2. Brainwashing of children.
First of all Nadaka, that was a good answer. I have a lot more respect for you now, after that, than when I perceived you as just throwing a rage fit about religion. Makes sense to me.
As for the above point: let me share an experience. I'm not sure I've shared it before on here. When I was young, I went to a fundamentalist southern baptist church, and participated in kindergarten there (this story is not the one about how my dad learned to hate fundamentalists in general for a while). I started going there very soon after leaving the hospital several cities away where they were treating my strep-to-the-brain, which gave me lasting Tourette's Syndrome. At this time, my tics were so incredibly bad that they were a defining part of me.
I remember distinctly the day when my kindergarten teacher and a bunch of other "officials" in the church got together, approached my parents and told them they wanted to exorcise the demon out of me. Yes, a
genuine exorcism, because I had Tourette's, which was itself because I got strep to the brain. This was in the nineties, and the head and some subordinates of the [redacted] southern baptist church was telling my parents that we should perform an exorcism on their extremely young boy.
After this, we all just decided we didn't want to be a part of that any more. Maybe that's not a story about how fundamentalist Christians are bad, but rather how fundamentalist Christianity led a bunch of idiots to find evil where there was none, and attempt to force a bizarre ritual down the throats of an innocent child and his parents.
I grew up just fine and now my disorder is hardly noticeable. I just thought I'd share that. Looking back, it's very funny to me.
edit: I just hope I'm not the main perpetrator here when Vector comes down with her rerailohammer because I most certainly have joined the crowd pushing this train of its tracks.