Well now I don't recall actually mentioning atheism, much less "spouting ... dogma in support of [it]". I put it right back to you that a publicly funded body such as the Health Service should help all its patients equally, and that the best thing to do when someone genuinely thinks that prayer will cure them is somewhere between saying "maybe, but please phone us for help as well", and giving them a slap and telling them to stop being so damned stupid. Saying "okay, I respect that" and leaving them to die is clearly not helpful. I appreciate entirely that "many people would rather die than live in a world where they are not free to believe whatever makes the most sense to them at that time", and that's very noble, but practically, "freedom of belief" is a nonsense. You do not have freedom of belief. Try it. Just try it: believe you are an elk. I bet you can't. You believe whatever your mind and senses tell you to believe and you don't have a choice. Of course, that's not justification for trying to force people to believe one specific thing -- trying to police people's thoughts is a bad idea both morally and practically -- but it should suggest to you that perhaps the issues are at least a little more complex that the black-and-white image you're painting. But the fact is that religion -- and by "religion" I mean any delusion that people are encouraged by their peers to hold, and I do consider belief in gods is a delusion (even if there is a god, on present evidence you couldn't rationally believe in him) -- the fact is that religion killed Madeline Neumann, a little girl too young to understand the ideas that prevented her from getting the simple and effective treatment that would have saved her life, or the issues that surround those ideas. I put it to you that it does matter a toss what people believe -- an innocent little girl is dead.