Unfortunately, the facts suggest otherwise.
First, regarding the "church", I include here not only the Catholic church, but the Protestant churches in general (very influential in the U.S.), and the Muslim theocracies.
Second, it is important to distinguish the crimes made by religion / church, or because of, or on behalf of, crimes simply made by religious (or even members of these churches). In other words, do not blame Christianity for the Holocaust while Hitler was Catholic, not blame the religion or the church itself directly by pedophile Catholic priests - that there is anything in the sacred books or in the "statutes" of the church that leads to committing such crimes. But blame the church in question to give more importance to their reputation than the innocence and lives of innocent children, the law protecting pedophile priests and preventing them to be punished for their crimes, and moving them from parish to parish when their acts are discovered locally. And yes, I blame the Catholic church for having supported on various aspects of the Nazi regime.
Third, I will not include here limited to the past crimes, such as the Inquisition or the Crusades. I note only that the Catholic Church ceased to commit these atrocities has lost only when the absolute power he had, and not to have come to the conclusion that it was wrong and immoral. I think that says a lot.
Fourth, recognize that not all bad - the various churches / religions have done and are effectively acts of charity, no doubt laudable, both small and large scale. Qualify this, however, the fact that it is often more than one way to spread the faith than charity "disinterested" and, anyway, religion is far from being required to commit acts of human kindness.
Anyway, I think the balance is completely negative.
What, in human terms, the problem with religion / church today? These, to get started:
- sexism: from the Muslim theocracies in extreme cases, where women have no access (on pain of death) to any school education, are themselves condemned if violated (often nothing happens to the rapist), are demonized as being " sexual "who" try "men (innocent, poor things) and so are subjected to the horror that is the forced genital mutilation (the idea is that if you lose completely the ability to have sexual pleasure, no longer will "seduce" men ...), and outside of Islam, all have a Western culture that says the conservative role of women is to have children and obey their husbands ... exactly as it says in the Bible, both Old and New Testaments.
- opposition to condom use - including through lies, such as "increase the risk of AIDS" - causing suffering and death of millions in Africa, for example, as in many areas there is no source of information than the missionaries. Whether for religious reasons ("God hates contraceptives and / or sex for pleasure"), or by more mundane matters (to maximize the number of believers), this act of genocide is almost an unpardonable crime.
- opposition (not limited to not do themselves, but where possible taking other rights) to abortion, gay rights (seen as a "moral evil") and euthanasia
- opposition to sex education - paradoxically, the best way to reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies and therefore abortions.
- view of sex (perfectly natural and healthy part of what is to be human) something like "pig" and "immoral."
- opposition - for reasons that are nothing more than superstition - the promising branches of medicine such as stem cell research , cloning of organs, etc. ..
- wars and hatred of religious origin - not everyone in the Middle East (see Ireland, for example)
- protection of pedophile priests, who often are simply moved from one parish to another when their actions become known, showing a total lack of concern for their victims.
- censorship of opposition to religion, even by non-believers just because the idea that religion is above criticism (eg part of a conviction for Christians (!) and even atheists (!) the publication of cartoons Mohammed, when the only sentence should have been the Muslims who practiced violence and intimidation).
- children traumatized by ultra-detailed descriptions of hell.
- attitude anti-intellectualism, anti-education and anti-science (for example, the idea that faith and reason conflict, one should prefer the faith that human reason is unreliable, and so on).
- cancellation of human curiosity, as they say / think that you have all the answers (not that they are simply "was God").
- mentality of "living death", which says that life is suffering, not only is "the real thing," that our time in this world is just a test to determine whether or not the salvation of our "soul", that life begins in earnest after we die, causing people to accept their condition and do not try to improve the world they live.
- violence and terror - especially in Muslim theocracies, in which the "blasphemy" ("a victimless crime," as already described) and apostasy are punishable by death, but also in countries like the U.S., where Christian terrorists blow up abortion clinics, murdering doctors who work in them, and beyond.
- mutilation of the concept of morality to come to mean simply "obey the whims of a being" - as if this being, if it existed, was above morality.
- non-payment of taxes, in the case of some of the richest organizations in the world and the world economy being as it is.
