I think that by and large, we "are who we are." I'm not much different from who I was when I was a believer, and most people I have known for a long time would not be able to tell the difference.
Religion can have a more subtle effect on people. For example, most of the JWs I know are smart, friendly, hospitable people. What I would refer to as "good people." Kind, caring, generous, and so on. Yet if commanded to do so, they would shun a fellow JW who had been removed from the organization. Note that being removed can be for something like joining a different Christian denomination. They would be shunned even by their closest friends and family, cut off from any communication or companionship. These would be those same smart, friendly, hospitable, kind, caring and generous people, suddenly turned very cold and distant, and in some cases very very cruel. Because they believe that they are helping a person to reconnect with god. That is, to me, the kind of damage that religion can do. Subtle yet devastating, and it turns otherwise wonderful people into very scary people.
Religion can have a more subtle effect on people. For example, most of the JWs I know are smart, friendly, hospitable people. What I would refer to as "good people." Kind, caring, generous, and so on. Yet if commanded to do so, they would shun a fellow JW who had been removed from the organization. Note that being removed can be for something like joining a different Christian denomination. They would be shunned even by their closest friends and family, cut off from any communication or companionship. These would be those same smart, friendly, hospitable, kind, caring and generous people, suddenly turned very cold and distant, and in some cases very very cruel. Because they believe that they are helping a person to reconnect with god. That is, to me, the kind of damage that religion can do. Subtle yet devastating, and it turns otherwise wonderful people into very scary people.
"Well, evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world's data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts don't go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's in this century, but apples didn't suspend themselves in midair, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from ape- like ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other yet to be discovered."
-Stephen Jay Gould
-Stephen Jay Gould