@BicycleRepairMan

I don't understand your arguments. For example, I'm not sure what your point is about "change." Religion changes because society changes. This is no different than technology replacing jobs that used to require manual labor. Do you think the guys who used to work on the assembly line "voluntarily" learned new job skills when automation replaced them? No, of course not. So, why is there something wrong with adapting to current circumstances? Whether the change is voluntary or not doesn't affect the argument of whether religion can be a useful tool in helping us find happiness in our lives, so I fail to see the relevance.

Next, dismissing entire religions because of the actions of a few individuals is just illogical. A few radical Muslims rammed jets into the World Trade Center, so all Muslims are terrorists (and Islam is evil)? A few priests molested children, so all priests are are child molesters (and Catholicism is evil)? A few black people have committed crimes, so all blacks are criminals? You strike me as an intelligent guy (judging from our previous conversations), surely you can see the problems with those arguments.

Finally, you dismiss religious work because they were written by our ancestors. Therefore, they couldn't possibly have anything relevant to say about our current lives right? Well then, how about the U.S. Constitution? There's a document that was written by our ancestors. Should we scrap that too? Couldn't possibly be relevant, right? After all, it hasn't changed in since it was written (though it has, of course, been added to).

The reason why we still cherish the Constitution is because of the wisdom it contains. That wisdom has been reinterpreted many times since the constitution was originally written--reinterpreted based on changes in both technology and society but never changed. In a similar manner, all of the religions have collected wisdom of what it means to be a human being and how to live happily. That wisdom too has been reinterpreted many times based on changing conditions.

I think that if, instead of railing against religion, you actually took the time to study it (study...not practice--I'm not proselytizing here) you would find that all of the major religions have important messages of wisdom to offer us about how to live our lives. Certainly people have mis-used and abused religion to further their own ends. Certainly people who claim to be religious have done terrible things. But in almost all cases you find that these people are not actually following the teachings of their own religion when they do these things--that they have hijacked the messages, distorted them, and used them for their own ends. I don't blame religion for that. I'm sorry to hear that you do, because like I said I think you're missing out.