The sin of faith

Religion is often dumb, but people are not, even religious ones. 

I like to make a distinction between belief, which is things you accept on faith and it doesn't even occur to you to doubt and which you got via indoctrination, usually as a child -- and opinion, which is an intellectual view based on evidence and mindful consideration, which you doubt all the time (the more wild it is).

Religious people generally don't like to doubt -- they want the world and its answers handed to them, ad the religious memes encourage this by making faith a virtue and doubt a source of guilt and fear, when the reality is that doubt should be the virtue and faith should be disregarded entirely.

A side issue here is that faith in general, as is obvious in the news, does a great deal of harm. It is like people don't like Congress, but they like their particular Representative, so bad government goes on and on.

Besides, there are good things religions do, not that these good things wouldn't be done anyway, but I see no harm in cooperating with local religions when they are demonstrably doing good things.

I would define myself as skeptical, which leads to atheism, but there is no need for cynicism.