I grew up as a non-believer but I explored a lot of religions. On my mother's side, a long line of Jews. My step-father was a non-believer. My mother oddly enough was raised Catholic but she never communicated any of this to me as a child. Later, I explored different religions, was baptized as a Congregationalist, got into B'ahai, Nichoren Shoshu, worked with the Quakers sending care packages to Europe, went to black baptist churches for the great music, and went through Sidha Yoga. I learned what I could about comparative religions and found them interesting. Mostly, my questions were about why people could believe in them. I attended different churches, even fundamentalist ones and Black churches associated with the Civil Rights Movement.

In short, I was exposed to many religions and as a result, the common denominator for me is that none of them make any sense to me. I am not out to denigrate anyone's belief system but I believe there are legitimate questions to be asked about the value of the nature of belief. I come to my views over many years of searching and exposure. I realize that any criticism of religion will be taken personally by those adherents.

Still, a discussion of the merits of belief is profitable because there are so many negative aspects as to how religion is employed. When Marx suggested that religion was the opiate of the people, in his day, opiates were in common usage and didn't have the stigma of today. He was stating a fact. I think that Stalinism is a religion and in fact he patterned his application in his version of Communism based on early religious training.

Naziism is a form of religion. Both Hitler and Stalin were gods. In Japan, Shinoism
supplied gods in the form of rulers.

The question remains, who are the militant atheists? Are those such as Richard Dawkins really militant or is he like so many others searching for truthful answers? I think that gross generalizations are made here. Some atheists appear militant. Others will offend if they dare to question religion.

I don't have any faith but I have hope that mankind will resolve differences with peace.
For this, no god is necessary in my opinion.