Certainly a focus of the problem is the Middle East, where Islamic extremists consider anyone who holds anotherfaith to be a heretic, often subject to execution.

Christianity is the worlds largest religion, with nearly one-third of the world's people identifying with it.But in many places people think that Christians are agents of Western imperialism. On the other hand, half ofall Christians live in the poorest areas of the world - 400 million in Africa, 511 million in Latin America and about200 million in Asia.

The Times goes on to inform us that “more than half of Iraq’s Christian community, estimated to number 800,000 to 1.4 million before the American-led invasion in 2003, have already left the country.”

The State Department is also to blame for this persecution. Iraq and Afghanistan both have constitutions in whichour own State Department advisers included so-called “repugnancy clauses.” These are statements that nothing can bedone that is repugnant to Islam. And what is repugnant to islam is determined by the most powerful mullahs.

The global day of prayer began in 1996 though the efforts of the World Evangelical Fellowship with the help of a variety of denominations and faith-based groups.

Meanwhile, Islamic regimes are the real source of religious persecution.

The latest World Watch List of Open Doors, for example, reports that eight of the 10 worst—and at least 37 of the top 50—persecuting countries against Christians are run not by "radicals of all the faith traditions," but by Muslims.

"It excludes the right to raise your children in your faith; the right to have religious literature; the right to meet with co-religionists; the right to raise funds; the right to ...evangelize, [and] to have religious education or seminary training."

This is the bit of religion that demands ridicule. Christian fundamentalists are of course silly people... The story of Noah is not just silly but hateful, and impossible.