Rant Mode. Some Religious People Are Really Good.

[abaris]

My answer to the OP is the same answer I always have when this comes up. I'm not an anti theist out of practical considerations. Religions are, at their base and stripped of any woo, ideologies. Humans will always fall and have always fallen for ideologies. The main reason for this being the human urge to form exclusive circles, to feel elevated by the group and to get some outside purpose into their lives. They want to be taken by their hands and led to greener pastures.

So, if religion were to vanish, the void would be instantly filled with new ideologies. And they could come in any stripe or color. My standpoint is, better the devil you know. What I'm fighting against is religious fundamentalism and literalism. Political religion that sneaks into secular affairs and tries to determine how everybody has to live. That's what we observe to a larger degree in the Middle East, but that's also what Western fundamentalists try on a daily basis.