"Haters love to cherry-pick from history. How many wars really were caused by religion, vs. being mayhem where good ol' human bloodlust merely used religion as a cover?"

I feel that's the thing secularists (political leanings aside) are getting at; People using their "faith" as a disguise for their prejudices. The states where the Tea Party is the most active have the highest divorce rates and so on and so on.

I'm an agnost and while I do believe VERY strongly in the separation of church and state, I in no way feel that religion should be outright banned. It HAS done plenty of good. I just don't go around professing it to everyone with bumper stickers and t-shirts. The same way I don't want people to shove their religion down my throat, I don't do it to other people with my views. It's a nice little rule I actually picked up from the Bible.

My problem is with the assholes you mentioned.

Who told this guy ANYONE wants to hear his opinions? Program the station and shut yer pie-hole already.

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For him to say 'Religion has done just as much to bring moral courage and a passion for social justice to a nasty, selfish public square as it has to screw things up" is to give it more credit than its due: on an EPIC scale.

To often people confuse ethics and morality with religion. They are distinct and can be mutually exclusive.

I will grant every single one of his examples as an example of ethical behavior that could have been done sans any particular religion (despite what any of the people he mentions thought). MLK stole all his non-violent ideas from Ghandi. who was a Hindu. "… I am also a Christian, a Muslim, a Buddhist and a Jew". So which religion was the cause?

If he wants to believe in one of the myriad myths about the world and the presence of some all-powerful God in his life, fine. It will make little difference when he's laying in that box in the ground getting eaten by worms like the non-believers.

Oh and lets not forget to add the following to his list:

Last time we mixed religion and politics "we got":
…the inquisition…we got the crusades…
the pogroms, jihads and genocides in Africa
….suicide bombers and 911…

Do i even need to continue?

Liberalism, atheism, male sexual exclusivity linked to IQ

http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/02/26/liberals.atheists.sex.intelligence/index.html?hpt=Sbin

The deist's impersonal god was the god of most of our forefathers who most likely wanted a separation of church and state. There's no religion in deism. That's why it puzzles me that you supported Satullo's indignation at the bumper sticker.

The bumper sticker does not say that relgion has done nothing good. To jump to the conclusion that it must have said that because all people who want church/state separation believe there is nothing good about religion is to stereotype all atheists. Not even Richard Dawkins believes that religion has done nothing good. His claim is that on balance, religion has done much more harm than good. I agree with him.

I also invite you to survey my posts on PhiladelphiaSpeaks.com — very few of which, BTW, deal with faith, spirituality, or reason, and a lot of which have to do with transportation — to see how I usually discuss issues.

As for your larger point: Of course, most religious people square this circle by saying that free will itself is a God-given quality, something that I'm sure most freethinkers find laughable on its face. But if we take a somewhat Deist position — understanding "God" as, say, the moment of creation, and her involvement in our affairs after that point minimal at best — then it may not be as far-fetched as it sounds.

For me, what remains missing in your comments is an acknowledgment of how crucial it is for a healthy democracy to encourage, or at least regularly support, rational criticism of supernaturalism/interventionism on behalf of us Earthlings by transcendent beings residing everlastingly in some meta-location we've all named heaven.

My guess, fwiw, is that what most disturbs lots of your fellow WHYY listeners (supporting members?) is a concern that the sort of pious, pre-scientific perspective referred to above might well have a home within the mind of the station's News and Information Executive Director, and by inference within the outlook of its management. One imagines that in his 02/11 editorial the Director might have heeded the call to duty presented in Luke 24:47. For why else would it have been deemed proper to make use of public, NPR, airwaves to share something so remarkably personal as his religiosity?

Many people understand, as should you, Chris, that the child is the father of the man. For the majority of religious true believers it is psychologically grueling to recognize, see, that the faith based mythology abounding in their minds derives, more or less, from mimicry; that it came to their ears by way of religiously fearful others who themselves were/are without an ability to see the connection between mythic fancy and their visceral personal interest in living forever. This is not to mention an apparent inability to see the disrespectfulness of proselytizing to formative young minds. (I refer here to pushing superstitiousness itself, not the crucial lessons of ethical behavior).

Resurrection? The here after? A forever 'you'? Take a break from peeing into the wind, Chris. The very fact that we, as persons, exist impermanently makes it possible to accord life it's greatest meaning. Yet, salvationist/survivalist religion (the psychology of my-me-mine) is by its nature structurally dependent upon a denial–in the minds of bishops, imams, rabbis, ayatollahs, cult leaders everywhere–of this most natural fact.

Sounds like something I would get a lot out of.

BTW, "Speaking of Faith" with Krista Tippett is a great program because she actually addresses these kinds of questions.

That' what the bumper sticker says: don't mix in religion.

P.S. Comparing your opponent's tenacity to a blinkered racist does more harm to your reputation as some who can put together a thoughtful, rational argument.