Religion

 Dr. Peck in his well-known book, The Road Less Traveled, has this to say about religion:

 

There is clearly a lot of dirty bath water surrounding the reality of God.  Holy wars.  Inquisitions.  Animal sacrifice.  Human sacrifice.  Superstition.  Stultification.  Dogmatism.  Ignorance.  Hypocrisy.  Self-righteousness.  Rigidity.  Cruelty.  Book-burning.  Witch-burning. Inhibition.  Fear.  Conformity.  Morbid guilt.  Insanity.  The list is almost endless.  But is all this what God has done to humans or what humans have done to God?  It is abundantly evident that belief in God is often destructively dogmatic.  Is the problem, then, that humans tend to believe in God, or is the problem that humans tend to be dogmatic?  Anyone who has known a died-in-the-wool atheist will know that such an individual can be as dogmatic about unbelief as any believer can be about belief.  Is it belief in God we need to get rid of, or is it dogmatism? (M. Scott. Peck, The Road Less Traveled, my emphasis)

I couldn't agree more.