“If people are good only because they fear punishment, and hope for reward, then we are a sorry lot indeed.” ~Albert Einstein
In 2010, sociologist Phil Zuckerman published Society Without God: What the Least Religious Nations Can Tell Us About Contentment. Zuckerman lined up evidence that the least religious societies also tend to be the most peaceful, prosperous and equitable, with public policies that help people to flourish while decreasing both desperation and economic gluttony.
We can debate whether prosperity and peace lead people to be less religious or vice versa. Indeed evidence supports the view that religion thrives on existential anxiety. But even if this is the case, there’s good reason to suspect that the connection between religion and malfunctioning societies goes both ways.
For simplicity reasons, the term ‘religion’ is used here to refer only to the dominant, especially Western, dogmatic, fear-based organized religions — not the esoteric religious traditions that do have a positive impact on the world. Esoteric traditions are concerned with the mediation of some kind of absolute knowledge via a dialectic of secrecy, concealment, and revelation. Dogmatic, fear-based organized religion is a belief or set of beliefs that is accepted by the members of a group without being questioned or doubted as a result enforced decisions, such as those of aggressive political interests or authorities.
The following points are to support stand;
1. Religion is filling people with fear
Religion is one of the main reasons why people are afraid of living. When I say ‘living’ I don’t mean just surviving. To survive is one thing–even stones do that–but to live is a completely different thing. To live means to be sensitive, to discover your potential and achieve to higher states of being. The problem, however, is that the starting point of religion is FEAR. Religion is based on the idea of SIN: all people are born sinners, impure souls, and if they don’t purify themselves, they will soon be condemned to HELL by God, where they will have to experience eternal suffering.
In order to avoid being thrown into hell, religion demands that people prove to God that they are worthy of heaven. How? By following the dogma of religion.
Naturally, when they are put in such a situation, they find themselves in a continuous state of fear. They are always afraid of whether their actions are right according to religion or not. When you believe that you are being constantly watched by an all-seeing eye of GOD, you have to act in certain ways to please God. The fear of hell is always in your mind, filling you with worry and anxiety, and this does not allow you to live spontaneously.
As a result, religiously indoctrinated people become neurotic and in some cases even psychotic.
2. Religion promotes tribalism
Infidel, heathen, heretic. Religion divides insiders from outsiders. Rather than assuming good intentions, adherents often are taught to treat outsiders with suspicion. “Be ye not unequally yoked with unbelievers,” says the Christian Bible. “They wish that you disbelieve as they disbelieve, and then you would be equal; therefore take not to yourselves friends of them,” says the Koran (Sura 4:91).
At best, teachings like these discourage or even forbid the kinds of friendship and intermarriage that help clans and tribes become part of a larger whole. At worst, outsiders are seen as enemies of God and goodness, potential agents of Satan, lacking in morality and not to be trusted. Believers might huddle together, anticipating martyrdom. When simmering tensions erupt, societies fracture along sectarian fault lines.
3. Religion is turning people against themselves
The demands that religion places on people are unrealistic. Religion, on the one hand, teaches that people are born sinners. Sin is what we are made of, and whatever we humans are doing is bound to be corrupted in one way or another. On the other hand, however, religion is teaching people to behave in the best ways possible — in a few words, to be perfect, just like angels.
But obviously people are not angels, so how can they act in such an unnatural way?
This has many serious consequences. When you fail to do what God has ordered, you start hating yourself. You begin to accept the idea that you are indeed a bad person, corrupted, unworthy. And once you do so, your mind becomes filled with hatred, bitterness and resentment — a true hell on earth.
4. Religion is turning people against each other
Others are just a projection of yourself, a mirror, on whom you can see your own reflection. That’s why once you start hating yourself, you are bound to start hating others too. When you accept the idea that you are a sinner, you start seeing those around you as sinners. As a result, you fear that those you meet want to harm you — they are also evil, ill-willed, enemies of yours.
In addition, you will not tolerate religious ideologies that are different from the one you hold. This is the reason why religious groups fighting against each other. Similarly, religious groups are fighting nonreligious ones.
To identify with a religious ideology and call it the only truth and way, can only lead to tremendously bad or negative effects — prejudice, bigotry, and all kinds of violence (just think of how many wars have been carried out throughout history in the name of God and religion).
