Hi Tom How beautifully you opened this debate and how well it has taken off and flourished without a hint of rancour, disrespect or attempts to convert. Great discussions here. Today, in my job, I spent time with 3 or 4 people all of whom have significant mental illness and are also tormented by religious ideas attached to their delusional thoughts. I was taught that if the beliefs expressed by the patient seem extreme to those mentally well people who are of the same faith, then it can safely be assumed that the ideas have flipped over from belief into madness. I find it very hard to be positive about any religion that makes a person feel worthless and tormented. Like you, I am an atheist but I do consider myself to be a humanist and a humanitarian. Most days I don't feel too badly about people's beliefs but today I have spent so much time listening to people whose lives, I think, would be happier without religion.