A general comment about religious folks as distinct from religion itself:—

Where religion of any flavor goes awry is when its followers, uncomfortable with the inherent mystery of religious experience, feel they must lard it over with hard and fast dogma. Joseph Campbell once said that the greatest impediment to religious experience is established religion. When people of "faith" feel they have a direct pipeline to the Almighty (whatever they envision that to be) and feel that they have the right—or the duty—to demand that others believe and behave as they do or suffer the consequences in this life, invariably the result is the worst form of tyranny. History is full of examples. The present is full of examples.

For any kind of free society, strict separation of religious belief and secular power is an absolute necessity.

A very wise person once said, "The opposite of faith is not doubt; the opposite of faith is certainty."

Don Firth