However, I do not label all who are devout as evil. The devout can be very good people, but often rational discussion is not an option with them..

twice a year mormon missionaries wake me up on a weekend to save my soul...

I have NO problem with those that are true believers, but when they try to convert me or make their myths legal docterine I get FURIOUS. When my father died, a baptist preacher, (who was proud of the fact that he had commited murder and then been 'saved') came to my house when I was the only one home- he wanted to explain that while my father had certainly gone to hell, (after all he was a physics professor teaching that the universe is a bit older than 7000 years), it wasnt too late for me to be saved... To this date that incident qualifies as the closest I have come to murder, and it would have been 100% legal since he kept trying to force his way in the door.

The true believers view science as the enemy, and if space exploration
is seen by them to be a threat trust me they will be doing all they can to stop it. I have known religious people that are scientists, but they had to do major mental gymnastics with their faith... to be a scientist and religious requires you to accept that the bible is just a bunch of primative myths with a smattering of good general principals mixed in.

The universe is an amazing place, and if it was created by a 'god' then the best way to worship 'god' is to learn and explore 'god's' creation... Instead we we sit here and kill eachother based on what myth of 'god' we believe in.

Religion is, by definition, irrational- it emphasizes blind faith....it rewards those that question with eternal agony. It has more power in the US than in most first world nations.

I joked about the televangelists I saw on TV in front of some european visitors last week- it was clear they couldnt comprehend that craven animals like televangelists could exist in a free society... Our society in the us is more dominated by religious fundamentalism than most of the first world...

So while people here find fundamentalism abroad so barbaric, realize that our government wont declare that the Grand canyon wasnt made by the great flood, that textbooks offer disclaimers that evolution is not a fact, where teachers get fired for saying evolution is a fact. Garbage from Leviticus is made law here... yeah- christians are SOOOO oppressed