Something I posted to a messageboard, namely a thread on the subject of what drives Chistians and other fundamentalists to proselytize:

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In order to understand why, I think it's helpful to realize the background of these "born again" zealots. First of all, sure, there are the naive ones that can't think for themselves, and perhaps never bothered to do any research on religions other than the one they were raised in. But the more vocal ones don't fit into this category.

On the contrary, the most vicious fundamentalists are rather "smart", at least in terms of IQ. It's this "intelligence" that enables them to rationalize away any contradictions or arguments they find against their belief system (which they initially came to believe for DUMB reasons), and thus remain a fundamentalist.

So how do they come to adopt their absurd core beliefs to begin with? A good deal of them are past alcoholics, drug users, or other varieties of obsessive-compulsion people, often with no real skills, goals, or direction in life. Fueled by desperation, they finally break down at some point and declare that they want to surrender all self-control (what little of it they have left) and place their responsibilities and rule adherance in the hands of some deity or other external concept. Personally, I'm convinced that this doesn't have to be "God". They could surrender themselves to a grapefruit, the only catch being that they wouldn't have the literature to keep reinforcing the idea. Reinforcement, as I'll mention in a moment, is essential to the born-again.

This "born again" feeling is one of relief. They feel like a weight has been lifted from their chest, an overlooming cloud has moved, etc. It is, in all honesty, a joyous feeling, not unlike the feeling one might get from a successful Conjuration of Compassion, or maybe just a good thorough cry in and of itself. Scientists have already shown what parts of the brain correspond with the occuring of spiritual bliss. However, in the born-again's case, the mental surrendering associated with this positive experience then makes them place all their faith (in every sense of the word) and trust in the religion, and they're now willing to buy whatever else it teaches about politics, science, homosexuality, and any number of other topics irrelevant to that moment of desperation they had. This of course includes the teaching that those who don't share the same beliefs are in great danger, and that furthermore the follower has a responsibility to warn everybody (e.g. the threats of damnation).

But like any highly emotional feeling, the high of the "born again" experience eventually goes away. The born-agains then do whatever they can to hopelessly recapture the feeling they had that night when they mentally surrendered everything.

So many of these proselytizing posts follow a cue card format of "Hi, I used to be sad and do all these bad things, then I joined this religion/cult, and I found something incredible. I was also taught that there will be harsh consequences to anybody who doesn't do the same." Then they include a prayer at the end and ask people to pray along with them. Their hope is that people will have the same born-again experience that he or she had when they said the same prayer. Obviously, to those who manage our own self-control just fine and are not in a state of desperation, the prayer has no effect.

These vermin are human viruses: going from one host to another, with the plans of making more proselytizers like themselves. Some try to debate these folks, but one of the problems is that when you try to kick out somebody's crutch, they just grab on to it tighter.