I was quoting a statement made by several contributers to this discussion group, and it is one which is strongly reflected in the letters section of several popular science magazines.

My aim is not to elevate religion, but to point out that strong anti religous beleifs (which are a kind of religion) can lead to a negative form of "Creation Science".

A balanced view of Religion would admit the possiblity of good as well as bad. When you can only see one extreme then this begins to distort everything else.
If you look at any Creation Science literature you will soon seen a distorted interpretaion of the Second Law of Thermodynamics which preclueds evolution. These peoples commitment ot creation in six days is such that they think thier interpretation is correct and don't recognize that it precludes life and crystal growth.
The same thing can happen with Anti Religion Scientists.

I notice that you did not provide any positive things for religion to be "no better or worse than", although many US citizens consider nationalism to be a positive thing.
Maybe you or someone you know has been badly hurt by religious people, and I know that there is a lot of bad religion out there. The challeng is to differenctiate between the bad and the (potentially) good. People do bad things then use religion, or politics, or even science to justify it. However there are also people who do good things, and then there are the rest of us in the middle who do some good and some bad.