God is a harmful concept to human advancement.

Firstly thank you for accepting Religion, in all its forms has limited human understanding and dignity since its inception. As it has always been an aspect of the human psyche it is rather easy to assume one of the two conclusions: 1: God is trying desperately to communicate with us 2: Humans crave the idea of god to fill in gaps in their understanding. I obviously believe the latter. I think that god was invented by people. Thus I believe that the concept of a god is false, and thus, a hindrance in the pursuit of truth. Morality does not need God, and humans do not need God for morality. Indeed the concept of God is rather contagious, or rather, hereditary. It is very easy to assume what religion an Arab would follow, or a south-american for instance. This, I believe is proof that the likelihood of religion being the path to human apex to be rather slim. Now to God him/her-self God as in the bible (as you are a christian, I will entertain your view for the purpose of clarity), is quite obviously violent, capricious, and jealous, and far from loving, as many christians claim. Please illuminate if I'm wrong but does condemning people to eternal punishment for simply thinking differently to a divine tyrant seem just and understanding? Does the endorsement of slavery and genocide? Does asking one of your loyal followers to take his only son for a brisk stroll and then kill him just to say "oh no that's okay, you don't need to do that, I knew you would have done it just because I asked" regardless of the emotional torture he caused? Does watching the days before recorded history where people were dying horrible deaths from their teeth; primitive and undeveloped as they are just to intervene after tens of thousands of years? I would say to you and anybody, that this is an authority that should be defied, as it is akin to "Big Brother" who is always watching you and punishes people for thought-crime, and limits human development and understanding as religion has always done. Science and religion and always at odds also, and not only that, but religion has always limited scientific progression and human advancement. Examples include, religious fanatics fighting the abolition of slavery, women's rights, democracy, freedom of speech, expression and sexuality. Religion has also perverted many excellent moral principles over time, for example, it was once said that to kill a Muslim was "The Key to St Peters door". Not to mention that religion has been used as a medium for political corruption. Today, religion has caused millions of deaths in Africa and South-America due to the prohibition of contraception. Abortion has been dismissed as amoral when many people believe that it is good for society and for the standards of human welfare. Many religions treat women as second-class citizens, and particularly in the Jewish faith where menstrual blood (which was supposedly a part of gods design) was viewed with fear and paranoia. Many christian traditions indeed in north America still mutilate the genitals of infant boys in a way designed to repress sexual stimulation, on the behest of a book that has undergone two thousand years of inter-lingual distortion and change. This is simply a ludicrous approach to life and causes irreversible harm to even infants. Also, religion, even in the more liberal spheres limits philosophical thought in that philosophy (like science) is based on reason and logic, whereas religion is based on faith, and please do not even bother to say that logic is also faith based, this statement is not just pedantic, but blatantly untrue as logic is based on conclusions to fit evidence, whereas faith at every turn finds evidence to fit already decided upon conclusions. I think I illustrated a fair few points here, and I would be adamant that you would need to disprove them in the course of your argument. But please feel free to make you own case as you see fit. still got 831 characters left and I'm not sure what to do with them. I hope you don't have this problem, and also if you wish to alter the structure of the debate, please feel free to make a suggestion, I will be back tommorow