O Brave New World...

I think I'm doing that "X" thing to be rude...

Ironically, any X'ian who finds the X rude is ignorant of their own religion's history. The X is not an X, but the Greek letter chi, as in Χριστος (Christos, i.e, Christ). The fact that it resembles, in a strange way, a cross being carried on the shoulder made the symbolism even more appealing to early Christians, so the X became a code word for their persecuted cult.

I'm as militantly materialist as angel80, so I think that believers, in general, are either temporarily duped, incurably stupid, or cynically taking leave of their rational faculties. But, having been raised by a Jewish mother and an anti-religious father who blames the Church for everything that ever went wrong in Greek history, I developed the prejudice early on that Christians in particular were especially duped, stupid or cynical. I recognize that it is a hereditary bigotry and thus probably wrong, but in all my years of trying to overcome it, the evidence hasn't helped much.