"Militant atheist Sam Harris, according to "The End of Faith" apparently wants to see humanity exterminated, religious and atheist alike, rather than allow religion to continue to exist, which comes over as "nutjob" to me."

This is a lie! Please cite. I have read the book twice and nowhere in it does this lunacy appear. Nothing close. Sam Harris poured succinct insight into American religious discourse with that book. Please actually read it.

Some actual quotes (concepts he espouses) from Sam Harris are found here: http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Sam_Harris

"It is difficult to imagine a set of beliefs more suggestive of mental illness than those that lie at the heart of many of our religious traditions."

"Where we have reasons for what we believe, we have no need of faith; where we have no reasons, we have lost both our connection to the world and to one another."

"We must find our way to a time when faith, without evidence, disgraces anyone who would claim it."

"It is imperative that we begin speaking plainly about the absurdity of most of our religious beliefs."

"We have Christians against Muslims against Jews. They're making incompatible claims on real estate in the Middle East as though God were some kind of omniscient real estate broker parsing out parcels of land to his chosen flock. People are literally dying over ancient literature."

"Mormonism, it seems to me, is--objectively--just a little more idiotic than Christianity is. It has to be: because it is Christianity plus some very stupid ideas."

"I've read the books. God is not a moderate. There's no place in the books where God says, 'You know, when you get to the New World and you develop your three branches of government and you have a civil society, you can just jettison all the barbarism I recommended in the first books.'"

"Only 28 percent of Americans believe in evolution; 68 percent believe in Satan."

"If Jesus does come down out of the clouds like a superhero, Christianity will stand revealed as a science. That will be the science of Christianity."

DIGITIG, YOU HAVE DELIBERATELY LIED TO THE READERS.

You have made no explanation of why agnosticism is a more rational position.

Any intelligent atheist acknowledges that they are technically an agnostic with respect to a sky-god creator, but they are also technically agnostic about fairies, magic teapots, flying spaghetti monsters, etc... This is a confusing and unhelpful use of the word agnostic. Why is agnosticism a more rational position? Saying that you have studied a fair bit of philosophy of religion is insufficient.

I am personally terrified that there are "aliens" out there. If there is a "god" out there, how do we know that we aren't the first screw up? I'm just waiting for the day when the Zerg and Borg arrive to destroy our planet and bring us into their collective.