I think religion does more harm than good.
My reasoning behind this is just that I think that the people who are good people will generally do good with or without religion. The people who are bad will generally do bad things regardless BUT with religion will do it with zealous religious conviction and often pull people who are morally ambiguous along for the ride.
I live in a country that is probably 40% of people at least nominally Christian and 40% non religious and 20% some other religion (pulling figures out of nowhere but it feels about right).
It is not a "religious" country in any definition.
I am not invested in any religion. I think the belief in God or whatever is fine.
I had a bad week. My friends rallied behind me.
I had my Atheist friends have me over for Sunday roast.
I had my Buddhist mate take me out to the pub for a couple of drinks
I had my little Muslim mate ring me up and check up on me then smsed me big hugs to cheer me up.
My Christian friends went in to bat for me over an issue, without me asking.
The thing that ties these beautiful people together is not the fact that they are religious, it is that they are good people and my life is better for having them in it. This is one reason I have never understood bigotry. With bigotry you close your mind off to friendship like this.
I agree. I mean, we see it all the time. People say they'll be good to get into heaven, but they don't behave at all. If people went to hell for anything the bible says, I think they'd all be in hell. I don't know anybody, Christian or not, go a life time without hurting anyone's feelings in some way or another.
I also haven't seen anything to show that Christians are less prone to this behaviour than atheists. In fact, in America, the states who are known for being very religious, or the Bible Belt, if you will, have the highest murder rate in the whole country.
I'm not saying Christians are worse than atheists, but there's nothing to say that they're any better. It's nice what the bible tries to achieve, but it failed in my opinion.