I am getting a great deal of angry email because I scorned religion in a few posts this weekend. Some people seem to be surprised to learn that I don't share any of their religious beliefs. Allow me to clarify and pass on a few suggestions if you feel the need to complain.

• I do not think most religious people are bad. Quite the contrary; I think most people are decent in spite of their religion. I have a higher opinion of most religious people than you may think, while having a lower opinion of religion than you can imagine.
• Don't try to tell me that the only way to enlist religious people to aid the cause of reason is to keep atheism in the closet. I say the only way for decent people to get over their anti-atheist bigotry is to make them aware that their neighbors and teachers and postal workers and plumbers and carpenters include freethinkers with a wide range of views…that don't include bowing to imaginary beings.
• Also, don't try to tell me that we atheists must make common cause with sensible religious people. We try. We get along better with the dominant Christian majority than they do with us. Perhaps, instead, those sensible religious people should see atheists as allies who will readily point out the parasites and scam artists and demagogues within their faiths.
• Please don't lecture me on how to be an atheist. The uninformed biases of the religious on how atheists are supposed to be are about as relevant as the opinions of white people on how the Negro is supposed to behave.
• To everyone who was compelled by my contempt for D. James Kennedy and his ilk to write and tell me that he is not representative of your faith: how many of you good Christians have taken the time to condemn these hating bibliolators and ideologues of the Religious Right in letters to your congressman or even conversations with your minister? It's easier to berate that outsider atheist than to police your own, is it?
• Don't damn the messenger who tells you your house of god is a den of thieves and liars. Clean up your mess.

There. Now if I can be comfortable with your belief that I'm going to burn in Hell, you should be able to cope with my belief that your god-bothering nonsense is a steaming heap o' BS. If not, there are plenty of less prickly weblogs out there.

P.S. Those of you sending me all the evangelical crap and signing me up for Christian mailing lists…you are really wasting your time.