
Historically, it was humanity’s first way of making sense of the world around us, and has played a big role in shaping cultures, nations and institutions for most of history. I like to think of it as a tool of sorts- in the hands of the right people, it can do a lot of good for a lot of people, but in the hands of the wrong people, it can be used to carry out and justify truly awful things. It’s not inherently good or bad, but it has shaped a large part of human experience.
In terms of understanding physical reality and phenomena, we have science for that now. But that doesn’t displace religion as a way to rationalize and organize other parts of the human experience. Some people find that it makes their lives better, and I can respect that, even if that is not the case for me. God just doesn’t make sense given my understanding of the world, but obviously that isn’t true for everyone.