Philosophy: Religion as a Tool

The fact that religion is used on others doesn't necessarily make it bad.

In India, cows are sacred. Good idea. If you kill the cows for food when there is a drought, you won't have anything to help you harvest crops.

Telling people that they will be sent to an unbelievably bad place after they die if they decide to kill someone. That's a good form of incentive. No one knows what will happen to you for sure when you die, so there's always that little voice in the back of your head telling you that it may be true...

Using this same method of incentive for going to war, or for racist, sexist, or other "ist" beliefs, however, is wrong. These uses of religion do not help the society, but only hurt others because of a want for power or a fear of something the religious leaders do not understand. It is a misuse of a very strong power and as society becomes more open-minded to differences in people, and disbelieving in stereotypes, it is dividing many people between their own beliefs and those of the church.