"If someone could just explain why a number of militant atheists see the need to be downright nasty"
So, they make comments on the internet and write books laughing at superstition.

As opposed to (just off the top of my head) The crusades, the Spanish Inquisition, The persecution of the Catholics, Protestants, Huegenots, Orthodox, Amish, Mormons, Presbyterians or whichever flavour of Christianity is wrong at that moment in time.

This is without up-to-date Christian believers in caves in the US prepping for Doomsday (I'm looking at you Gunmetal!) who may occasionally decide to blow up a government building or two.

This however pales into insignificance next to the misery imposed on children by religious belief. Look at the Catholic Church. OK, every walk of life has it's kiddie fiddlers, but to move them around to cover up their crimes? The beatings, the children's homes, the having people locked up as insane for premarital sex, the Irish Laundries, and generally alienating people within their own society for any kind of deviation from the norm (homosexuality being the most obvious)

Oh, and while we are on it, you know those muslim women who dress head to toe in black, cover their heads with a scarf and are mocked for being extremely devout? At least they get married, unlike nuns who dress exactly the same and believe they are actually married to Jesus.

Religion is not a bunch of harmless, superstitious, Vicar of Dibley types; it is an evil cancer that should be stamped out hard wherever it rears its vicious, deluded, holier-than-though head.

TL;DR: Fuck right off. Then forgive me. Happy Easter.
( da5id <YOUR SIG HERE>, Sun 5 Apr 2015, 11:53, 1 reply)

misunderstanding forgiveness
and how it works would be one thing. The vicious ad-hominen attack is quit another. Good luck with your short life, I sincerely hope its better than you imagine it to be.
(gearanach #wankwankwank, Sun 5 Apr 2015, 15:04, closed)