Exactly. However, certain religions are more 'shoving' than most.

Here are a few examples, but first a little overview. I grew up in a religious household, and very familiar with christianity. My wife grew up in a household that changed religion fairly frequently. I'm no longer religious and neither is my wife. We've brought our children up to respect others, and have similar morals as most christians would like to have, but my kids have very little experience with church and religion.

When one of my kids was 6, she came home from school (1st grade) and started telling us what her teacher had taught her about Jesus, and that if you dont ask for forgiveness then you have to go to hell when you die. My kids go to a public school, and she was taught these extra things by a teacher who had no right to say such things. If you are a christian, you might not think that is so bad, but we don't believe in such things. To us, there is no such thing as heaven and hell, Jesus never existed, and scaring our kids into saying their prayers at night or they are going to be tortured by a demon is plain wrong.

My daughter was taught those things by an assertive teacher, who made a BIG impression on her.

That is one instance. Another.

There is a Jehovahs Witness church in my neighbourhood, and therefore we get frequent visits at our door from them. Two weeks ago, a bunch of them knocked on our door, and my wife politely told them that we dont believe in that, and we are not interested. Later when she got the mail from mailbox, there were several pamphlets in there, basically saying that if you dont believe in the word of god, you are going to hell. When we excplicitly say we are not interested, they thought they would give us a little information about it incase we change our mind? To me, that feels more like bullying.

Another example. I work in the city, but live in the suburbs. I catch the train every day to work.

About a month ago, about 20 teens... from probably 13 to 20 in age, got on the train, were all wearing matching t-shirts, and started handing out pamphlets to people, and trying to strike up conversations with people saying things like "would you consider yourself a good person?", those that didn't ignore them would say "yes", and then they'd go on about how Jesus died for them, and to repent your sins accept the word of god or be forever tortured in the pits of hell.

The oldest guy, about 20 years old, who seemed to be in charge was standing fairly close to me and I asked him why he thought it was ok to go around bullying people into believing his fairy tales, and he said that it wasn't bullying because he had truth on his side, and people needed to hear it whether they wanted to or not, they are only speaking gods voice.

To me it doesn't matter what cause you are promoting, even ones I believe in, I don't feel those tactics are appropriate.

On other days, when I get off the train and walk through the city to my place of work, there are often people standing out preaching to people and trying to hand out pamphlets.

Now, I get it. These people are told to go out and preach the word of god, and I get it, they think they are doing the right thing. They think that everybody actually believes that the word of god is true, they just haven't yet accepted jesus into their hearts, and they are trying to convince people to let go of sin, and to accept jesus. I'm sure they legitimately believe they are trying to trying to save people from hell.

If someone tried to convince you over and over again that the tooth fairy exists, and if you just pray to her every night, your every wish will come true, you would not believe it.

The only difference between you and me on this issue, is that I beleive in ONE less god than you do. When you think about why YOU reject the beliefs of the ten thousand other religions that exist now and in history, then you will understand why I reject yours also.

EDIT: missed a word.