text: what is the big deal about religion anyway ? shouldn't we all be working on making the world like heaven now. i think religion is like a two edged sword,where it gives you comfort in times of hard  ship and loss.it can cause mistrust and resentment towards others , really for no reson at all . we all , all of humanity, all of us , have to  "grow up " this is the 21st century ,  forget about these things that hold us back and move forward like the tide and togeather drown out hunger and poverty , i think we should start a new and start now ! hurrah!  sense!  i am happy that people believe in god if it helps them, but it seems to me that it is out of a need to make sense of the universe when the fact is that you can't - it is, it wasn't created by anything or anyone.  when you die, you won't go to heaven or hell so put your energy into living and not dying.  what is the point of trying to make your children christian (or any religion) so that they can go to heaven when their world is being destroyed and polluted?  when you die, you die.  your atoms disperse and eventually you become the air, the grass, the trees, birds, people, animals.  you become viruses and plagues and sunsets and rainstorms.  you don't go to heaven.  heaven could be here on earth but because people are so busy squabbling over which god they believe in (when it is perfectly plain to the non-religious, and to many switched on religious people, that it's all the same god, anyway - so why kill for it?) no-one is making an effort for the society of today.  why does it matter that you say god, someone else says yahweh and yet another person says allah?  why does this make people hate other people and think that they are justified in killing them (and i am specifically not referring only to muslims because i think christianity has enough to be ashamed of without tarring a lot of innocents with the brush of some extremists).    when i think of all the horrors that have been comitted in the name of religion (crusades, witch burning, kkk, heretic burning, spanish inquisition, wars, murder, subjugation of races and women, human sacrifice, the list goes on and on) i can't think why anyone would think that it should apply to today's world.  i think we should take the best from all religions (such as loving your neighbour, tolerance, respect for others) and ignore the bad (incitements of violence and hatred - and it's there in every religious book, be it bible, torah or koran) and work forwards in that way.  i'm not having children of my own but i want there to be a world for my neices and their children to live in, and i don't think clinging to religion is going to create it.  looking at the answers above has brought up something that i find deeply upsetting - the idea that this world is sinful and that life is something to be endured rather than celebrated - how can this kind of thinking ever create a world worth living in?  when suffering is almost invited?  this world is not sinful, it is your life and it's the only one you are going to get - live it, love it and don't for god's sake waste it by devaluing it in the hope that when you die there might be something else?  i get a lot of people telling me, well, you'll regret not believing in god if you die and discover that we were right - i say this - what if you die and discover you were wrong?  you will have wasted your whole life!  don't!