Does religion corrupt morality?

[robvalue]

I've caused way more harm since being an atheist. Before that, I never caused anyone or anything even the slightest inconvenience

I think the problem with religion is the way it often uncritically teaches that certain things are immoral or moral, under the guise of them offending/pleasing God. This is a totally different version of morality to the one we have naturally evolved to develop, which is based mainly on the consequences of our actions to other life forms. As such, it has the potential to brainwash people into having weird ideas about morality they may not have otherwise had.

If you're taught from day one that homosexuality is wrong, chances are you're going to think it is wrong. Had you been left alone and not been taught an opinion one way or the other, you may well have not had a reason to think it is wrong. We see it every day on this forum. When religious morality overlaps with obvious normal morality, they have no problem explaining it. But when they stop lining up, the explanations immediately become really lame.

So yeah, religion has the potential to corrupt morality. Also, when people feel they need to defend the obviously immoral things in their holy books, they have to compromise their morality to come up with explanations. They may well not believe what they are saying, but the more they defend it, the more likely it is to creep in at the edges.