orac

Some people feel the need to stand by and do nothing while their children die from easily treatable conditions, based on the beliefs of a bunch of nomads who lived several thousand years ago.

Some people feel the need to send people to prison for failure to conform to a particular religion. Others think a death sentence is appropriate for anyone who fails to obey the church doctrine.

If those people would leave the rest of us alone, the ones who just want a security blanket wouldn't be a problem. (Even if it's hard to respect anyone who openly states that they don't want to think.)

It doesn't help that a highly religious society (for example, one where belief in the state religion is required in order to be appointed to the supreme court) the religious people most likely to want to enforce their religion will not be the ones who only want a security blanket.

If someone wants to spend their life praying to Zeus, I don't care. If they want to send me to prison for not joining in, then I care.

The more theists who're taught to think for themselves and have trust in their own ability to live, the less we'll have trying to make us join in. (Personally, I'm not going to waste too much time on committed theists, but if someone actually wants to learn, I don't mind pointing them in the right direction.)

Btw, hoping in God to provide justice won't work. If they are serious, they need to find out about the whole 'reality' thing and actually work to make the world a better place. Fictional beings won't actually make the world better, no matter how nice it would be to have our parents solve all our problems for us.