Religion and faith is not beneficial to the well being of society and humanity.

My opening argument is as follows.Religon is mostly overall detrimental to the advancement of society,science ,education the overall well being of others and humanity and religion is is not beneficial and that it has been and currently is he catalyst of countless horrible atrocities in history and in our society and is currently is an impediment upon the advancement of our society ,and government and many more things. let me say what I consider to be rationally detrimental to society and humanity.Religous motivated violence,Quashing of science and impediment of education and the teaching of creationism in public schools , political oppression for religious reasons,the discrimination of same sex couples because religions beliefs and ethics. I find these things are not beneficial being of society and humanity and any of us are entirely inspired and supported by religion. Religious inspired violence. First some devout religious followers have done horrendous acts of violence entirely for their faith and religious reasons. Religion has procured and cultivated Religious extremists such as the Taliban in the Islamic world or even the Christians here in the USA who don't care about separation of church and state ,democracy or respecting other people's right to live differently from them. This is irrelevant to them. because in their mind the only thing that matters to them is making God's will happen. In their mind, God created everything that exists... and therefore, God's will trumps everything so with religion producing and cultivating such illogical ideas and belief's usually starting in young intellectually defenseless children who are taught such things before they have critical thinking & can think for themselves they are forced to believe that the world around them is, quite literally, irrelevant since their religion has imprinted upon them that the next world is what truly matters. suicide bombing, "honor" killing such as the attack on the world trade center was a direct cause of Religion Islamic extremism..USA one is also one of the most religious first world countries in the world with a huge rate of gun crime, murder, imprisonment compared to less religious western nations. political oppression. The unverifiability of religion leads to many forms of political oppression in another way It makes religious leaders and organizations extremely powerful in politics because according to them they have God on their side. Also again their followers usually have religion forced down their throats by their parents as young children as they are told to implicitly believe whatever their religious teachings and leaders tell them . They are taught that their religious leaders have superior virtue, with a connection to God they've been taught that they should trust their religious leaders and if questioned they are filled with vivid, traumatizing stories of eternal burning and torture. A pew survey of 198 countries found that the share of countries with high or very high restrictions on religion rose from 37 percent in mid-2010 to 40 percent by the end of 2011. Same sex marriage for one. In the United States, when same-sex marriage has been up for popular vote, it has been shot down by many followers of religious groups .It has been consistently defeated largely because the full force of several organized religions, especially the Catholic and Mormon churches, have marshaled against it. how can this be helping our society by aiding discrimination and suffering of others?think about the trouble and pain that same sex couples have had to endure just because a holy book says its imoral.Is this helping their well being and to live a better life? I dare say no. Quashing science and education. religion our undercuts science and education Forcing abstinence-only sex education on kids? Teaching creationism in public schools? that cant be productive nor logical. furthermore school boards all across this country are still spending time and money debating whether or not to have the well established theory of evolution taught in the schools. while they could be using these resources to actually teach they're spending debating this incredible unfathomable stupidity and thus denying our children the ability to learn and think rationally this is in no way helping them become productive and intelligent citizens of society . The impediment of scientific advancement from Galileo ( took the church until 1992 to apologize) to current Stem cell research bans coming from a direct cause of religious ethics,morals and organizations that are a massive roadblock to the advancement of science. So when religion teaches that believing in the invisible is more important than understanding the perceivable... that personal faith is more important than critical thinking... that that what God supposedly says about the world is more real what's in the world itself ...such things are the root of much evil.