@Doobah47,
I disagree with the premise that religion is inherently flawed and/or negative.
Religion, like philosophy, is a institution that exists only in people's mind. All the ritual and such is still just the implementation of an idea.
It is how
people apply it that can be problematic, but the same is true for everything.
Take drugs for instance: pot, booze, acid, coke, caffine, etc, are neutral entities. They are not inherently good or evil. They are just things.
Some people can use drugs in moderation and have no problem. Other people cannot and become addicts. So would it be logical to blame the drug for the person's addiction? -- Of course not. Did the alcohol jump into the person's mouth and force them to swallow it? No. Did the cocaine run up the person's neck and dive into their nose against their will? No.
The person who chooses to use a drug is responsible for their own usage. They may become addicted to medicate stress, emotional turmoil, or other problems, but the drug itself is not responsible for how the person uses it. It is not alive; it cannot think or act.
The same is true of religion. Religion is just a thing; a mental construct. It is the people that use it who are responsible for their actions; not the religion itself.
If a mentally-unstable person takes a drug and then freaks out, it's not the drug's fault. If a mentally-unstable person takes a harmful stance based on their interpretation of religion, it is not the religion's fault. -- It's the same thing.
A knife is a tool. In the hands of a stable person it remains a tool. In the hands of a psychotic person, it becomes a weapon. If a psychotic person uses a knife to kill someone, do we blame the knife? Of course not. Therefore it is illogical to blame religion, itself, for the actions of those who harm others using it as a justification.
Finally, there are hundreds of millions of people who follow various religions who are mostly
moderates. The media frequently points out the
extremists because that's what sells. The vast majority of religious followers in the world are not extremists. In Christianity, for example, fundamentalists only make up about 2% of all Christians in the world. The same is true of Islam.
Making hasty generalizations about religion is neither rational nor logical.