Faith, Suze, is conviction without evidence -- sometimes in the face of contrary evidence. In some quarters, faith is perceived as a virtue, but not among reasoning people.

Yuyutsu,
What has being religious got to do with believing in a supernatural power ? Having some sort of faith is totally disconnected from being religious. Faith is not controlling, religion is the utmost controller. Why ? because it exploits superstition to its fullest with God being the least considered factor. Why do you think most canniving people are the ones you see walking in/out of churches ? They deceive those around them for personal gain, nothing else.
Look at your average priest. He goes through a cosy existence without having to worry about accommodation, a job, a responsibility to others etc. by pretending they do all of the afore-mentioned. That's hypocritical.

Here we have someone promoting critical thinking and questioning, yet the author’s uncritical acceptance of poor arguments against belief is proof enough that he is not the critical thinker he’d apparently like us all to be. The author mockingly talks about Gullibility and God, but after reading his article one has to be thinking of Naivety and Non Belief.

Our increasing understanding of cause and effect within nature tells us absolutely nothing about why nature exists in the first place. There may be an acceptable natural answer to this issue, but the author doesn’t even consider the question, much less offer a response. Here he just assumes that naturalistic explanations somehow make God or religious belief obsolete.

Comparison between Santa Claus and belief in God, properly understood, is absolutely absurd yet the author implicitly shows appreciation for the analogy. Consider this: it’s very easy to disprove the existence of Santa Claus- simply stay up all night in your lounge room on Christmas Eve and wait for him to appear. But God, if he exists, is not a being within the universe like Santa Claus but rather is the ground of all being, and the transcendent reason why anything at all exists. So firstly, Santa Claus is easily disproven and as such, you cannot even seriously imply they are on the same epistemic footing. And secondly, they are not even things in the same category.

[To be Continued...]

The author says that “History has seen an immense number of harmful actions taken as a result of religious beliefs”, yet he provides no reason for us to think that religion is somehow to blame for actions done by religious believers. The interesting issue here can be seen from the key words “as a result”. There’s a strong school of thought to suggest that human nature is to blame when people act badly in the name of any belief, be it religious, political, etc. But even if we grant his point, he omits to state that much good has been done by religious believers in the name of their beliefs as well. Arguably much more.

In fact if atheists want to play that game they might want to consult modern sociological research. Andrew Leigh, an atheist with a phd from Harvard who did a study in Australia, said the following: “Australia’s religious bodies have on the whole been a force for good” because of their “strengthening social capital in both its ‘bonding’ and ‘bridging’ forms”.

The author hasn’t given us half a decent argument that we’d be better off saying “I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul”. Here’s a suggestion for the author and anyone reading: Thoughtfully consider the claims of religious belief, instead of swallowing poor counter arguments such as those presented here.

Dear Individual,

<<What has being religious...with believing in a supernatural power?>>

Nothing in particular.

<<Having some sort of faith is totally disconnected from being religious>>

Faith is an extremely valuable asset in the practice of religion!

<<religion is the utmost controller>>

Religion is simply the pursuit of coming closer to God. Everything is already God's, so what need is there to control?

<<Why? because it exploits superstition to its fullest with God being the least considered factor.>>

That's a conflict in terms: religion is only about God: any other desire detracts one's attention from God, hence is irreligious.

Speaking of superstitions, the biggest superstition is that the world has any value. Science never detected any "value", "meaning", "importance", "worth" or the like anywhere in the world - neither macroscopic above nor microscopic below, neither a particle nor wave, yet secular preachers and authorities exploit people in the name of this notion, science being the least considered factor.

<<Why do you think most canniving people...walking in/out of churches?>>

I don't know that this is the case, but if so, then perhaps the reason is that those people are not religious.

<<They deceive those around them for personal gain, nothing else.>>

Religious people want God, not less - what else is there to gain?!

<<Look at your average priest...cosy existence...without having to worry about accommodation, a job, a responsibility to others etc>>

You seem to be describing a "public-servant"...

Again, I have no statistics, but if your claim is true, then it means that the average priest is not religious.

If you or the author wish to accuse this or that church of being hypocritical, of not being true to their religion, of seeking power and riches, etc. then go ahead and state so directly, I won't be in your way. Yet the author has instead blamed religion itself, not having even a clue what it means, thus he blames me as well - who has done him no harm.

Dear Suse,

You are not an evil person - you are God.
Whenever I remember this, I come to love you!

so what need is there to control?
Yuyutsu,
You're having a lend of me. Ever thought about money & the need to control the poor superstitious to hand over more money ? What does God do with so much wealth ?
I certainly would like to know what God gets out of all the wealth in the world's churches.
Why does God need religious hierarchy ? Very, very interesting indeed.