When I was a young, rebellious, edgy teenager, I used to hate organized religion, thinking it both stupid and evil.

I'd point to wars and hatreds and unnecessary confinements to the human experience, expression, and deeper understandings of both the physical and spiritual world.

At middle age? I never did become all that religious. But overall, I think its' effect on humanity has been more positive than negative, and that many of the things human beings have replaced it with have been worse. Some of the "holy wars" have been brutal, but the worst wars weren't religious in nature, but secular. Theocracies are awful, but secular authoritarian systems have committed even greater atrocities. Attempts at censorship are by no means exclusive to religion. Attempts at creating a religious Utopian society composed only of members of one sect or another have employed evil ends, but progressive eugenics movements aiming at purity and perfection have primarily been not just secular but often explicitly anti-religious as well, wrongly claiming the mantle of science.

There's a reason that societies and nations which have survived have historically been tied to a religion, and it's because religion serves, or has served, a useful purpose. I say this as somebody who isn't religious at all, who is somewhat secular though vaguely believes in God dependent on how you define God. Religion has done some awful things to humanity, but those things aren't uniquely awful or more so than their secular counterparts on some of the biggest evils. It has done some bad things for individual believers, but it's also done some beautiful things as well, regardless of what one thinks the "truth" is. It's inspired bad and inspired good, the best and the worst of us, love and hatred, but weighing it on the whole I'm glad humanity utilized it.

I desire to live in a world where religion isn't necessary, but I live in this one. And if religion never existed, I expect this world would be worse.