Ignoring for the moment your hateful shit-flinging tirade, I'd like to offer a considered response to an important point you bring up, and to show how it makes my point.

You mention that people cling to religion to help them feel safe, and you seem angry that I consider them crazy. Well, you're very right about the "feeling safe" part! An interesting study shows that Americans are unusually religious because they face unusual levels of personal insecurity, compared with other developed countries. Another study shows that people become more religious when their faith in their government decreases.

But now let's look at consequences! In 2004, GWBush narrowly won the election on a religious issue: his stance against gay marriage brought him a decisive number of otherwise undecided votes. Bush ended up sending more Americans into their death in the Iraq War than were killed in 9/11. America became more hated worldwide than ever, terrorist attacks were stepped up. Political commentators agree that Bush's crazy foreign policy has made the whole world less safe.

And this is why I feel justified in calling religious people crazy: the stupid shit they often do frequently turns out to counter their own best interests! If you want another example, look at sex education and contraception: the Christian-Right policies on these topics actually lead to an increase in STD infection, teen pregnancy and abortion rates. Policies Bush vigorously supported with tax money, by the way.

You'd consider a person crazy if he continually hurt himself by, say, pounding his head against a wall. I consider Christians crazy for exactly the same reason. Elsewhere, rational people find solutions that help them with their problems.

And it wasn't just a few extremist Christian nutjobs who voted for Bush or for Prop 8 or other crazy shit. It was majorities of Christians, of the kind you're telling me are good and normal and unlike anybody I know. Being moderate is no protection against being wrong, sometimes tragically so; and this is why I oppose all of Christianity and not just the few whom everybody considers crazy.