While I’m sure individual faith can be of great comfort to individuals, organized religion as a whole has been a highly destructive force to society.

Relative to what?

Arguments about the the value of organized religion are not theological. Voltaire said that if God did not exist, man would invent Him. Mark Twain said that man is the only animal that prays, or needs to. Religion exists because our genes demand it, not because God demands it, whether or not there is a God who does demand it. Atheism may be a truth not enough humans can handle. Yet every public atheist argues —without evidence, i.e., as an article of faith, and despite significant evidence to the contrary — that the world would be a better place if we were all atheists. How is that not an organized religion?

Religions serves two purposes: comfort and morals. If life is hard, it is comforting for many to believe that a beneficent God has a reason for making it so. How else do we explain people thanking God for sparing their lives when he only(!) wrecks their homes and kills only (!) their neighbors?

Moral epistemology is easy for elites, not so much for the rest of us. “The Bible says it, I believe it, and that settles it” is as far down the infinite pile of turtles as many humans are prepared to go. That those people can commit atrocities in God’s name comes as no surprise. But the claim that people would not commit atrocities but for their faith does not square with the Cultural Revolution. Religiosity is only theological when it is theological; people can imprint on any Parent.