This is a paper I wrote for my critical thinking class in college and I thought I would share it here as well for those of you interested.

Religion's Deathgrip On Society

Religion initially had its purpose. It helped organize man into a society and in a way form laws. However, these times when religion gave us a helping hand have passed, as it now does much more harm than good. If religion is harmful to us as a society we should at the very least put restrictions on it. Since religion leads to the death of millions, deludes people into a false future, and corrupts the many governments of our world, it should be considered dangerous and we should put limits on its influence through the use of law.

Some may say that it still serves a purpose, that it gives hope to people who need it, gives drug addicts the strength to quit, and gives some people a need to follow the law who normally wouldn't. While there is some undeniable good that comes of modern day religion I don't feel that it makes up for the violence and corruption that is now rampant. The people who gain a sense of comfort and hope thanks to their religion have every right to that hope. However this brings up the question, is your hope really worth it? In most cases there is absolutely no real evidence supporting a religion so it is extremely probable that this religion that you have dedicated all of your hope to is completely wrong. All of this energy being devoted to something that possibly doesn't exist could be much better used on things to help advance and maintain our society. As for the drug addicts, I myself have an aunt who was a serious drug addict who turned to god for help and I will admit to it helping her. She is certainly better off now, but she has become obsessed and dependant on Christianity. The countless numbers of people who follow the law because they believe god wants them to and/or want to go to heaven when they die should be removed from society and locked away. They are obviously not truly healthy human beings if they depend on an invisible force to tell them not to steal from your neighbors and don't murder children. The benefits of religion don't come without a hefty price.

If people follow something without question, such as religion, then they can be manipulated to do something they normally wouldn't, which can be very dangerous. On May 25th of 2007 Gallup.com reported that one third of adult U.S. citizens that were polled believed the bible to be literally true, word for word. Some basic science ****s will show you that there are many things in the bible that if taken literally are impossible. Yet these people mindlessly follow a book written by unknown people thousands of years ago that may or may not have had contact with a god who may or may not exist. They also showed a correlation between these bible followers and education. The people who followed the bible were usually less educated while people had received a college education were less likely to follow the bible. Of course we all know the common saying "correlation does not mean causation", but looks at some of the religious world leaders today like ex-President Bush or President Ahmadinejad of Iran and draw your own conclusions there.

Many people, including governments, commit acts that we as human beings normally consider to be unacceptable, but since they do it in the name of religion we feel the need to let it pass. Allowing people to get away with things because they claim that a force nobody else can see or hear from told them it was ok is a fallacy in itself and an incredibly dangerous concept that we allow to happen. A recent law that was passed in Afghanistan is a perfect example of this. It is a law stating that men can starve and beat their wives if they refuse sexual intercourse, and are even allowed to rape them without consequence. Their reasoning for this was that in the religion of Islam, wives are always supposed to do what their husbands tell them. This is atrocious and yet we still do nothing to stop it.

The worst of all the side effects of religion is that millions of people have died as a result of religion going too far. Referring to the war in Iraq, ex-President George W. Bush stated to President Jacques Chriac, "This confrontation is willed by god, who wants to use this conflict to erase his people's enemies before a New Age begins". This comes across to me as a logical fallacy known as inappropriate appeal to authority. He was simultaneously justifying his actions and trying to recruit others to join in by referring to god. This quote also brings up the possibility of a world leader simply labeling a fellow leader or nation as enemies of god to gain support in taking them down. Israel and Iran are constantly threatening each other witch nuclear war largely because of their differing religions. Let us also not forget our history lesson on the medieval crusades that last for more than two thousand years and in which many died.

We have enough issues with society as it is, we don't need the burden of religion making things more difficult than they already are. Religion no longer helps us. It causes the death of millions, the brainwashing of billions, and the corruption of world government. We need to put limitations on religion. It should be mandatory that you are not a declared member of any formal religion in order to obtain a leadership position such as president. There should be laws penalizing people who push their religion on others. These two laws would be a good start. These aren't necessarily laws against religion, but simply laws that help enforce the separation of church and state, something our forefathers fought and died for.