A (short) introduction and (rather long) rant

Some recent posts and comments related to these posts on Facebook got my mind turning and I finally decided it was high time to start blogging once again. My rants and raves on Facebook have ostracized countless folks and while I do not bemoan their loss I have come to the conclusion that perhaps my opinion is best digested more by choice and less by showing up in ones feed.
My very first foray back into the blogosphere after a quite extended absence centers around religion and my complete and utter disdain for it. 
First, a confession. I'm not, technically, an atheist. To be more precise I'm an anti-theist. Atheism simply reflects ones lack of belief in a god or goddess. An atheist can say "I've seen no reliable evidence to support that there is a god of any sort but wouldn't it be lovely?". I cannot, after careful consideration, do even this. In my eyes the negatives of religion far outweigh any perceived benefit to the point I view religion not with disinterest but with active disdain. With that being said...
I know that I come across as quite militant in my views and I suppose I am. I don't feel the need to defend why I am how I am, any more than I expect anyone else to defend their views and actions to me, but I'd like to mention a few things. Growing up in the "Bible Belt" and having doubts about religion (which in my family was a part of daily life) from a young age and subsequently struggling for many years with my non-belief had a profound impact on me (Little know fact about me to most: Before accepting reason as the only religion I needed I have been, in turn, Church of Christ, vaguely Catholic, and even for a brief time, vaguely Pentecostal).  As I grew and learned more and more, as the possibility of the existence of an omnipotent being became too remote a possibility to even consider, and as I discovered Richard Dawkins, then later Christopher Hitchens (whose writings I dearly miss) I began to view religion not as something to be taken or left but something to consciously avoid. With that realization also came the one a great many homosexuals must feel. What if I'm found out? What would my family think? What would my employer think? Then furthermore, would they view me as less moral, less trustworthy, because I don't have an organized belief structure? I am not about to compare any perceived discrimination I might have suffered as on par with what the gay and lesbian community has been through and continues to suffer, I'm just saying I have an unwanted though tiny glimpse into what it must be like.
This isn't a tale of woe, I've been very lucky in my life. I have two wonderful kids, an amazing mother, and great friends. What this IS about is trying to let my friends and acquaintances who do not share my view, understand where I'm coming from. I've tried to live my life with the "live and let live" mentality on just about everything so long as what someone is doing doesn't harm anyone. I used to apply this to religion, back before I began to see just how religion is continuing to harm folks other than myself.
Imagine the situation was reversed, that you had grown up a believer in a society that ostracized and blatantly discriminated against religion (think back to the stories of the first Christians). Ever since the church firmly established its hold on society that is what we've been subject to. Witches, heretics, atheists, scientists, and the like have been burned, beaten, stoned, hung, and all manner of unpleasantness bestowed upon them for centuries. Sadly in many parts of the world it's still going on. Believers attack other believers as well, for the sin of not believing the same thing. Now imagine after years of this fear the tides have turned enough that you can speak out. You no longer feel as repressed as you once did, but you are still a minority and what you see around you is, in your eyes, wrong. Flawed. Broken. People are delusional. Do you sit home and still quietly practice your belief or do you go out and tell anyone who might listen?
It could be said that my lack of belief should mean I don't care what others believe and this is, to a point, true. I don't care what consenting adults believe any more than I care how consenting adults practice (or in turn abstain from) sex. Leave kids alone though. This turned into a better analogy than I'd first imagined. Religion really is just like sex: anything goes so long as it's consensual - and you have to be of age to understand what your consent entails.
When I attack religion this is where I come from. Years lived in fear of ridicule or discrimination. Years as a child full of doubt, lying in bed wishing a god would give me some small glimmer of belief so that I wouldn't go to hell for my non-belief. When I say I believe religious indoctrination to be child abuse I'm not just being overly dramatic or mouthy, I mean it because I've lived it. My mother neither meant nor means any ill will by her indoctrinations both past and present but that doesn't discount the fact that I suffered a great deal I simply didn't have to suffer, both as a child and an adult.
For the record my mother is an outstanding person and the best mom I could have asked for. She just comes from a time and socioeconomic background that invites belief in the supernatural over rational thought. She is the one person on the entire planet with whom I will not discuss religion. She thinks she needs it. I understand this and despite all its ills and knowing I'm enabling, I cannot bring myself to tell the woman who gave me life and who has loved and cared for me throughout my life that she is sadly mistaken. My fathers death still weighs heavily on her, as it does me, and I think she clings so tightly to religion as some sort of consolation. Am I a hypocrite for wishing religion could be wiped from history while refusing to even discuss it with my own mother? Yes and I've resigned myself to that.
Rather than being a less moral person for my non-belief I consider myself more so, because I strive to do the right thing not with the promise of a paradise or the fear of hell, but because it is what I feel is the right thing to do.
I'm not discounting that there are a great many moral, upstanding people of faith. I'd like to think that most people of any faith are, in their hearts, only trying to do the right thing. Just as Christians say to love the sinner but hate the sin, I say love the Christian but hate Christianity (or Islam, or Judaism etc). Take all the good done in the name of religion over the centuries and strip away the dogma. What you are left with is good people doing good deeds for others, usually with no direct benefit for themselves. Now, take all the atrocities committed in the name of religion and strip away the same dogma. Where do the atrocities go? Would humanists have mounted the crusades? How many atheist suicide bombers do your read about?
Yes, we would still have war and conflict. We are still too primitive a species to expect the lack of one reason for war to not be replaced with another but looking back over history I think you would be hard pressed to say there would be just as much conflict if religion had never been born. Religion was our first attempt at science, to explain what we couldn't make sense of. It served its purpose for its time I suppose, but I am honestly confused as to why so many still cling tightly to archaic beliefs written by cave dwellers.
People are not the problem. Religion is the problem and it appeals most to those least equipped to filter through the mess.
To my friends and acquaintances who claim a belief structure I close with this: You are selling yourselves short. You are, each and every one of you, good and moral people. Not because you were made by a god that way, not because you "have" to be that way to attain paradise and in turn avoid eternal damnation, but simply because you're good upstanding folk.
This is my always long winded (and usually meandering) way of saying that even though we disagree, quite strongly, it doesn't mean I don't love you. I might disapprove of your ways and I might feel the need to shelter my family from that which you believe but I know that you can in turn say the same thing.