The trend of anti-religious comments below is saddening, even more so because it seems to be the overwhelming group-think on the subject. For a group that has benefited so much from the foundations setup by religion to attack the same is short-sighted, though unfortunately not uncommon in a world where the media increasingly paints religion using only the most extreme brush and leaves most people with a taste in their mouth that religion is something foreign and even repulsive.<p>There are three ways I see religion as providing us with a foundation that is so obvious and common that it may almost go unnoticed.<p>First, much of our legal system has as its foundation a codified way to enforce what started as religious principles. Contract law came essentially to bind by law a person to "be honest," and property law to do the same with "do not steal." Much of our legal system has at its foundation these essential principles.<p>Second, religious groups are often the best at doing the small things that most in this audience would never see: visiting people in prison who feel helpless and without support, feeding the homeless and funding shelters and support groups for the same, and providing free counseling services to those who cannot afford those services on their own. Religious groups are often the first on the scene when a natural disaster strikes. They get boots on the ground and food in people's bellies.<p>Finally, religious groups subsidize education and create schools. It is likely that at some
point you benefited either directly or indirectly from this educational foundation, especially in the US. By doing this, organized religions help
lift millions out of ignorance.<p>Organized religion is not what the media portrays. That is such an important idea, that perhaps an entire essay should be written just on that sentence.<p>Not all (or most) religious people kill people in the name of God, or create secret compounds where they can marry teenage girls and call it "God's work," or use religion to justify hatred/torture/war,etc. These things definitely exist, but the dosing you are fed by the media/popular culture is all wrong. It's like anything else - you only get fed the things that will bring page views, and those stories tend to be about
very strange wings of religions.<p>Most religious people very quietly live ordinary lives and use their religious faith to find deeper meaning through self-sacrifice and service to others. But that wouldn't make a good story, so you don't read much about it.<p>Google is popularizing an alarming trend to treat religious groups like the "crazy uncle" who won't go away when I think they should instead realize that much of their own success (via the foundations mentioned above) is a direct or indirect result of the principles that organized religion has brought them. Google is benefiting from all that has been handed to them while spitting at the giver and potentially shutting off those gifts for future generations. I think that is an unfortunate mistake.