Something else I wanted to add to this, for all those who demonise religion.
It looks like you are the one who introduced the idea of demonising religion.
Again, acknowledging the existence of something is not defending something. I acknowledge the existence of inequality, and that it happens naturally, that doesn't mean I defend it.
And criticising something is not demonizing it, unless that critique is devoid of evidence and reasoning. I have not seen that in this thread. Note the distinction
@ceecee and I made between religion and spirituality. The second includes all of humanity's attempts to connect with something greater than ourselves: a higher power or deity, to use common parlance. The first adds the overlay of a human-made institution, which is where most of the abuses enter. These institutions can also be a force for good, enabling collective action by like-minded believers to help others. They are thus a double-edged sword and fair game for criticism, just as any human pursuilt.
You seem to miss the part where I mention a possible solution. (understanding ourselves better). Writing long messages just to try and reinforce your point of view doesn't mean you are thinking something through properly. This is more like a confirmation bias.
I wonder whether the people supporting the religion is all bad view are aware of the social science data that shows a decline in western societies, some of which correlates strongly with the decline of religious belief in the west. (break up of the family and increased crime rates for example) Also, whether you study any psychology outside of the MBTI?
One of my criticisms of religion is that it provides people with easy answers to big complicated questions. However, you are proof that if you remove the religion, people will still look for easy answers to complicated problems, and you will still create demons to believe in.
Instead of looking outside to find problems, you can also look inside.
I hope I don't need to tell you that correlation does not imply causality. What you describe as "breakup of the family" is really a growing acknowledgment that families can take many forms, not just the "one mother, one father, two kids" cookie cutter model. What is on the decline is societal attempts to shoehorn people into ill-fitting roles and functions, regardless of the reality of who they are. I call that progress.
Who in this thread is suggesting religion is all bad? How about spirituality? All human institutions and pursuits would benefit from improvement of ourselves through better self-knowledge. Such a statement is almost tautological. The more decentralized the religion, the more I have found it promotes that search for self-knowledge and improvement. This is because it pushes more of the responsibility for interpretation and decision onto the individual believer vs. reserving it to some hierarchical authority structure.
Authoritarians typically peddle easy answers to complicated questions. Consider Hitler, for instance: get rid of the Jews and a few other undesirable groups and all our problems will be solved. You don't need religion to push such an agenda. Your criticism thus applies to some forms of government, some educational practices, even some family and childrearing models. As you say, it is a criticism of human nature rather than something associated with a particular kind of human institution.
Again, I offered a possible solution which was overlooked. Understand and focus on the root problem. Human psychology created religion, so the problem is not religion, because that is only the symptom. Improving the individual is to improve everything else.
Religion is subject to the same human foibles as all of our other pursuits. As I stated before, it is mainly a matter of degree. Owing to its nature it amplifies our flaws so when harm is done, that harm tends to be greater.