Good Use for religion?

[abaris]

Religion is used to make stupid people behave? Maybe with the fear of burning in Hell is the main thing that motivates them to not kill or steal, and without it, they'd be say 20percent more likely to do those things? Thoughts?

As with any other things in life there's no blanket statement to be made on religion or religious communities. In my country, if at all religious, it's the mainstream churches we have to deal with. Catholic and protestant. And in our country they're usually on the right side of reason, for the division of religion and state, against any kind of radicalism and one of the biggest forces in helping poor people as well as refugees.

Of course they are socially conservative and have all the baggage christian denominations usually carry. Being against abortion but without making a fuzz over the secular law which legalized it in the mid 70ies, and being anti gay marriage, of course. But again, without making much of a fuzz over it. The protestants, since they are for their largest part mainstream, less than the Catholics.

Just today I read an editorial in one of our rather liberal dailies, penned by two theologians. And although I didn't agree with the religious aspects of what they said I could agree with the article and their motivations.

But especially these days, where we have the very real possibility of extreme rightwingers taking over the country - rightwingers who invoke the christian god at every given opportunity, by the way, the churches make a stance against them. Since they are still heard by the people these rightwingers try to reach with their god claims, a political claim we haven't heard for the better part of 40 years, by the way, it's important for the churches to be vocal. More important than any secular group doing the same.