Religion is Harmful to Modern Society (Late 20th Century to Present)

From my understanding, you are claiming religion is harmful to society because of: 1) It promotes irrational thought. 2) It doesn't teach the theory of evolution. 3) It prevents the use of condoms. 4) It prevents stem-cell research. 5) It holds back science. First, before I answer these in order, let me make a statement. Are all religions the same? No. That's like saying all people are the same. Therefore, since some people murder, people are bad for society. The same goes with religion. Just because some religions, such as Islam, promote violence, does not mean all religions promote violence. Now to answer these one by one, in addition to my above logical statement. 1) You have posted a link about irrational thought. You haven't provided a link that proves that religion causes this, you have only stated this. Moreover, you could say that the Nazi's promoted irrational thought too. The Nazis were Germans. Therefore, are Germans bad for society, and do all Germans promote irrational thought? 2) First of all, as it can be clearly understood, "Charles Darwin was the first to formulate a scientific argument for the theory of evolution by means of natural selection.". Should every theory be taught in school? Resource: http://en.wikipedia.org... Moreover, does not teaching evolution really negatively effect society? If so, then explain why we had the industrial revolution, or all the other technological advances in the past when evolution did not exist? Also, as it has been noted in many studies, people have been becoming less smart so to speak, and we are in a day in age when evolution is a popular belief. Would that mean that evolution can be seen as bad to society? 3) Some religions prevent the use of sex altogether. For example Christianity promotes sex within marriage. If anything, religions such as Christianity are great for society because there will be less unplanned pregnancies such as teen pregnancies. Moreover, one can argue condoms are bad for society, because they break, yet promote a falsehood that sex is always safe. 4) So, where in these religious texts from various religions does it even mention stem-cell research? Also, is there absolutely no atheists who are against stem-cell research? 5) How does religion hold back science? What is science? "Science (from Latin scientia, meaning "knowledge"[1]) is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe". If anything, religion itself uses science. Resource: http://en.wikipedia.org... Lastly, all of your arguments can be logically refuted. You claim religion causes these things to happen, does every religion ever promote this conduct, or does it vary? The same can be applied to almost anything. I'll list examples: Guns are harmful for society because all they do is murder people. Pencils are bad for society because people stab each other with them. Electricity kills people because sometimes nuclear power plants explode. Water is bad for society because sometimes water drowns people. Basically, water is good, we drink it. Do people sometimes die from drowning? Of course. Religion is good, some teach to treat people as themselves and to try to humble themselves, do some religions do the opposite? Of course they do. It's because not all religions are the same.