Why hang onto religion at all!

They say religion teaches you to do good, they say religion gives you faith. But I see religion getting people to kill. I see religion leading to riots and killings, rapes and robberies. I see religion slaughtering animals and dirtying our rivers. I see religion wasting resources and money, I see religion making many poorer and some richer. I see religion snatching away a human being’s individuality, her thoughts, beliefs, her actions not mattering but only her religion. I see religion giving people an illusion of a rosy afterlife for which they commit misdeeds in this life. I see religion coercing people to dress a certain way, eat certain things, look a certain way, have a certain name. I’ve literally never seen religion preached out of gratitude or self-control, almost always seen it preached out of fear or habit. I see religion introducing suspicion, I see religion being the easiest tool one can use to spread hate, to gain power. I see religion preventing love from triumphing, I see more religious people being intolerant than tolerant.

Yes I sometimes see religion doing good such as with charity (albeit generally with a vested interest at play) and giving an individual comfort but there are other ways of getting comfort as well. Still, if religion is restricted only to give one comfort while not jeopardizing anything or anyone else, it’s fine.

They say it’s not religion which is at fault but its followers, I say when a shooter fires a gun and kills, we punish the shooter and ban the gun for of what use is a tool that has overwhelming evidence of causing destruction. Moreover it may have caused good at some point, I don’t know. But I care for what I now see and how it impacts me and others around me. Today, why hang on to religion at all!