You may rest assured that nothing anyone says on this or any other forum makes me feel demonised, sensitised or pained. I post under my real name (unlike you and hypocrite Wacko Jacko) and I play a dead straight bat at all times. What I say is what I think, no more, no less. Even Don would probably not mind my usurping his soubriquet ever so slightly by my telling you that what you see is what you get. If you think you can get at a bloke who's like that, you're a better man than I am. Having cleared up your misconception, let me make it quite clear to you that, as far as I'm concerned, anyone is entitled to believe whatever they want. In fact, I'd fight for their right to do so. Let me make it quite clear also that I am not entitled to ridicule anyone for holding a particular private belief. Now did you, by any chance, spot the great big clue in that last sentence? Well, as you're not a man of subtle understanding, permit me to explain. For all I care, you can believe in great big fat fairies in the bottom of your garden. That's approximately as likely as the truth of belief in God. Where I start to get bothered is when you try to get other people to believe your improbable notion. Tell the world about your big fat fairies and we'll smile indulgently in your direction. Tell the world about your God, the same. But tell your kids that they must believe in your God or sign them up at birth to your God-club, or that your God is as likely as not to exist (a big lie), or that he's a better God than other people's Gods, or that people who reject your unlikely God are threateningly militant bullies, or that he broke all nature's laws in order to create everything from nothing in some kind of flash of magic, in the face of all the hard-won evidence of science, and I'm parting company with you. And the more you go on about it (the job of religion), the more I'll resist. And if you keep on, you are opening yourself up to ridicule, and you deserve it. I don't ridicule anyone here for holding particular beliefs (don't confuse lusty challenge with ridicule a la Wacko), but I might give them the ridicule they deserve for the way they express those beliefs and the way they cultivate elaborate delusions for themselves and diss hard-working scientists. Religion needs to be fought. It's a very bad thing, old chap.