule of "reason" leads to the rule of truthiness. That's why we choose the rule of law. Richard Posner:

the duty of judges is "always [to] try to do the best they can do for the present and the future, unchecked by any felt duty to secure consistency in principle with what other officials have done in the past"

The point of using precedent or intention or any other interpretive device is to test one's arguments against others. Posner's argument is that of the man who tests his ideas only against himself: of the chess player who plays alone, spinning the board between moves, or the man who thinks he's good in bed because he always comes when he masturbates.
That's a good way to weaken your game.
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A note to P.Z. Meyers

"suicide bombing becomes a particularly stupid act when one believes in one life and no reward in a paradise" 

No, it's a political strategy, and it works. Look at the data. [It doesn't. But Hamas called a halt to it that year (2006)]

"It's all well and good to say science is limited… to understanding the entire freaking universe." 

No again. As long as we are animals and are susceptible to conditioned response, science does not understand everything in the universe. Your education does not render you immune to desires and assumptions. The most important question is how we limit the number of Rumsfelds in the world.

The Bible, as no more than a book of stories, says more about that than Dawkins.

You argue with the religious but don't wonder about the function of religion. What's the function of the rule of law? Why not have the rule of experts? Brian Leiter is a friend of Richard Posner. Posner has little interest in the rule of law, or in democracy.

You don't argue from science you argue from an ideological foundationalism. Science is not about 'truth' it's about facts. You wrap yourself in a teleological argument like a cop who says he 'is' the law.