Religion does more harm than good.

This is no doubt a touchy subject, but I won't beat around the bush with it. Religion simply does much more harm than it does good. Let me first say that I am referring to all religion, but primarily I refer to the three major monotheistic religions of the world, namely christianity, islam, and judaism. It has been demonstrated time and time again that not only do they do barely any good for the world, but in fact they have a severe adverse effect on humanity as a whole. My argument is centered around religion being a direct cause of a certain event or way of thinking (good or bad) as well as deep seeded emotional goods and bads directly caused by religion. 1)Religion causing harm physically Indeed, it would be difficult to disagree that religion has done a lot of physical harm to people over the years. The following are just a few examples of this; September 11 attacks on the USA, beheadings in the middle east, the murder of abortion doctors in the USA, continued suicide bombings in the middle east, the bombing of abortion clinics in the USA, and of course everyone's favorite, the crusades. Now these things might be grouped by some people to be just the work of 'crazy fundamentalists'. However, it is still religion. You have to ask yourself, where would 'extreme' religion be without 'moderate' religion? Surely it wouldn't exist. Ask yourself this, would these atrocities have occurred if these people were not religious? I say no. Why blow yourself up in a school bus if you don't genuinely believe that you are going to be rewarded in an afterlife? Why face the death penalty for killing a doctor in his home if you don't think you are doing "god's" work? I contend that religion is a direct cause of these things. 2)Religion causing harm mentally All religions require some degree of faith. Most religions require adherence to scripture (certainly the three monotheistic religions do). In my mind, the concept of faith is a childish one. People shouldn't believe anything upon insufficient evidence, the concept of 'believing in x because the bible/quaran/torah says so' is not only irresponsibly ignorant, but downright dangerous. Imagine a world where people are educated with this frame of mind, in faith. Are we to teach our children that the right way to think, is to think without questioning? Are we to decide that the rational mind is dead? To prove a point, I need only to refer to a map of the world. Think of some countries and think of the religions attributed to those countries, what comes to mind? Brazil- Christianity (89% of population) Turkey- Islam (99% of population) Israel- Judaism (76.4% of population) (all from CIA world factbook) The very fact that you can achieve over three quarters of a population to be one religion lends the idea that the children in those states don't exactly have a large choice when it comes to what religion (if any) he or she should believe in. Taking the freedom of thought away from children is always wrong, as is the dangerous dogmatic faith which lends itself to physical religion-inspired violence. 3)Possible goods done by religion Probably the most prominent thing to look at for this would be to look at groups such as the salvation army. Group that give food to the homeless, that provide shelter for the needy, and give presents to orphans on christmas. Of course I have no problem with what they are doing, I think it is great of them. But you have to ask, is the sole cause of their generosity their religion? As I've done with the physical harm done by religion, you need to ask the same questions. Would these people be drastically different if they weren't religious? I don't think they would be. I don't think a humanitarian worker would stop working if their religion were to disappear. And if they would stop working then you have to question their legitimacy of their actions. Were they just being nice because they were 'forced'? Keeping in mind that not all members of these organisations are religious you have to ask another question. Is there a correlation between religiosity and morality? The answer to that is no. I thank whoever decides to accept this debate, and I look forward to it. I've never had any experience in debates to excuse me if I miss some things or what have you.