Is Religion Such a Ridiculous Idea?

You may count me as an atheist. Some reasons:

• I don't think all nature leads to any conclusive evidence of it having been created by a sentient/intelligent creator, or being maintained by one. I don't think that for a moral society, we need constructs like God.
• I don't consider religious rituals the only good or even the best way to bring camaraderie or cohesion among people.
• I don't consider spiritual experiences as necessarily religious.

But hello my atheist friend! Wait a moment before considering me one among you. Here's how I am not exactly like you:

• I don't think religion is a stupid construct, let alone being a vile one.
• I don't think science conclusively proves the absence of an intelligent creation.
• I don't consider religious people stupid in any way. I know extremely intelligent (and wise) people who are religious. And I don't count it as their failing.
• I don't reject the good deeds, qualities, thoughts of people just because they place it in a religious context.

Faith, like food habits, are not all cerebral in nature. They are handed down to us from our culture, and by the time we get the intellectual choice to question them, they would have played too critical a role in our making -- both in good ways as otherwise -- for us to have a total freedom to forsake them.
In fact, if one is a true sceptic, he will refrain from judging and ridiculing others, or passing blanket statements about someone's faith. When this restraint is broken, your atheism is no different than those religions you so eloquently ridicule.