I can't disagree about religion's misuse over the centuries, but we haven't heard your definition of religion - organized religion or not organized?     I subscribe to the latter; a view that does not lend itself to middle-men, clerics and such defining what "God wants," as a marvelously cohesive universe is not only self-organizing, but self-evident from the panentheist perspective.     Religion itself helps adherents with some orderly view of the universe and principles to live by.     Since we are all perceive reality somewhat differently and are more comfortable with a view that fits well within our culture, different religions, sects, subsets, and even cults fill those needs; a reality that also fits very well within the panenthist perspective - without empirical or logical dispute @ http://groups.msn.com/ComparativeReligion/panentheism.msnw

 

Without religions' assurance that there's something greater than we, somehow watching over us, I've no doubt our species would be long extinct, or still hiding in the dark, afraid of those many natural things we didn't otherwise have a foundation to examine or understand.     We've finally separated science from religion, but science can never provide the hope and morality we need to live even as peacefully as we do among ourselves.     Darwin, as a god, is the darkest of all, as conscience cannot be found or shaped in any laboratory or test tube.     Religion binds us all as special in some way, as well as somewhat equal and worthy kindred.     Without God, getting caught is the only crime.     As Francois Voltaire correctly observed: "If there was no God, it would be necessary to invent Him."     I would sincerely appreciate a cogent counter-argument.

I have examined all of the known superstitions of the world and I do not find in our superstitions of Christianity one redeeming feature. They are all founded on fables and mythology. Christianity has made one-half the world fools and the other half hypocrites.
~ Thomas Jefferson

 

Man is certainly stark mad: he cannot make a worm, yet he will make gods by the dozen.
~ Michel de Montaigne

 

All Bibles are man-made.
~ Thomas Edison

I have seldom met an intelligent person whose views were not narrowed and distorted by religion.
~ James Buchanan

 

It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal god and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious, then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it.
~ Albert Einstein

 

All natural institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian, or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit.
~ Thomas Paine

 

more @ http://blog.dreamslaughter.com/2008/10/you-can-take-your-governments-and-your.html

Albert Einstein:   "I do not believe in the God of theology who rewards good and punishes evil.       My God created laws that take care of that.      His universe is not ruled by wishful thinking, but by immutable laws.," and