In Defense of God.

[Astonished]

Maybe very early on (before it took the form of religion as we know it) in our evolution it was useful but it mutated into something not. And your trigger-happy guy being held back only by a fear of hell is irrelevant as an example. If religion hadn't had such a fucking stranglehold over the damn planet for so long we wouldn't have so much trouble with population, resource management, weapon control, relationship conflicts, mental and other health care, among other things, so what you're saying means nothing. Rather than saying 'the symptom being caused by x will one day lead to one person suffering from x to not behave badly, but the billions of others infected by x will go on to cause untold damage for centuries". I give no goddamn quarter, NONE, to any of this nonsense. Maybe the problem is not enough people feel that strongly.

Here again, though, you're treating all religion as ebola when at least some religion is the common cold - and that's just taking the dim view.

Allow me to suggest that religious thinking is not a bug, of the human organism, but a feature.  The trick is to get better religions.  Sure, the whole world has come down with the ebola of virulent judeo-christendom...but that's a blip in religious history steadily on the decline.

If all religion is rooted in irrationality (by nature, it's inescapable), I can't possibly see how you can defend that.