I think that while you're stating it in a manner that could be taken by some (many, I think) to be "a bit extreme", I think that they haven't faced humanity at it's worst or even considered what "evils" that people are capable of.

While I don't think our own personal behavior affects, or really can change what will happen in the future for anyone but those closest to us, I do definitely wish that people were more observant. It's one thing for a man to face an issue and it's quite another for the majority of men to face what they are or could be at their worst.

I am an atheist. :)

I think that religion should be respected for the social change that it brings and if nothing else, it's a beautiful thing that we've created. I don't believe that you can tell a good religious man from a bad religious man, though. Some things Jean Paul Sartre, a philosopher who wrote about exisentialism said stuck with me over the years. It was about identification and labels to some extent.

Is a man a good man because he does good acts or a good act? Is a man a thief because he once stole something? Social definitions definitely have direct impact on those definitions and the strongest and most socially heinous situations even more so. Is a man a murderer if he is tried and convicted for murdering someone? Most will say yes, with exception that he was truly guilty.

I think that some, if not many religious beliefs are metaphors for what people saw or what best made a strategy for living. Therefore that man sins without knowing it or man is drawn to sin is in my mind a good metaphor for human nature being drawn to do antisocial things.

I don't know about how much agenda I can attribute to it. While I don't think that the perceived negatives can be attributed to random chance, I think that some of these people in the highest positions of authority, if not all of them really are taking us on a road to hell paved with good intentions. Others know that what they're doing is wrong and trading away others' rights and futures for gain, whether it's personal gain or gain for everyone in their minds I don't know. Then, still others refuse to change or let the world change as it will and demand that the world and all of the people that they can effect bow to their will. I think that last view is the most shortsighted and harmful of them all because it leads to self-perpetuating situations that make for an unhealthy and divided people.

I hate to say it, but those party to organized religion and the inclusion of religion into the teaching of children without inclusion of options for other beliefs (tolerance at a greater scope) are largely responsible because they leave open a gap where many can be swayed easily with rhetoric. Those same people involved in it demanding that others conform to their view of the world and legislature being passed based upon a dwindling majority's professed religious beliefs is a bad sign. Equating, at least privately that their God demands that the world be a certain way and that all others must fit into their beliefs is another Crusade that's hidden, at best. After studying them, I don't think that the past Crusades were driven by altruistic sharing of "The Word" or "doing what God demands of us and others" either. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that even organized religion is to blame, but it's a platform for many of these people to get put into office and what's more is that it's an unspoken of shield that they use to get a lot of these things passed. That, efficiency, expediency and necessity are probably the four best excuses government officials use.

I don't think that atheists and those who don't follow organized religion aren't necessarily persecuted, but they're definitely profiled as potential threats. What's more is that the excuse of "If you're a good Christian, what have you got to hide?" implied that people who aren't Christian are likely hiding bad things and the proper response from any sane American should be "You being a nosy human being who's violating my rights and abusing our world." but by most it's not. Maybe in another generation or three it will be. I don't think that the founding fathers of our country really imagined or gave any thought or had experience with what the world might be like in 300 years, with how many people we have now and the technology we have now.

Good chatting with ya ni79.