NO SKY MONSTERS FOR ME, THANKS
Unlike most people, I was not raised in any religious tradition, and have never held a supernaturalist worldview. As a lifelong agnostic (which is perhaps another word for a polite or cowardly atheist), I've always found the natural world to be sufficient cause for heart-wrenching awe, and culture a sufficiently rich source of nourishment. It would likely be so for many other people, if the arts and sciences weren't given such short shrift in public schools, and if the churches weren't allowed to indoctrinate children. It's little wonder people are not sustained on the thin gruel of a poor educational system and a vapid popular culture, and so turn to the illusory comforts of religiosity. We all hunger for meaning in our lives.
Although I'm firmly on his side of the argument, Dawkins makes me a bit uncomfortable with his imperious belligerence--but I can get behind what Hitchens lays out here (although Hitchens fails to mention in his tract that just as many people have been killed in the name of secularism--Mao, Stalin, et al).