Is religion necessary in humanity

It is my belief this religion is unnecessary in humanity source: http://voices.yahoo.com... When dealing with religion it is necessary to understand what religion is. Merriam-Webster give four definitions three are applicable to the use of religion in this article: 1 a : the state of a religious b (1) : the service and worship of God or the supernatural (2) : commitment or devotion to religious faith or observance 2 : a personal set or institutionalized system of religious attitudes, beliefs, and practices 4 : a cause, principle, or system of beliefs held to with ardor and faith History of religion The belief in gods has existed sense the dawn of civilization and probably predates civilization. Historically people believed in many gods in fact historically polytheism was the rule rather than the exception. These gods usually ether governed or were personifications of aspects of nature and humanity. But where did the idea of gods come from? Humans have a tenancy to see agency where there is none[1] and people thousands of years ago lacked the knowledge of how the world worked, why the sun moved across the sky, why it rains, etc. These two things came together to produce primitive religion, people explained unexplained phenomena with gods spirits and other supernatural agents. But where did monotheism come from? Ancient polytheistic religions had many gods but they didn't necessarily worship every god in a pantheon, some worshiped a single god but believed in others. This is called henotheism. There is evidence that ancient Israelites were henotheistic. The use of the word "us" and "our" instead of "I" and "my" in Genesis[2] indicate that the ancient Israelites were polytheistic. The first commandment indicates that the ancient Israelites believed in other gods but worshiped Yahweh above all other gods[3] and there are indications that the ancient Israelites believed Yahweh was the greatest of the gods[4]. It is not clear at what point but at some point the Israelites changed from a henotheism to monotheism[5]. While Judaism is the oldest monotheistic religion in existence today it was by no means the first. Atenism is a religion started by Pharaoh Akhenaten in the 1350's BCE. The only god of it was the Aten, a sun god. The religion was the state religion of Egypt during the reign Akhenaten. After the death of Akhenaten the succeeding Pharaoh Tutankhamun restored Egypts state religion. Later Pharaohs disassembled Akhenaten's temples and erased Akhenaten, Tutankhamun and Ay (the Pharaoh who succeeded Tutankhamun) from the official list of Pharaohs and attempted to erase them from Egyptian written history. History of religion The belief in gods has existed sense the dawn of civilization and probably predates civilization. Historically people believed in many gods in fact historically polytheism was the rule rather than the exception. These gods usually ether governed or were personifications of aspects of nature and humanity. But where did the idea of gods come from? Humans have a tenancy to see agency where there is none[1] and people thousands of years ago lacked the knowledge of how the world worked, why the sun moved across the sky, why it rains, etc. These two things came together to produce primitive religion, people explained unexplained phenomena with gods spirits and other supernatural agents. But where did monotheism come from? Ancient polytheistic religions had many gods but they didn't necessarily worship every god in a pantheon, some worshiped a single god but believed in others. This is called henotheism. There is evidence that ancient Israelites were henotheistic. The use of the word "us" and "our" instead of "I" and "my" in Genesis[2] indicate that the ancient Israelites were polytheistic. The first commandment indicates that the ancient Israelites believed in other gods but worshiped Yahweh above all other gods[3] and there are indications that the ancient Israelites believed Yahweh was the greatest of the gods[4]. It is not clear at what point but at some point the Israelites changed from a henotheism to monotheism[5]. While Judaism is the oldest monotheistic religion in existence today it was by no means the first. Atenism is a religion started by Pharaoh Akhenaten in the 1350's BCE. The only god of it was the Aten, a sun god. The religion was the state religion of Egypt during the reign Akhenaten. After the death of Akhenaten the succeeding Pharaoh Tutankhamun restored Egypts state religion. Later Pharaohs disassembled Akhenaten's temples and erased Akhenaten, Tutankhamun and Ay (the Pharaoh who succeeded Tutankhamun) from the official list of Pharaohs and attempted to erase them from Egyptian written history.[6][7] Effects religion and theism have on the modern world Before I go on I want to say that I know most religious people in the developed world and non-religious people who believe in a god or gods are not bad people nor would they try to block or censer information or scientific findings that contradict their beliefs. But they are not the problem. The main problem with religion particularly theistic religion is that they are authoritarian in nature and it is that authoritarian nature that makes it dangerous. Whether the authority is Yahweh, Allah, some other god, the king of the gods, priests, preachers, rabbis, mullahs, or a book, the authority is the authority and the authority is right regardless of what others or you say and think. The authority is not to be questioned. This is exemplified in Islamic terrorism; those who fight and kill the infidels are "martyrs" and will go to heaven. They are on the side of Allah and Allah supports their action. This in their minds justifies actions like attacking civilian targets including woman and children. They believe they are justified in the eyes of Allah so they can do such things and get reworded for them in the afterlife no matter how illogical, irrational or how ineffective the tactics are. The creationism movement in the U.S. also exemplifies it; the bible is true and inerrant, science contradicts genesis thus science is wrong no matter what the evidence says. This is exacerbated by the idea that their version of Christianity is the right one and those that do not follow the Christian religion are doomed to suffer in hell forever. So they end up trying to push their religion into schools and when that fails they try to push a pseudoscience into schools in order to try and replace scientific theories with theistic explanations.[8] But the best example are those who attempt to justify Yahweh or Allah cruelty in the bible or Qur'an and the Christian or Muslim concept of hell (the eternal suffering one, not the modern concept of a separation from Yahweh/Allah/god) by arguing that Gods actions are always good because he is God. That no matter how cruel and evil an action obviously is, it is good because God is the creator of the universe. Its not hard to imagine how such authoritarian mindsets can have profound effects on the world. Imagine some one with a mental illness having such a mindset, some one in a position of power with such a mindset or someone with access to the nuclear button who has such a mindset. Religion promotes beliefs in unsubstantiated claims; the existence of god(s), demons, magic, spirits, the afterlife, etc. These beliefs in unsubstantiated claims do effect how people view them selves and the world. While in the developed world most people have left ideas of demons and magic behind and their beliefs in spirits are limited to souls and mostly harmless ghosts but in the in parts of the world that are more superstitious these beliefs still exist. In many parts of the world people are still killed for being witches[9][10][11][12][13]. But aren't these witch hunts caused by superstition and ignorance not religion? Of course superstition and ignorance plays a large part but religion plays a part too.