I'd like to just throw my opinion into the ring, judging from the many people here who give me a contrasting point of view.

I've been unemployed for some time, so I was thinking about religion and this is where I got to.

Does God exist? Who knows. I cannot say there is scientific evidence that says he does. But if he does exist, wouldn't he, as per the various holy books state, have the power to stay hidden from our scientific scopes and probes? A Catch-22 there.

Is religion important? I believe it is important to those who need it. In the past, people were afraid of many things, unexplainable phenomenon. When they saw a solar eclipse the first time, a rather rare occurrence, they may have thought something 'ate' the sun, and lacking the tools to come to the conclusion the moon was in between the sun and the earth, came out with a rather comforting though that a 'God' ate the sun, and with prayer the sun will show itself again (or it was a show of strength, etc etc etc).

As time evolved, so did man, and subsequently, science. We came up with explanations, with evidence, on certain occurrences in our lives. And so did religion. Religions began creating rules, and people followed. Some had reasons that, no matter how vague, seemed to make sense at the time. One example was the prayers of Muslim followers 5 times a day, which I heard was because He wanted his people to rest from the suns of the fields (Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong with this). Others, such as in Christianity states 'Treat your neighbour as you would treat yourself', would help foster closer ties among man, allowing them to assist each other in good and bad times.

Now in the modern world, I see religion, as stated by Friedrich Nietzsche, as God is dead. Not in a literal sense, but due to scientific advances many of His previous miracles and shows of power are not explained by science, or if it cannot be done so, explained as literary liberties by the scientific community....

I.. think I'm rambling here, so I'll cut straight to the point I initially wanted to say.

Do We Need Religion?

Long term, no. I believe if religion is slowly diluted by science for the next few generations or so, then mankind will live a rather okay life.

Short term, yes. If we were to remove religious institutions here and now, alot of misguided souls who had the impression 'All sinners will be judged by God', will realise there is no higher judgement, and break religious laws, just for the heck of it. Or depression will run rampant. Either way, it would be bad.

I agree that religion will be hard to be removed, but if you look, you can actually see it happening right now. Compared to several hundred years ago where governments were made up or strongly influenced by religious leaders (Like how the Church was in control of the reign of English kings, shamans of North American tribes being counsels of their people) or how stating opinions like 'God Does Not Exist' could get you lynched on the streets.

It's happening slowly, but as each scientific discovery will demystify religion, the grip of religion on our minds will slowly be reduced. Of course, this will take a long time.

Imagine in a future thanks to biotechnology, nanomachines, and such, a man is able to walk on water by harnessing surface tension, bring back the dead through usage of nano-robotics to repair broken tissue, and even turn water into wine by using molecular rearrangements? What is then differentiating this man from the feats that Jesus did in the Bible?

Religion would soon be a belief of the minority should that day come. But perhaps religion will evolve as well, becoming very much different from what we see today.....

And as for misguided people using religion as a political/economical/whatever tool, then I doubt that they really understand the meaning of their own religion. This is no longer about religion, but for the fanatical zealots using religion to suit their own purpose, very much like leaders using ideology like communism to further their own goals. Communism by itself, if you examine it closely, is really an utopia-like vision. But it's leaders that distorts it to suit their own needs.

After all, for every Osama bin Laden, we have a Mother Teresa, I believe. It's just that bad news propagates faster than good. Everybody wants to demonize the ******* that killed 50 people in a bomb, but few can name the medical doctors that went to save 50 people in Haiti after the crisis there; those that went just to help people in the name of God.