When I read all the articles and history and excuses and bigotry and beliefs and reactions and behaviour of those that embrace any religion at all, convinces me that with all this superstition and mythology, together with the power seeking that goes with it, adopting an attitude of atheism has been right all along.

The "other religions" argument, thin as it is falls apart simply because most of the world's Christians live in Latin America, Africa and Asia and there's no aggression whatsoever from them.
In Europe the religious wars have been over for 400 years and the kinds of extremism we're seeing in Islam today were largely eradicated by the the Inquisitions 200 years before.
This is what Islamophiles think:
http://i2.wp.com/therightstuff.biz/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/IMG_383789572475590.jpeg
This is the reality:
http://i2.wp.com/therightstuff.biz/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/violent.jpg
Yes Daffy Duck, that's right, 8 deaths caused by anti abortion protestors since Roe Vs Wade in 1973,half the number killed in the recent Paris attacks. For the record the rate of child abuse among clergy is no different to that of the general population and substantially less than the endemic and celebrated pederasty of Mid East and Central Asia.
You trust The Guardian and Newsweek right?
The hypocrisy of child abuse in many Muslim countries
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2010/apr/25/middle-east-child-abuse-pederasty
Priests Commit No More Abuse Than Other Males
http://www.newsweek.com/priests-commit-no-more-abuse-other-males-70625

Snake,
Atheism...sure, Atheism in the West basically boils down to Methodism without Christ and the Holy spirit, if you're a liberal atheist you're more or less a Christian.
And no violence from atheists, well even without going into the bloodbath of the 20th century there's still the ongoing violence of the Naxalites, the PKK, the ANC, Zanu PF, ETA, EZLN, KNLA the Real IRA and so forth.

Craig

>>The 'religion' that is most responsible for wars of aggression has nothing to do with spirituality.

>> It's the stupid belief that having enough is never enough.

> How do you define enough?

Shouldn't that be how do you define it? You're saying that the stupid belief that having enough is never enough is responsible for wars of aggression. I'm not the one saying it, you are.

So ... how do you work out what enough is?

My take on it is that what is responsible for wars of aggression is the belief that it's okay to use aggression against the person or property of others. What is 'enough' could never be defined but arbitrarily, because it goes to people's subjective evaluations. It reminds me of these eco-loons who want to go on eco-save holidays that 'reduce your carbon footprint'. If they want to reduce their carbon footprint, why don't they just not go on holidays in the first place? By what standard is it okay for human beings to consume anything? You're pretending to know so ... what's the answer?

Ashton raises Boko Haram in his article.

“Boko Haram killed more than 5,000 civilians between July 2009 and June 2014, including at least 2,000 in the first half of 2014”
Wikipedia

Let us assume for a moment that all those killed were Christians.

This is a truly horrific toll for which this particular group of Muslims should be held accountable.

Let us compare it to what happened in Bosnia. There Christians systematically murdered nearly 200,000 Muslim civilians including 8,000 men and boys in one notorious camp alone. Systematic rapes were also a feature of this genocide/ethnic cleansing where young Muslim girls were defiled and often killed. In terms of scale there is no contest.

If Ashton wants to hold all people of Muslim faith accountable for the atrocities of Boko Haram then why hasn't he called for the same measure to be directed at Christians for what occurred in Bosnia?

The reason is obvious, the blinkers on his so-called 'idiots' are also firmly on his own head.

A fair point I must admit STEELEREDUX, there was wholesale slaughter perpetrated against the Islamic people in Bosnia-Herzegovina, including unspeakable violations committed against women and young girls. Moreover it simply illustrates, if there's intrinsic evil in men's hearts, then these abominations will always eventuate, irrespective of what religion these people purport to observe ? Because it would appear that evil seems able of supplanting everything else, that might prove good within human kind ?