The only good I've seen from religion is th
at it has keep some drug addicts clean. Switching one crutch for another

Absolutely!
It instructs people:
who to pray to;
what to pray;
where to pray;
when to pray;
why pray;
and most importantly where to send money!

Sometimes there's nice art/music and sometimes religion stops a person from eating a bullet. Sometimes it keeps people from thinking twice about going around spraying people with machinegun fire, but it just about as often convinces people to do just that on a grander scale so that kinda evens itself out.

I use to think so but now I view it as poison to the mind.

Yes there is and let's be fair here. Devoutly religious people have one more coping tool in their coping tool box than we do. I have envied this a couple of times in my 66 years. I also wished I believed in some sort of magic that was gonna come along and ""make it better". It would have made those bad experiences easier to swallow. But, I muddled thru and am no worse off. Time DOES heal all wounds.

NO, it promotes a separation and encourages class wars....

Community. At it's core religion serves as a catalyst for communal synergy.

I like the sense of community that religion can bring about

As a devout Agnostic I probably know more about the Holy Bible than most Christians. I probably know more about all the Holy books than most Christians, but I wouldn't say that about the other groups since experience has taught me that many - if not most - of them actually study their teachings.

While I can not get behind any of these writings as being anything close to "the inherent word of God", or really even anything closely related to a factual account of any kind, that does not mean that there is no good contained within the pages. No one believes that once upon a time there was a epic race for the fate of all human kind between a tortoise and a hare, but I think most would agree that there's a wealth of value to be gained from Aesop's Fables.

Most definitely YES!!!
It keeps stupid people out of scientific field.

In the larger sense, I feel the bad far outweighs the good and by far, I mean if you were at the end of the line of bad things, the line looking back at the "good" is lightyears behind you. I would say a sense of community. If you're a Christian, and you need to move to a new town you're forced to leave your friends behind, but wherever you go all you need to do is join a local church, and you have an entire network of new friends. An atheist or agnostic individual must develop new friendships over time, and that can be difficult.

For society I honestly don't think that religion produces any long term good. Now there are examples of religion being the root of positive change (the Civil Right movement being a prime example) or assistance (charities, volunteering); but overall, religion has produced more societal harm. Also note that those positives are not because of faith (for the most part) but are because of the ready structure that religion has.
For individuals though, yes. I think for many individuals religion does a great deal of good. Religion provides a community, a social support system. Both are important to many people, and are of particular importance in low income areas. On a personal level many people find peace and find joy in their religion; because of a lie or not religion is a part of their mental well being.

In the long term, one of the roles religion has is as a "second system." It has given us secondary means of testing power-structures, curating ideologies, providing individual social support (I. E. Community—as most everyone else has said), environments for cultural growth (e. G. Learning environments for arts, public speaking, group manners), preservation of cultural history (iconography, languages, practices...), rituals (for important life events), political communication (though here it can be especially hazardous!), and semi-benign methods of dealing with difficulties of consciousness (e. G. Religious experiences, need for certainty, resolution of grief). This "second system" comes with many costs—some of which are probably not worth it or reasonably avoidable—but, for me, this helps to explain why religion has been in many cases a long term catalyst for social growth despite it being a serious inhibitor in many smaller-scale instances.

There may be some good with the praying (talking to ones self) because it offers comfort to some by making them feel like they have done something.

There can be for the right people and right reasons. For example, one of my best friends is very christian. I love her and, to me, religion made her who she is today-a good person. She suffered a lot as a child, her mom sounds like a a narc and all around horrible person. She was never praised as a child, suffered child abuse with the mother knowing about it and recently by accident found out she would have had a twin but her mother attempted to abort both of them, but my friend ended up living. She was an angry person growning up and in college found god. Her demeanor, kindness to people, and ability for forgiveness is something I admire in her. She doesn't judge me for my beliefs, though she does like to try and talk to me about god sometimes. She doesn't overly push religion on me and I'm grateful for that because that can be annoying. So I think for some people it can be a good influence for the right reasons. A large percentage of other religious people don't live the religious lifestyle they supposedly adhere to and that can bring the bad out in religion.

Yes, it provides community for some and the sense of belonging despite its false promises and facts.

It is a useful form of entertainment and a good way to meet new people.

I enjoyed the music in church. Some churches/some congregations, are close-knit, caring, sharing families. If you could take the religion out of churches, and just have caring extended families who follow some of the teachings which have to do with humanity ...e.g., don't steal, don't lie, don't kill, don't be greedy, do unto others, feed the poor, help the sick, widows and orphans, love your neighbor, etc..... how much better life on Earth would be for everyone. On the other hand, religion has caused more war and more hatred than any other cause.

Unitarian Universalit

well ya a Iraq army veteran i know stopped being homeless when he found Jesus at least got off the street and some what got his life back together

The KJV Bible gave us allot of colorful language, [bbc.com]. other than spicing up the language of the native speakers a bit, there's not much religion does that you couldn't find elsewhere.

I believe humans are social animals and se evolved in groups or villages. In modern society we have lost our sense of community and I believe that is why religion thrives, because it provides that sense of community and belonging under which we evolved.

In short, be have a need for a sense of belonging and community, ant I believe the only reason why religious groups as as large as they are is because it fulfills that need, because very few people actually live the teachings of their religion, so the teaching sare nto why they go so much as a shared sense of community and shared beliefs, even if they tend not to actually follow those beliefs, they still cna feel like they belong.

It can sustain people when there is (literally) no logical reason to hope.
Keep people from committing suicide, because of a belief in the Grand Sky Rabbit loves them or has a plan for them.
It can stop bad people from doing bad things if they think the great rabbit will punish them.

Well, the principles of charity and kindness to others most religion adopt is quite nice, although it means people are nice and kind because of their fear of judgement instead of because it's the right thingto do; and there are some quite beautiful monuments based on religion across the world.