Rambling on

I'm in one of those 'I want to write, but don't know what to write about' sort of moods. I think I'll just sit here and type, and meander, and see where I end up.
I've tripped over a couple of things in the past few days which have deepened my already considerable contempt for religion, and fundamentalist Christianity in particular. I've found, on a couple of blogs, the story of the 'Hell House', a theatrical production where American children are literally terrified into 'declaring for Jesus' by graphic depictions of death and damnation. If the only way the churches can recruit their next generation of dupes is by psychological child abuse, then, in my opinion, they should be outlawed altogether. Can you imagine the outcry if an atheist organisation used these kind of tactics? They'd be sued until the pips squeaked. And then today, I read the story of a same-sex couple who were beaten up, outside a church where they were attempting to attend a service, at the instigation of the pastor - who was the father of one of the young men concerned. God loves everyone - or not, as the case may be. God, of course, as a non-existent mythological character, had nothing to do with it - it was purely a case of deeply unpleasant and bigoted people, hiding, or trying to hide, behind their disreputable, hate-filled excuse for a religion.
Why, ultimately, do people see the need for religion in this day and age, in any case? To some extent, I can understand the need in primitive societies, where the causes of natural phenomena were unknown, but now that most of those phenomena have been proven to have perfectly rational, scientific explanations, and the remainder, I'm sure, will follow when appropriate research is carried out, why would people want to infantilise themselves and the universe around them by ignoring that scientific evidence and saying 'God did it'? Even more subjective elements of the world, like ethics, don't need religion to inform them, as far as I can see - what's wrong with just being altruistic, and doing the right thing towards other people for their own sake? We know what we need for our 'pursuit of happiness', so why not act in a way that allows other people to pursue their happiness, too?  To paraphrase Douglas Adams, 'Wouldn't it be great to be nice to people for a change?'. Nice to everyone, not just to those who fit the narrow criteria of whichever 'in-group' consider themselves to be more important than the others. Even if the fundies are right, what is more unpleasantly self-centred and dismissive than saying 'we will be saved, and you will be damned'? Where's the 'Christian charity' in that?
It's all physics, ultimately. Even the most bigoted thought in the most anti-scientific brain is the child of interactions at the atomic and subatomic level. Ironic, or what?

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B