It is controversial, indeed, but you have broached the subject in a sensitive way. If we all did that it would be much less challenging. 

I personally left my church at a fairly young age because I was averse to indoctrination and hard core beliefs. But I honor and respect others’ right to practice their faith, regardless of its creed. Religion’s key purpose, IMHO, is about feeling that we are connected to something greater than ourselves. Secondary, I believe, is to find meaning in the hurdles we encounter in life. It varies by individual, of course. Many people honor God first and foremost. 

While I don’t attend church, I am a spiritual person. The two things are not necessarily connected at all. I am agnostic, but due to my upbringing I certainly lean toward a belief in a Higher Power. And I believe in the power of prayer. 

Religion is a very individual choice, I believe. We go wrong by expecting others to see and believe and practice what we do, and by acting intolerant toward those who are different.

(p.s. I poke-typed this into my phone this morning while in a boring seminar and just now had a moment to make a few edits.)

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Even die-hard atheists like myself accept that religion can bring comfort to those that practise it, but so could many other things that could replace it. This 'positive' aspect is not enough to compensate for the preaching of abuse, of hatred and of the damage caused by violent actions throughout history in the name of religion. Neither for the hypocrisy and lies.

Religion and its rigid indoctrinations and psychopathic need to control by fear has for time immemorial pushed back humankind's evolution and continues to do so.

Sadly, it's not going to go away so the argument is, in a way, invalid but if the simpler question of; does religion add 'value', if you will, to humanity? Then the answer will always be a resounding no.

Nice writing again fella. Really enjoying your blogs. Hope life is treating you well and can we have a few more personal updates so we can see how things are progressing for you please :-)

Why is religion necessary, to me, is the same as asking why is truth or belief necessary? What gives purpose, what defines right from wrong, what drives purpose? Questions some answer based on feelings that change and holds no consistency.  What gives you purpose to live out "*your truth*'?

Religion is not exactly necessary for the person in the society but we can consider the system applied to keep human life stable and bounding in some  protocols that can be provided by religion to the society.

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As an Atheist I can say that religion is absolutely necessary.  Religion attempts to explain the unknown, and there will always be unknowns.

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### The two main purposes of faith are to explain the unknown and cope with the fear of oblivion. 

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Say I were to start believing in infinite dimensions and people can never really die because their 'consciousness' travels to another dimension in the event of their death.  As an Atheist I can hold onto this belief and still call myself an Atheist.  

However, once enough people start believing it, it becomes a cult, and if even more people start believing it then it becomes a religion.  Therefore, the thing that makes a religion isn't just the act of having faith.  A large community has to have the same faith.  There are plenty of Atheists out there that have faith about some unprovable topic or another.  Perhaps all of them do. 

It's impossible to know even 0.0000000000000000000001% of what's going on in this universe, because knowledge is finite and the unknown is infinite.  Even so, I'd say the current religions of the times are sorely outdated due to the shifts in cultural and technological changes.