I was taken enough by Catholicism in sixth grade that I wanted to become a priest, but in only a few short years I was dissolutioned. I gave up Catholicism, but never religion, and here's why . . .
Is religion really the problem?
When organized religion does harm, it seldom if ever does it in a vacuum. Much has been written about this, but when Christianity or Buddhism is the face of the anti-abortion movement, or when Islam is the face of the Jihadist movement, one doesn't have to dig very deep to find that there are ordinary, mundane issues at the heart of each heated controversy.
Bin Laden, for instance, has a very well-defined, "secular" agenda - remove American soldiers from Saudi Arabia, "liberate" Jerusalem from Israel, restore the Ottoman era Caliphate, and so on. Think about it - Bin Laden is calling for a war with Israel, a violent provocation of the US, and the overthrow of a NATO government in Turkey which was established a century ago, and all without virtually any money or resources. What Bin Laden knew is that he could ignite a fire using extremist Islam to motivate followers to enact this agenda - an agenda which takes a lot of motivation, which he, in turn, leverages using his own particular perversion of Islam. A pious favorite son will jump through a lot of hoops for an eternity with 72 virgins.
Bin Laden, however isn't tilting at Christian or Hindu religious windmills however. His stated objectives clearly show that he is at odds, instead, with nation states - not members of any clergy. Make no mistake - his goals are quite secular, but the rhetoric is provided by a perverted, emotion-fueled religious veneer. So Bin Laden fundamentally isn't any different from any other bellicose actor in history. He's after power, wealth and land, just like any other common imperialist, but religion provides rationale as well as the adhesive which holds his movement together and moves it forward.
The problem here, however, isn't with unadulterated Islam itself, which to its great credit universally and loudly condemns Bin Ladenist extremist Islam.
Closer to home, we're all well aware that Jesus the Christ is on record as counseling support for the most disenfranchised among us over 1,300 times in the King James bible, and he is on record a uttering innumerable calls for tolerance in the face of differences. On the other hand, he demonstrates no moment when he supports war - he says, instead, to turn our other cheeks - nor does he ever condemn homosexuality. Yet all of us here are well aware that these clear and undeniable New Testament points of view are at perfect odds with modern pseudo-Christians welded to the real-world agendae of greed, wealth and power who have co-opted and twisted Christianity to advance their own base cravings.
In this case, true Christianity holds the real answers, instead of being at the heart of the problem.
Does religion do any good?
Undoubtedly, yes. There's real reasons why religion is an institution which is as old as recorded human history, and why it's still strong today.
In it's purest form, religion represents a chronicalled and orchestrated mechanism for deciding on the proper social ethos, as well as a structure for disseminating this message. And across religions, the foundational ethics are astondingly alike - don't go around killing people, don't steal stuff, tell the truth, and when you cheat, there's real reasons you'll regret it when you get caught. These tenets are universal - from Wiccan, Confucianism, and tribal third-world believe systems, to the age-old mega-religions like Judaism and Hinduism.
Each religion codifies these tenets, formulates it's own parables and sometimes myths to illustrate the importance of them, and has a generation-by-generation teaching component to pass this valuable information along. We don't see this process in action, sometimes, and take it for granted - in fact we may not have be under the direct influence of this tutalage since our pre-teen years - but this process goes on inexorably and in every world culture.
And I, for one, can't imagine a world without it.
I've sometimes heard that the "godless" Communist nations raise generations without religion and they're just fine. But how godless are they, really? Communist beaurocrats don't want to compete with religion, but still recognize it's importance at many levels, such as the morale of the population and the need to pass along a common ethos to reduce crime. The solution? - like Bin Laden and the "Moral Majority", co-opt religion for your own needs. It's not that China doesn't allow Christianity - they insist that you follow their own version of it - thus the Chinese Catholic Church has been around since 1958.
We take the process of this worldwide generational inculcation for granted, partly because it isn't "broken". I submit, however, it would be a common topic of discussion at many levels if it suddenly stopped happening, and all this is a direct result of the age-old culture of religion.
Isn't atheism enough?
It wasn't for me. So when I was 13 years old and searching - when I could have chosen atheism - Buddhism, instead, proved to me to be ultimately compelling.
Buddhism has a lot in common with atheism, especially when it comes to belief systems. It's not big on dogma - gods, hells, virgin births, holy trinities and original sins. It has all that, but in Buddhism, it's more or less like Santa Claus - something you tell your kids, often for purposes of conveying a moral lesson, but kids will always "grow out of" this mythology over time.
Kurisutian-jin (Christian people) will commonly ask me about my belief system when confronted with my Buddhist convictions. Buddhists don't believe in god, do they? Do Buddhists go to heaven after they die? I find that it's a task to explain that Buddhism isn't about a belief system - that what someone does is a matter of one's belief system, and one should be evaluated on one's actions directly. It's what you do, not what you believe that counts.
Sort of . . .
The Bodhisattva Gautama Siddhartha knew that the emotional impact of one's belief system can be a tremendously motivational force for the good, and I see a difference in this from atheism. Budis-jin (Buddhist people) actively dwell in their belief systems daily - exploring, challenging, testing and refining - in a conscientious effort to leverage these "purified" beliefs towards greater goals. Is there such a direct correlary in atheism?
I was compelled as a young child by the millenia-old time-tested traditions in Buddhism. The readings have been identified, the mindful practices proscribed. Atheism hasn't the Four Noble Truths nor the Eightfold Path. It lacked for the the depth of insight into the nature of suffering and death which Buddhism offered. And most of all a dō - a "way" or practice - of sitting in zazen was a world uncovered to me.
Despite many similarities between Buddhism and atheism in terms of one's relationship to their beliefs, I found that Zen offered more. It was the best of both worlds, I figure, and I'm not the only one:
The religion of the future will be a cosmic religion. It should transcend personal God and avoid dogma and theology. Covering both the natural and the spiritual, it should be based on a religious sense arising from the experience of all things natural and spiritual as a meaningful unity. Buddhism answers this description. If there is any religion that could cope with modern scientific needs it would be Buddhism. - Albert Einstein
Om mane padme hum.