Comment 22 by Nordic11

Even so, I disagree with my atheist friends and acquaintances, but I try to never mock or belittle them (although I'm sure I've failed at this at times). I respect their thinking and find it logical in many ways. In my experience, I have not experienced the same respect in return. Richard Dawkins and members on this site habitually mock and ridicule my Christianity in general and my personal faith making a cordial discussion difficult (although there have been several members who have been more than kind).

If someone finds your ideas ridiculous, they should be free to say so. To pretend that they don't consider something to be ridiculous is to be intellectually dishonest. The fact that the thing they consider to be ridiculous may be Christianity or any other religion is irrelevant. Why should religion get a special exemption? The reason why this is so important has been born out by history. It has been taboo to criticise religion, or at least to criticise it strongly, and this has allowed all sorts of abuses of power and privilege to take place, and still take place today. If nobody ever strongly ridicules religion, then it creates an impression that we all respect it - this gives religion a further status of respectability that it has no right to enjoy.

I appreciate the fact that you may respect atheist views, but if I find Christianity to be ridiculous and harmful then I'm not going to deny that just to be polite in return.

Extreme, fanatical "Christians" are always chosen for article topics and not the reasonable people I know who are out there doing a lot of good for this world.

Of course there are many people who identify themselves as Christians doing many good things. But, to use Christopher Hitchens' challenge, what good works are they doing that aren't being done by non-Christians? The fact that they are Christians is irrelevant to any purely humanitarian work that they may be doing. Undoubtedly, many of them are Aquarians, Jazz lovers, or Swiss; none of that is worth mentioning either!

There are many good reasons that Ii have chosen Christianity over atheism, but my reasoning is immediately dismissed as infantile, morally corrupt, psychologically deficient and worse. It is difficult to carry on an intellectual conversation in the face of such rancour.

Just to underline the point, if anyone thinks you views are infantile, morally corrupt, psychologically deficient, etc, they should be able to say so. Playing the "hurt card" should not excuse you from criticism.

I hope you consider my answer sufficiently civilised!