Is God bad for you?

Are all religions like a cult? If you have a number of subscribers who believe that by following a particular way of life, and performing particular activities regularly they will be taken to some place better, and will be better people, is this madness? Should we have any faith in faith?

My friends and I often debate about the pros and cons of religion. Many of them are staunch atheists branding any religion as madness, laziness or delusion. Some of them think that it should be banned, and that people who are religious should be judged as fools and not taken seriously. They can’t believe that believing could make their lives better, and in fact they believe that it makes people’s lives worse. Believing in God, they believe, is bad for you.

Why is it bad? Because it stops you from taking responsibility for the way you spend your life on the planet because you believe that humans are the highest creatures (the environmentalist media guy). Because it leads women to believe that they should be submissive and are inferior to men (the cartoonist guy). Because it is the cause of lots of wars and suffering (most of the group). Because it’s made up (most of the group). Because there is very little place for homosexuality, and women’s empowerment (most of the group). The general feeling then, is that religion makes you a bad person. They think it serves no purpose and does little for the world in general.

But I think they’re wrong. I’m an atheist and I think they’ve highlighted all of the things that wrong with religion, but I think that there is something good about it, and I suppose that part is hope.

Religion gives a whole lot of people on the planet a reason to get up in the morning. Some of these people have incomprehensively horrible lives, that nobody would swap them for. Many of them don’t even have shoes for you to walk in if you’d like to walk the miles in their shoes. But they get up and they smile at people and throw blessings around like they’re confetti at a wedding. They do things for other people in their community, even when they have little to give themselves.

I think religion is bad for you. I think religion is organised and money-lusty and problematic. But I think to try and be good, and treat someone well, and love people as much as you can, and have forgiveness and that little sparkle in your heart of hope might be the best thing that has happened to most people today.