"If Stringsinger keeps mentioning Wacko's hero de Waal, your wish may come true."

Well you know, de Waal is a non-believer. His books are worth reading.

"of course that's overcoming all intolerance - except his own!

Pete, he isn't intolerant like the fundamentalist Christians are. He is actually pretty open minded and has religious friends. I join him in intolerance for destructive attitudes on the part of some Christians and other religious persuasions when they proclaim how right they are and everyone else is wrong. This is the problem with an absolutist ideology whether religious or otherwise. Dawkins has stated time and again if someone could show him scientific evidence for the existence of a god, he would agree. But, Pete, no one has been able thus far to do so.

Blandiver, you are again hitting the nail on the head. I agree with you wholeheartedly.

I personally think it's important to understand how and why people have religious ideas.
I have read Gerald Heard, St. Francis of Asissi, some of Thomas Aquinas, most of the bible, the bhagavad gita, and omnivorous amounts of religious matter. I'm no theological authority but I've been exposed to enough of it to know that it is irrelevant to my life personally although I've found all of it interesting. One interesting feature of Dawkins is his interviews with religious people, listening to them, and inevitably commenting on them.
Most non-believers are humanists with interest in how people think whether they agree with the people or not. I share those interests.

I will have a problem with terms like "your holiness" or anything that makes as the Quakers say "Undue distinction between mankind".

In this sense, I don't consider myself at all militant but like so many of you, I am a searcher but I put my reason before any "faith". Religious people have things to teach me about behavior and attitudes.