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

P1 “The Pro Case” “The downfall of this debate is the inability to quantify the "non-existence" of religion. What do I mean by this? Well consider my opponents entire case, he clearly demonstrates the many acts of violence committed in religions' names. “ This is an untrue claim. We can quantify the non-existence of religion. For example ,we can clearly compare act’s of violence in secular communities vs devout religious ones. The evidence is clear. USA for example is one of the most religious first world countries in the world. Compared to less religious nations, the USA a huge rate of gun crime, murder, and imprisonment. Furthermore Con has proved my first point “acts of violence committed inspired by religion” .Surely, we can agree that acts of violence are not beneficial to society. P2 “The World... Sans Religion:” I quote from the SAME source which he derived his own argument. ”gods are not required for complex societies.""In modern societies at least, non-belief is correlated withless corruptionand more trust.” “ Social norms, rather than god beliefs, seem to be of primary importance.” Research done by Gregory showed strong positive correlations between nations' religious belief and levels of murder, teenage pregnancy, drug abuse and other indicators of dysfunction. (Again proving my first point.) So we can conclude that religion does not make for a better society and is not necessary. Con sates “benefit of religion is the current world population.” Another absurd claim. Clearly the current world population would be much higher if religion did not exist. For example, if we take the death toll of just some of the major religious wars such as Thirty Years' War, The French Wars of Religion, Nigerian Civil War, Second Sudanese Civil War, The Crusades and The Lebanese Civil War. If we add just the death toll of these major religious wars it comes out to be 20,750,000 dead. These are just the ones we know about .Since, most of these wars occurred hundreds of years ago the current world population would be much higher if they did not happen. So surely, we see that religion is not beneficial to society and humanity if it reduces our population. “these positive preventative impacts are likely to be more numerous…” This is a absurd claim however while some religions teach peaceful messages we, must take into account how those messages are interpreted for example how they are always changed to fit the need of the time. Look at the most catholic country in Africa …Rwanda. The Rwanda Genocide. Beginning on April 6, 1994 in the African country of Rwanda. As the brutal killings , lasting 100 days, left approximately 800,000 dead. Over 70% ,of the population is devout catholic. Some of the nuns and priests who have been convicted by Belgian courts and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, enjoyed refuge in Catholic churches in Europe while on the run from prosecutors. One priest,Father Athanase Seromba, who led the Nyange Parish massacre was sentenced to 15 years in jail by the tribunal. Seromba lured over 2,000 desperate men, women and children to his church; where they expected safety. However their shepherd turned out to be their murderer. In ancient civilizations, such as the ancient babylonians and egyptians, religion was used as a method of enslaving humans for personal or political gain. By convincing people to do things because their god wants it that way, or their god would punish them and their families for not following "their" commands. P3 The Mind's War Con states… “ a world devoid of religion is a world where stress runs rampant. I'm sure my opponent will agree that many religious folk are drawn to religion because of "eternal salvation" promises. No, infact, quite the opposite is true. Religion creates stress where there is none. Many religions require there followers to go to church, obey holy edicts, or constantly repent for “sin”. Some religions require there followers to pray and worship up to 7 times a day . These requisites cause perpetual stress. Followers, since even childhood, are filled with vivid traumatizing stories of eternal burning and/or torture. They are made to be believe that if they don't adhere to these requisites they are to experience the horror in these aformentioned stories. Surely,we can all agree that religion produces stress and therefore higher levels of cortisol as cons points out would be much more inclined to death. Many religions teach that being gay or lesbian is a sin and you should be put to death for it. What about the countless people who are born gay or lesbian? What about the stresses they go through if there parents or themselves are devoutly religious? Is this making their lives less stressful surely not.P5Genetic Codes "religious wars are fought by societies with genes predisposed to conflict, thereby lowering the frequency of such genes. "Con has ZERO evidence for this claim. His entire point is religious conflict is useful.Surely it's not.