Religion is a force for good in the world.

My opponent seems to be "straddling the fence" in his viewpoint. He states: "Overall, evidence points to the fact that religion simply is not a force for good. It does good things, but they will never make up for the amount of suffering and misery that it has caused on earth." Well, is religion a force of "good" or not? As I stated earlier: Judeo-Christian religion is like three diamonds buried underneath a mountain of the world's garbage; find those diamonds, then mankind has something worth more than all the world's garbage those three diamonds were buried under. He goes again with another half-half argument: " I am not arguing that the Crusaders weren't also motivated by greed, military conquest, glory, et cetera. I am not arguing that the burning of heretics weren't caused by other irrational thoughts and bizarre phobias as well." Then goes on to rationalizes his own convictions about religion by saying "But you simply cannot argue that most (if not all) of these things were also largely motivation by religion." Here, my opponents finds that "greed" of people was a corrupting factor in the crusades, yet he doesn't condemn the entire idea of economics itself? He finds "irrational thoughts" and "bizarre phobias" of people caused witch hunts, yet he doesn't condemn the entire human race? It's only when he finds hypocritical uses of church worship does he fault the entire idea of religion! Is that to be accepted? Does his arguments justify the closure of the local church, even though they send missionaries to third world countries to be bring clean water and adequate housing to poverty stricken communities? Does his arguments justify the closure of the local church, even though that local church has an open soup kitchen for the homeless every week? Does his arguments justify the closure of the local church, even thought the parents of a disabled child find comfort in weekly church worship? Who's going to tell those parents "your kidding yourselves!, get over it!, toughen up!, religion is no good!" Does his arguments justify the closure of the local church, even though a loving devoted wife can confide in her church's pastor as to her hurt and anguish about discovering her husband has been sexually cheating on her? Does his arguments justify the closure of the local church, even though abandoned grandmothers or grandfathers have nothing but the social activities of their local church for friendship? Do we not find the millions of people's personnel relationship with their church a quantifying force "of good?" Are all those people not counted as being part of this world? My opponent still insist that the rape of little children by Catholic priest was the the fault of the entire religious system. But I say to you, that the rape of little children by Catholic priests is not a devote practice of worship onto Jesus Christ equal with that of "a young women praying at the church alter onto Jesus Christ for the health of her sick mother." How do you say to that young women that religion doesn't count? That her passion for help from the church doesn't count? Again, who's going to tell her "your kidding yourself!, get over it!, toughen up!, religion is no good!" Social conscience is fine, but be careful who you hurt in the practice of condemning religion. Social conscience is fine, but it's not the exclusive thought of human secularism. We all see wrong with this world...but religion is a force to overcome those problem. Lets not "throw away the baby with the bath water!" Religion is not part of the problem...its part of the solution. Yes, the institution of religion is not perfect, hypocritical people will use the church for their own purpose, but the overall theme and efforts of religion is a force "of good in this world."