///I think allowing people to make up their own minds is laudable. However, there is a danger in any religion that attempts to evangelize or force their ideologies on others. The danger must be self-evident to anyone who has taken note of those who have been killed because of someone who is a true believer as killer. Not to see this is naive at best and stupid at worst.///

Is it better when they are killing each other over ethnic hatreds or land disputes or tribal customs?

///Religion brings with it a sense of "rightness" that can be used to do bad things.///

Atheist also often exude a sense of "rightness" and that makes them as prone to do bad things as anyone else.

///I was never force-fed doctrines of any kind. I searched many religious paths and found them wanting. They had a common denominator. They demanded obedience and total acceptance. Sure it's easy to say let people do this or that based on their beliefs but the problem is that there are too many nut-jobs in religion to be one-offs. A reasonable person would examine what the effect of religion has on this erratic behavior such as murder and the justification of it.///

You're setting up a straw man. Of course religion produces nuts. So does politics. So does anything. I've never had a person who belongs to an organized religion threaten to kill me because I was an outsider. I don't expect it will ever happen. If you have to rail against religion on the off-chance that some unglued nut might want to kill you, you have a pretty weak excuse.

///Less then murder is the condemnation and rejection given by religious believers to those outside the fold.///

They can do whatever they want. I can't change them. I wouldn't if I could. It's their choice. Aren't you doing the same thing?

///I think atheists have got to be the most accepting of people because they don't use religion as a tape measure for a person's morality.///

Many of them use lack of religion as a measure of intelligence and place themselves above believers. They are just the same people. They are what they hate.

///Free thought is not free when there are those religious folk who condemn it and they are too numerous to mention today.///

Free thought is free. If they choose not to engage in it, too bad for them. But no one's stopping you from engaging in it but you.