I am atheist to some groups, anti-theist to others. It boils down to this for me.
The two main deeply religeous people I have spent time with, were my auntie and my schools chaplain. Neither Tried to force anything on me, and infact our school chaplain was one of the most down to earth guys when it came to religeon, and despite the schools religeous sway, he lightheartedly told us he would not be offended if we did not want to pray ect, and he integrated nicely into society. These people have got it right, they use it as a source of inspiration, and in the hands of the moderately intellegent religeon can be used for good (fundraising to help the poor, victims of natural disaster ect). In this way I believe it is a good thing and stand only as an atheist.
On the other hand are the fanatics, evangalists, idiots. These are the people who take millenia old scripture as, for lack of a better word, gospel. Obviously what was written centuries ago applied to different times and situations, and a failure to use your own discresion with your faith is a catastrophe waiting to happen. Systems must evolve with the times or become redundant. This is where many faiths are now; Redundant because the men heading them are not exposed enough to the outside world to change. When these reluctant evolvers tell their followers that "the infidels must die" it is madness. These idiots do insane things for false promises of virgins in heaven, and going way back when, the crusades were waged by religeous drive killing thousands in the name of the church.
If there is a god somewhere, he doesnt want slaughter in his name, or hatred and discrimination-these are things scarce few men who lead their faith belive in, and no one mans word should be held above what is obviously moral. I think religeon from the mouths of the dangerous few and in the ears of the ignorant many is the single most dangerous thing on the planet today. Nothing else can cause such reckless disregard for ones own life, and those of others, for a cause and such gullability to achieve said misguided cause. I wonder sometimes If people have nothing better going on in their lvies that they have to turn to any cause they can to feel worthwhile. I've digressed to middle eastern religeon now I see.
Back to religeon in general; Fiction, or perhaps part fiction, written years ago as a guide to moral living is what religeon should have been or remained, and this is how smart people take it-with a grain of salt, acknowledging that perhaps such a being does not exist but the morals promoted do exist and they are what should be believed in. I also don't think anyone should live in fear of god, unwilling to experience things in life out of expectation of punishment in the afterlife. It is so sad seeing peoples beliefs being barriers to their lives fulfillment, because as far as science tells us, there is no afterlife.
So, if people want to use religeon as a means of comfort or healing-hooray for them, I think thats another decent person in the world. If you take fiction as law... Well you arent much better than people in asylum-that's plain mad.
