The world would be better off without religion.

The notion that religion is needed for charities is simply silly. You'd need to prove that without religion, "Over half of theses charities" wouldn't exist or would do poorly. There are plenty of secular charities that don't need religion to work. Do you honestly think that without the bible telling them to, half of the charity organizations that exist today just wouldn't exist?You make a point about religions preaching "all kinds of good things". But you only get "all kinds of good things" if you cherry pick the bible while forgetting the rest of the bible which is filled with discriminatory, contradictory and things that just simply make no sense. When dealing with one's neighbours, it teaches you for example that if he's working on a Sunday then he should be stoned to death! Although I agree with one point; it is the corruption of mankind that allows evil to rise. But I would make the statement that it is through the corruption of mankind that the bible and the majority of religions were produced.http://biblehub.com...The statements that "Islam helped usher in feminism" and "Christianity helped end loads of poverty and slavery" just makes me laugh. The problems with the Islamic state are so prominent and the sexism related with the religion is so visible I'm wondering why you even bothered with the first statement. All you have to do to see the overwhelming sexism present is search "Islamic women" on Google. You'll find women who can't show their hair, their shoulders, even their arms. Up to the point where all that is shown is their eyes so they can actually see where they are going.http://chersonandmolschky.com...As for Christianity, ending poverty? Well apart from the Franciscan order which still didn't do a great deal in the long run, the church has claimed taxes from the poor, while paying no taxes itself. It has built massive cathedrals and churches, parts of which were made of gold, gemstones, granite, marble, silver ect. Which I needn't tell you, cost a very large amount indeed, while people where and still are literally dying of various causes due to poverty. And you also say that Christianity helped end slavery. When in actual fact, a lot of Christians endorsed slavery. For example; in the early days of Christianity in the Roman empire, the majority of religious figures encouraged it. A lot of people in the colonized America even used the religion to justify such acts.http://en.wikipedia.org... <--- Example of an expensive churchhttp://en.wikipedia.org...You make another statement related to poverty and money. I'll come back to my original statement; organized religions were and possibly still are some of the richest and most powerful organizations that have and still exist. From claiming taxes while not paying them, to building massive structures made of exotic materials, it still neglects the poor. Most religions have built massive structures that have almost no purpose if you remove the religion. The Aztecs, The Greeks, The Romans, Islam, Christianity.Finally, I will target your statement about "Atheism". You say that it embodies no intelligence, forward thinking and progressiveness. Am I therefore to believe that religion, most of which was invented several millenia ago when scientists as we see today didn't exist, which preach sexist, fascist, discriminatory, racist and other nonsensical behaviour, which teaches you that the earth was made 6000 years ago when there is solid proof for the contrary, that Noah made a huge wooden boat that isn't even physically capable of existing, and that humans used to ride dinosaurs is intelligent, forward thinking and progressive? Just the fact that a lot of religions were made two millenia or more ago is anything but progressive or forward thinking.