Brian Flemming has a quote from Daniel Dennett's Salon interview: 
We cannot let any group, however devout, blackmail us into silence by their expressions of hurt feelings whenever they feel that we are getting close to the truth. That is what con artists do when their marks begin to get suspicious, and that is what children do when they can't have their way, and it should be beneath the dignity of any religious group to play that card.
One would think that Dennett, as part of his naturalistic study of religion, would understand that religion doesn't do dignity. It talks about dignity. It says things like birth control, abortion, homosexuality and curing diseases interferes with the dignity of humankind. And with the other hand, when there are actually individual humans, it tells them that condoms don't prevent AIDS. It tells them that Janet Jackson's nipple is a moral issue, and the idea-destroying mental environment that television creates is not.
Religion gives hope to people like Prime Minister Blair - that God will judge him - so he can ignore the fact that the people have judged him, rightly, to be a hopelessly amoral trickster, a man who I wouldn't give the job of milk monitor to. The same mental condition allowed him to send "our boys and girls" (or rather, paid, professional soldiers) in to war on the basis of evidence that wouldn't convince a seven year old.
Religion tells people that their duty to God overrides their duty to themselves and the world around them. Religion provides the reason why sexual and societal "deviants" spend many years in guilt - because "God hates fags" or "God hates those who get ideas above their station". If there's something you don't like, it's always more fun to substite "I hate" with "God hates", because the gullible can say "You're an idiot" quicker than they can say "God's an idiot".
Human dignity is always the first thing which is taken away when religion gets it's way. Which makes it all the sicker that they preach about it so much.
