I agree with just about everything you said.

I do not believe religion is a bad thing. I believe extremism in any form is a bad thing.

The problems start when you tell me, or try to get laws passed that will force me, to live by your belief structure.

Your personal beliefs are just that, and I will fight to the death to preserve your right to believe in what you choose to believe in. But that also means that you should allow me to believe in what I choose to believe in.

But as soon as you start spending church collected funds and become politically active, you have left the essence of religion, and become a salesman. Whether it is Pat Robertson or El-Sudder, when you tell me your way is the only way, and your God is the only God, I have a real problem with that.

And stopping the work on basic research, because "It is not God's will", leaves the realm of sanity in the distance in my opinion. Was it not Galileo that was condemned of heresy by the Roman Inquistion for saying the Earth travelled around the Sun?

I am probably going to get blasted for all of this, but here is my example to prove my point. Take a quick look at:

http://www.cc.org

It is the web address for the Christian Coalition. There is nothing but an agenda there. I do not mean to pick on that one site. There are similar sites for just about any religion.