well...
See now, with religion, it's all a matter of degrees innit? Only kids believe in the beardy sky fairy, only nutjobs in the US believe in creationis^W Intelligent Design. But whatever your personal fantasy is, you all believe in some crazy fucked up shit.
For instance, pretty much all of you have to believe that the Bible (Koran/Veda/Whatever) is some kind of teaching from the big man, whether you think it's literal, allegorical or whatever. And from those teachings you pretty much take the bits you like and leave the bits you don't, so much so that, like snowflakes, no two of you fairy-story-believing crackpots has quite the same take on it. And yet, without exception, you all think that people who don't believe whatever one true path you happen to believe in are going to spend the afterlife in some excruciating pain. (unless you happen to have chosen to ignore that particular part of your teaching as well). All this stuff with not using condoms (Catholicism), or not turning on a light switch on Fridays (Judaism - Only incandescent though, fluorescent bulbs are, apparently, OK!!), or giving up a perfectly good Sunday to go and prey to a non-existent entity, when you could be doing some charity work or helping an elderly neighbour.
I mean it's all so scattergun and illogical, how can anyone say with a straight face that they lend any kind of credence to this big time major bullshit is beyond me. I mean the books are based on stories handed down by word of mouth during the late Iron age FFS!
And then you go and force feed it to children before they're old enough to think. That's practically child abuse.
There's so many things wrong with religion, and, as an Atheist, I can tell you you certainly don't need religion in your life to be a tolerant, good, well adjusted individual. (Yes, I'm tolerant, you'll never see me snub a Christian, or protest at a Mosque build, I'm just passionate about people not wasting their lives with this rubbish) At least Atheists aren't being good just because we're scared of what "god" might do to us, we're good because we mean it.
David Attenborough has yet another good take on the whole thing:
"My response is that when Creationists talk about God creating every individual species as a separate act, they always instance hummingbirds, or orchids, sunflowers and beautiful things. But I tend to think instead of a parasitic worm that is boring through the eye of a boy sitting on the bank of a river in West Africa, [a worm] that's going to make him blind. And [I ask them], 'Are you telling me that the God you believe in, who you also say is an all-merciful God, who cares for each one of us individually, are you saying that God created this worm that can live in no other way than in an innocent child's eyeball? Because that doesn't seem to me to coincide with a God who's full of mercy".
Sorry for the rant but religion is so full of crap, I can't help myself.
A beer for everyone, non-alcoholic if your particular storybook doesn't allow.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
