Lagging post that becfame a draft

Are atheists as fervent about religion as religious people? One person on a recent trip on the paratransit said that organized religion is like organized crime, but organized crime is more honest. He was kind of tongue-and-cheek sort of, and grew up in Philadelphia and I in New York, and those of us on the East Coast are kind of intense, passionate and skeptical. I agree about that, for the most part, with all the wars fought on the basis of some religion or other. Even Jews, as dad explained about his grandfather, who lost their belief because of some decision of a master tailor and my dad's grandfather, and he no longer believed in Judaism after a ruling went against him. Was it the Sanhedrin or some other Jewish authority? Really, and the Boer wars, the Northern Ireland "war", the Nazis, and any fundamentalists who use religion as their springboard for decision-making. It gives them license to hate gay people, women, disabled people, believe in the meek and the hierarchy of dominion politics. There have been principled people such as Father Berrigan, Dr. Martin Luther King, and other people who were service-oriented and self-sacrificed, but I think it is a problem when people impose their ideas on others. Atheists can be pretty intimidating also, because they are so definitive about their opinion. The men in my life who are atheists, and the woman I knew who is now Orthodox because it answers all her questions, and I like solutions, but I like questions better. We must open our hearts and minds, not close them to new and different ideas. Koraling Lynne