I think that there are stupid or bad people who hold many different belief systems. Also, some systems are inherently flawed in that they actually promote - intentionally or not - abuses. Religion clearly has the capacity to promote evil action. But it hasn't been ALL bad. And in my view religion at its best is still useful, not just to its leaders, but to its average practictioners.
I think I recall your saying that you had children. Were any born in a hospital? You recall in the ward seeing these little babies all lined up with little sockies on their hands? The reason they have the sockies is because 1) their nails are a little sharp and 2) they have no control of their arms yet and continually stab themselves in the eyes. ("Ow! What the heck! Who's doing that? ow! cut it out, dammit!")
To me religion can be something like that sockie. I think there are people in this world who are born screwed or at least at some serious disadvantage - retarded, blind, deformed - but that most suffering in the west and probably a fair amount elsewhere is self-inflicted. There are people who are essentially like children, who don't understand how to control themselves or how to effect their environment in a way conducive to their own well-being. Religion, for these people, is very like the sockie. It's something that keeps them from harming themselves until they can figure things out.
There is another reason I have respect and even fondness for religion (at least the idea, if not always the practice) - the sense that it is part of our heritage, like it or not.
I think teachers often teach things pedagogically that aren't exactly true - to help acclimatize children so they will more easily grasp the full import of the ideas. An simple example is math teachers teaching about a universal set when it has been known for decades that there is no such thing as a universal set.
