Reply #8: While it is factual...

[snake in the grass]

...that crimes have been committed by atheists (after all, they make up 0.2% of the U.S. prison population - top 3: Catholics at 39%, Protestants at 35%, and Muslims at 7%), your comparison is weak. There has not been one societal movement composed of atheists, who went out harassing, bombing, maiming, and murdering people in the name of atheism. Not one. I am an unbending atheist and I have no inhibitions with being open about my feelings towards religion, especially when certain individuals feel the need to convert me on a supermarket parking lot or proselytize on a weekend morning at my front door. However, I do not get in other people's faces about my beliefs or how I choose to live my life if left alone. I appreciate your attempt at distinction by claiming that fanaticism, not religion, is the problem, but I must disagree. Religion of any sort is based on the irrational imaginations of those who founded them and perpetuated through tribal pressure by those who follow. This separation from observable reality opens the door to the type of fanaticism you mention and the type of fanaticism that is a danger to our species.