Religion and Science

I know I get too worked up about religion.  It's a terrible affliction and a major character flaw.


I'm angry about religion, because religion is wrong.


It's influence is so strong and deep that the very idea that something such as faith could be "bad" seems alien and wrong.  Even to me.  Faith has earned a special significance in our society.  From childhood we're taught to have faith, to be faithful and to always hold onto faith.  Have Faith in people, hope that the hero will come.  It's in stories, it's in movies and it's in songs.
But faith kills people everyday.  Faith that prayer and god will cure your cancer because the holy man told you it would.  
Having faith is the last bastion for the destitute and the helpless, what on earth could be wrong with faith?  Nothing except that faith alone does nothing, if you're lying sick on the side of the road and you only have faith, you'll die.  If you have faith and the sense to ask for help or the will to get help, you'll live (hopefully).


Science has nothing to do with religion but you can't fully exist in concordance with both of them (except for some zany spiritualistic hippy kind of way).


In science if it's not based upon evidence then it's worthless, it doesn't matter who said it and how much faith you have in them.


The evidence says that the universe is 13.75 Billion Years Old and there are hundreds of billions of galaxies with trillions upon trillions of stars.  There might be a creator of the Universe, there's no evidence for it but there's no evidence against it.  I think more atheists should concede this point.
However do you think it's creator (if it exists) gives a f*** about you eating pork?  Or being gay?  Or even if you kill a billion people?


Now you could claim that the evidence is wrong or that God does care about these things because he is all powerful.  But that's not what your holy book says.  The God in your book doesn't know anything about the Universe.  He's petty, he's obsessed with animal sacrifice and the real estate of the eastern Mediterranean.  He cares about which shellfish you eat and when.  He's small.


I personally do care if you kill one person or drop litter or give me the V sign.  I also care very much that people think the Universe is small.  My basis of caring about these things is founded in my biological imperative (or it's legacy) to live in a community and to be accepted by my fellow human beings.


Hence the fact that I'm angry is a terrible burden.