I was not raised in a typical religious family, church was treated as more of a babysitter for my mom to send us off to than a place of spiritual healing and worship, thus I have grown up to find my own level of spirituality which I will try to summarize here.
I believe in doing good as much as possible for yourself and others, not for a carrot-on-a-stick afterlife behind the pearly gates, but because thats what people SHOULD do to make this life better for themselves and everyone else. I think that if it takes a title and/or a specifically-shaped building to make people do good for themselves and others then more power to them. I think the most "holy" part of a church or its members are the members themselves, helping one-another or organizing help for the community. Thats why I am not against the idea of organized religion, because "many hands make light work" when it comes to helping yourself and others.
Where it starts to fall apart for me is the exclusivity of the religions, where people think that their way of worship is better than any other. A perfect example is the many times in the last decade that people burning the Koran has made news.Here is one story that leaps to mind from not long ago http://tinyurl.com/6fkoq98 . Who is to say that a few extremists make any one religion bad? What religion was Ted kaczynski, any of the kids who shot up their school, or any named cereal killer? While most psychopaths fall on either end of the spectrum (atheist or devout) some were undoubtedly ordinary in their beliefs or at least their practices. Why don't we condemn the "mainstream" religions after these terrible events?
For me, I relate it to people choosing their favorite sports team. Most of the time you choose to root for A) the local team or B) the team that your family roots for. You root for them and fall in line with hating their rivals when you should ultimately just be enjoying the game. The real problem arises (in both sports and religion) when people take their beliefs to a violent level, here is a quick google search to peruse for proof. http://tinyurl.com/sports-and-violence Though most headlines are related to European football, the same violence has occurred here on a smaller scale like people beating a rival team's fan after a loss, or rioting in the streets after a win/loss.
Here is another interesting link between violence and religion: http://www.mapsofwar.com/ind/history-of-religion.html
The bottom line, at least for me, is best summed up in this quote from Marcus Aurelius,
“Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones."
~Joe
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