Defending the Faith

I DON'T OFTEN, if ever make positive remarks about religion, either in person or on Faceboo. Why should I? I truely do not like religion bery much, and one of my world view beliefs is that the time is rapidly approaching when it would be beneficial for humanity to evolve religion out of existence. At the same time, I want to be, and try to be honest, and "balanced" in so far as that is possible. It was on Facebook, which I don't take very seriously and don't get too involved in, that a few people made negative comments about religion. I'm not sure what motivated me, my tendency towards "contrarianism", or whatever, but I felt impelled to type the following and post it: "Maybe religions are invented by people to help meet their emotional needs of security, comfort, and inspiration." I liked this comment, then, and now. I think it is quite true. Also, its kind of hard to refute, becaue it has an analytical, fair sound to it, as if this assessment of religion's origins is intended to be neither positive nor negative, but merely, illuminating. The first and I think th eony response my comement got was some guy wo said, roughly: "Yeah, but religion has been taken over and used for political reasons". Not the exact words, but close. This too is true, of course, but I didn't know whether the speaker was implying that coopting religion by powerful forces within society for the purpsoe of gaining power, influence, and control was, like...the latest thing? So I reaponded to him: "Precisely, sir, as always", meaning, of course, that of course religion is misused and abused by the powerful, but that, shoot, its always been that way, and likely always will be. And indeed, that's one of my many objections to it, the fact that religion, by which I mean organized religion, is inherently such a perfect tool for various forms of oppression, including political, as well as intellectual and spiritual. then, of course, there the problems associated with religion's always archaic, primitive world view, ideology, doctrine, and dogma, and its inherent resistance to self improvement.