I think that that scary man (well for those who have never read his works and believe the right wing media) said it best when he in context and for want of a better translation "relgion is the opium of the masses".....its an escape clause from the harsh reality of life.

As for those who feel they have an individual relationship with a creator then i respect that ,,,,,,but all organized religion has to much shit in its history for me to begin to respect more than a limited amount of information from them as a respected source.

As for having to defend atheism or its estranged cousin the agnostics then why the hell should this be the cause. As far as i am concerned religion as organizations have caused more problems than political organizations could have wished for. ...I.E i actually watched glenn (a little bit educationally deficient) beck the other day and he said Marx was responsible for Hitler and his evil.....i cracked up laughing...what a fucking retard....The reason i brought this up was Hitler hated the teachings of marx but this next part is fact, he built upon centuries of catholic and protestant based antisemitism to slaughter six million Jewish people. ... yep six million, kids, dads, moms, husbands, wifes, cousins, uncles, aunts, friends, your butcher, your gardener, your builder, your bank manager ect

And religion carries on appealing to those who don't wish to question it. People jump on planes thinking they can bang virgins and please god without any actual thought, i mean if there was a god and believe me i wish/hope there is then what the hell would he want someone to blow innocent people apart and why would he reward this. There is a patch a land in the middle of nowhere where a group of people believe god granted them it, they never lived there for a while and returned only to be confronted by another bunch of people who in their minds also felt an spiritual attachment to the land......decades pass and you guessed it more kids, dads, moms, husbands, wifes, cousins, uncles, aunts, friends, butchers, gardeners, builders, bank managers ect lose their lifes for no reason.

Personally i am an agnostic, i still occasionally pray....i make no apologies for that.

I respect those who believe in a god as obviously its faith based and i respect atheist as science does do a pretty damn good job of proving the old evolution theory and science is not to be disrespected ...can you imagine someone is sitting on a hospital table waiting for a tipple heart bi pass or any other serious medical treatment doubting science?

Science is pretty damn good.....and it never shows itself as infallible...which i am afraid most religions do.

Peace and love