Religion is evidence of man's ignorance

Although I do consider myself a humanist, I would not call that my religion. A religion is an organization of beliefs and traditions that a group of people take part in to gain spiritual fulfillment. But it changes and varies greatly depending on one's background, culture, and ethics. When people talk about religion, most people think of the monotheistic religions like Christianity. But there are thousands of different belief systems that fit the category of religion. Religion can be atheistic as well. It does not need to have a god, just a system of beliefs and a group of people. In fact, Buddhism can be atheistic. There is nothing that says a Buddhist must believe in a god or creator. It is difficult to discuss religion because it deals with the spiritual aspects of our lives which is not tangible. Religion deals mostly with a completely different aspect of our lives than science. It is similar to the difference between math and art. Math has definite answers. 2+2 always equals 4. Art is way more abstract and has no definite answers. Is this the color blue beautiful? Yes? No? It is completely dependent on the individual. Science can tell you what you are made of. But it cannot tell you who you are. Christianity may be good for one person, while Buddhism fits another. That is why people follow religions. They are trying to understand themselves and not the universe. They talk about two completely different subjects. Religion changes, but so does science. We still do not have a full understanding of the universe with science alone. We do not know many things and it is doubtful that we will ever fully understand everything. We don't really know what happens when we die, we don't know what is outside the boundaries of the universe, we don't even know what is at the bottom of the ocean. Our model of the universe is bound to change. We still haven't resolved the connection between quantum mechanics and general relativity. It basically shows us that we know nothing and are ignorant regardless of whether religion is involved or not. When you talk about people being punished due to religion, I believe it has more to do with the people and their politics than with the religion itself. The true beliefs of Christianity talk about love and helping one another. Had the people been perfect followers of their religion, they would not have gone through with holy wars, witch trials, or any other of the horrible things blamed on religion. It is more about the corrupt hearts of the individuals than the fault of the religion. But this in itself could be a completely separate debate so I will leave it at that. Although mainstream religions do try to have a "constancy" in their beliefs, they have been subject to change throughout history. If we are just talking about the catholic church, look at the council of Trent, Nicea, and the Vatican 2. This is when the church changed some of it's dogmas in order to better fit the people of the time. This does not devalue the religion but rather makes it more credible in that it is willing to change in order to better suit it's people. Science does the same thing. If we look at Copernicus, his model of the universe wasn't perfect. But just because it wasn't perfect didn't mean it should be completely thrown out. I wouldn't call his model ignorant. It helped us get closer to understanding what we know today. Religions do the same thing except instead of the universe, they teach us about ourselves and our spiritual journeys. Although they may have some flaws now, they are evolving and getting worked out. So it is not so much about whether religion or science are right or wrong. Neither are right as of right now. Both will change, and neither will get rid of the other one.