Actually, Joe, I really disagree with you here. From what I've seen, most of the anti-religous stuff has been in response to digs and niggles from religious people pushing their agendas. They've generally said something which indicates either explicitly or by inference a sense of superiority or higher morals or ethics non those of a non-religious bent. At one time last year there were about 5 threads running below the line in which religion was being "debated" (if that's not too kind a word for it) and 4 of them had been started by people of a religious bent subtly or not so subtly deriding those who have no such feelings. To cry "foul" when they get a reaction is a bit rich, IMO.

A lot of the "deriding" that goes on is not aimed at peoples' beliefs as such, but at people making indefensible...ie plain factually *wrong* points... when trying to reconcile science with literalist fundamentalism. Similar derision would, I believe, accrue to someone who came on here promulgating a flat earth, or insisting that the moon landings were hoaxes, using "evidence" that was thoroughly discredited 20 years ago.

Anyway, I don't want this thread to turn into another religious debate, so I'll say no more on the subject.