That’s the topic for debate tonight.

I’m going to give a clear, resounding “No”… with plenty of qualifications.

Religion, as a series of unquestioned, unchanging beliefs, has consistently been used to justify and perpetuate evil throughout history. As an institution, it has often reflected the uglier side of the human race.

But when used not as a tool of oppression but rather as a vehicle for exploring the mysteries of life, religion has great value. The problem is when literal-mindedness comes into play.

The “truth” of so many of the world’s religions lies not in how factual they may be, but rather in their statements on the experience of living life itself, as expressed through metaphorical language. This is what makes these stories resonate in the soul—that’s where their truth resides.

Think of it this way: each religion is like a different lens with which to view the transcendent (i.e. what some of us call “God”). We’re all blind men grasping parts of the same elephant, in other words. So what ends up happening? The blind men begin arguing over exactly what it was they were all holding onto. Wars occur over this sort of nonsense, and real people end up dying over dogmatic minutiae.

Does any of that invalidate the reality of the elephant? Religion is the expression of the human psyche at its most profound, which necessarily means both the sublime and the corruptible. Would the world be better of without religion? Only if it would also be better off without humanity as a whole.