This is for the people that seem to think it's their mission to constantly shine a light on the ignorance of religious people. What's your motivation to try to undermine the simple and comforting beliefs of some theist? How hurtful is religion to society in your view? What are you trying to achieve? Why not just leave them be?
Mostly, because you guys try to impose your stupidity on the rest of us.
If you really think Gay marriage is wrong. That's awesome. Don't have one. If you think abortion is wrong, that's awesome. Don't have one of those, either.
It's when you try to impose you silly bronze age superstitions on the rest of us, that's when I have a problem.
It gets worse, though. From a political perspective, if the GOP ran on it's own ideas of screwing the working class to benefit the investor class, they'd never win an election. The working class isn't that stupid. But you wrap that shit up in the Juicy Jesus Bacon, and they swallow that poison pill happily
So, yes, it becomes necessary to point out that your "comforting beliefs" are just churches manipulating your fear of death to gain money and power over you. It's an uphill climb, because honestly, they've been indoctrinating you since childhood.
Is religion harmful to society. Any look at history would tell you it is. When decent people started to demand an end to slavery, the slave owner could point at the Bible and show you Jesus was totally good with slavery. How many wars have been fought over religion? Not just Christianity vs. Islam, but Christianity vs. Christianity fighting over how many sacraments there are or whether or not the stale bread really turns into Jesus.