Comment 30 by Ignorant Amos :

I'm I the only person that see's religion as a vice? It is an addiction with all the baggage any addiction carries.

It gives comfort, but at a greater overall cost.

It is hard to break.

It is bad for the health.

It is a drain on the addicts resources.

An addict of any vice gets comfort from that vice, should that comfort be the buzz of the win of a gambler. The buzz from the high of the drug. Even a chocolate addict gets their comfort at a cost.

We don't say to a heroin addict, "As long as you get comfort for it, blast away". We look at the effect on society as a whole and decide that heroin addicts are detrimental to the overall good and we address the addiction as a major problem.

The UK is going through an issue with alcohol at the moment. No one can tell me that alcohol while being imbibed is not a source of comfort, I'm an expert, but the overall effect on society is detrimental. Society is not concerned with my wee moment of comfort, it must look at the bigger picture.

And so should it be with religion.

Precisely! Religion purports to solve a problem that is largely it's own creation! Yes, fear is a natural instinct. But if religion feeds on this instinct, magnifies the problem many times and then offers comfort through false stories, is it really helping anybody?

'why does all this crap happen ?' . . .

. . . Perhaps it is an illusory question. But if so, I think it is a lot more fundamental to our nature than belief in sky fairies, and we'd probably have to evolve into a species of utterly logical Vulcans to be rid of it.

No. We only have to become more respectful of the fact that our uneducated intuitions can sometimes be misguided. Certainly, nothing is lost if we lose a little of our tendency to ask silly questions!