For the overwhelming majority of people practising religion it encourages them to live a good, honest, peaceful life, doing harm to no-one and respecting the beliefs of others.
There are lots of people in the world who find some much solace in their belief in God that it would be utterly inhumane to tell them they are "crazy" or "should be locked up" when they do no-one any harm and are living their lives peacefully
if only religion was a private affair. however religion is organised, powerful and split into groups that cannot coexist with each other and groups that resent those that have no faith.
to take christianity and islam.
both have their holy books. the bible acknowledges mohamed but he is not a prophet.
the koran acknowledges jesus but he is not the son of god.
when you claim to be a christian you deny the prophet mohamed and claim that the koran is a lie.
when you claim to be a muslim you deny that christ is the son of god and claim that the bible is a lie.
athiests manage to insult both religions equally
the two religions are fundamentally incomparable and mutually offensive. this would be a minor triviality if religions were not so powerful. the head of our church is the head of our state, churches are afforded seats in the house of lords, tax breaks, are allowed to segregate their children from children of other faiths in state schools etc etc. worse we downplay the involvement of religion in terrorist atrocities adding the modifier 'so called...' to ISIS. there is nothing 'so callled...' about their faith. they are undeniably a well organised religious powerhouse. thier faith is not tangential, its integral. and guess what, you cant point to passage in the koran that unequivocally states that their violence, intolerance and hatred is un-islamic. you can interpret some passages differently. but there is no clear way of saying 'this behaviour is unnaceptable for a muslim, and here's the passage to prove it...' without someone else pointing to another passage and saying 'yes, but...'
the religious state of mind is morally weak, and it is a problem for all of us now.
it maybe only a minority of musllims who are extremists capable of murder, but there is a larger proportion that reserve the right not to be insulted - the danish embassies in at least four countries were attacked by mobs offended by cartoons for example.
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only a minority of christians are white extremists but until recently the catholic church told people it was a sin to use a condom - and that condoms do not prevent the spread of HIV - and it still views gay sex as a sin. AND it was powerful enough to cover up what amounted to systemic pedophilia and child abuse for, what, decades, centuries?
i dont know the answer but steering the question away from religion isnt the way forward