[citricsquid]

Religion is like almost anything, it's serves a valuable purpose for a huge number of people but there are some that abuse it. The world is a messed up place for a large amount of people, if the idea that there's a higher being that they're doing this for and that idea is what they need to keep going where's the problem?

I guess ultimately the world would be better without religion if you only consider the negatives, but if the world is better without religion then it's also better without alcohol, drugs, cars, love, internet, business...

[fingerprinter]

Religion today serves no purpose, really. It did at one point, but it doesn't now. As societal animals we've moved beyond the need for religion. Additionally, religion by and large is a (huge) net negative on society. Couple that with the fact that, for instance, internet, business, love do orders of magnitude more good than the rather minor harm and you can't equate religion to the others (perhaps, alcohol and drugs, but even those have more positive benefits than religion).