[Photon]

I see absolutely no reason why religion deserves respect. What, because some people are really fond of it and it makes them feel good?

As an atheist, I don't respect religion because of it's thousands of years of providing divine mandate for barbarism. Now religion seems to be the primary motivating force in the idea that ignorance is just as good as knowledge.

You can worship fairy tales in private and I won't care. The problem is that these fairy tales make bold claims about the natural world that people use to live by, vote by, and judge by. All of our biggest failures as a civilization(rape, torture, slavery, mass murder) are encouraged by countless religious texts, as well as commanded by the deities within them. The Bible says it's okay to take slaves, rape women, kill children, commit genocide, etc. It's disturbing that most Christians don't want to acknowledge this fact, yet they want to claim that the Bible is indeed the irrefutable word of God. I guess most Christians only like God when it applies to what they wan't to believe.

Besides, the healthiest nations in the world on the Human Development Index are the nations with the most atheists(like Norway and Japan). As nations rank lower on the HDI, the percentage of the population that is religious increases.