On Wired:

The Church of the Non-Believers

I don't like any kind of extremism. I think everyone is entitled to believe in whatever he wants, as long as one doesn't try to impose his beliefs on others. I personally don't believe in a God, I know there is a life energy that keeps things the way they are but I don't see the necessity to call it something or attribute it “human-like” qualities. I think that religions originally are born as guidelines for social behaviour, in times when there were very few people able to write and read and the only way to regulate society was to convince everyone in a higher entity seeing all and judging us for our actions, even when, for example, in absence of witnesses would have been possible to get away with murder. Also, for literate people, they were a tool to a higher awareness. As far as extremes are concerned, it's always people twisting things to gain something. I think that having to choose it's good because it makes people take responsability. I don't think the problem is the religion in itself but the interpretations given to it by people for personal (or economical) reasons.