5. Religion anchors believers to the Iron Age
Concubines, magical incantations, chosen people, stoning, setting ablaze . . . The Iron Age was a time of rampant superstition, ignorance, inequality, racism, misogyny, and violence. Slavery had God’s sanction. Women and children were literally possessions of men. Warlords practiced scorched earth warfare. Desperate people sacrificed animals, agricultural products, and enemy soldiers as burnt offerings intended to appease dangerous gods.
Sacred texts including the Bible, Torah and Koran all preserve and protect fragments of Iron Age culture, putting a god’s name and endorsement on some of the very worst human impulses. Any believer looking to excuse his own temper, sense of superiority, warmongering, bigotry, or planetary destruction can find validation in writings that claim to be authored by God.
Today, humanity’s moral consciousness is evolving, grounded in an ever deeper and broader understanding of the Golden Rule. But many conservative believers can’t move forward. They are anchored to the Iron Age. This pits them against change in a never-ending battle that consumes public energy and slows creative problem solving.
6. Religion is keeping people in ignorance
To live means to learn, and life is an ongoing lesson. When, however, you have grown up conditioned to believe what is right and wrong according to a religious dogma, and you’ve been taught that to doubt the religion you were born into means to go to hell, naturally you become afraid of seeking knowledge. You stop searching to find truth, and hence to educate yourself and grow as a human being.
Knowledge and wisdom are incompatible with dogmatic religious ideologies. Indeed, religion is confining people’s minds in the darkness of ignorance, and those who are in search of the light of truth are being condemned by religion.
This way, religion keeps people blinded by all sorts of beliefs that are not based on any factual or experiential evidence, which does wonders to stunt their intelligence.
7. Religion makes a virtue out of faith.
Trust and obey for there’s no other way to be happy in Jesus. So sing children in Sunday schools across the globe. The Lord works in mysterious ways, pastors tell believers who have been shaken by horrors like brain cancer or a tsunami. Faith is a virtue.
As science eats away at territory once held by religion, traditional religious beliefs require greater and greater mental defenses against threatening information. To stay strong, religion trains believers to practice self-deception, shut out contradictory evidence, and trust authorities rather than their own capacity to think. This approach seeps into other parts of life. Government, in particular, becomes a fight between competing ideologies rather than a quest to figure out practical, evidence-based solutions that promote wellbeing.
8. Religion diverts generous impulses and good intentions.
Feeling sad about Haiti? Give to our mega-church. Crass financial appeals during times of crisis thankfully are not the norm, but religion does routinely redirect generosity in order to perpetuate religion itself. Generous people are encouraged to give till it hurts to promote the church itself rather than the general welfare. Each year, thousands of missionaries throw themselves into the hard work of saving souls rather than saving lives or saving our planetary life support system. Their work, tax free, gobbles up financial and human capital.
Besides exploiting positive moral energy like kindness or generosity, religion often redirects moral disgust and indignation, attaching these emotions to arbitrary religious rules rather than questions of real harm. Orthodox Jews spend money on wigs for women and double dishwashers. Evangelical parents, forced to choose between righteousness and love, kick queer teens out onto the street. Catholic bishops impose righteous rules on operating rooms.
9. Religion teaches helplessness.
Que sera, sera—what will be will be. Let go and let God. We’ve all heard these phrases, but sometimes we don’t recognize the deep relationship between religiosity and resignation. In the most conservative sects of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, women are seen as more virtuous if they let God manage their family planning. Droughts, poverty and cancer get attributed to the will of God rather than bad decisions or bad systems; believers wait for God to solve problems they could solve themselves.
This attitude harms society at large as well as individuals. When today’s largest religions came into existence, ordinary people had little power to change social structures either through technological innovation or advocacy. Living well and doing good were largely personal matters. When this mentality persists, religion inspires personal piety without social responsibility. Structural problems can be ignored as long as the believer is kind to friends and family and generous to the tribal community of believers.


10. Religions seek power
Think corporate personhood. Religions are man-made institutions, just like for-profit corporations are. And like any corporation, to survive and grow a religion must find a way to build power and wealth and compete for market share. Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, Christianity—any large enduring religious institution is as expert at this as Google or Facebook. And just like for-profit behemoths, they are willing to wield their power and wealth in the service of self-perpetuation, even it harms society at large.
In fact, unbeknown to religious practitioners, harming society may actually be part of religion’s survival strategy. In the words of sociologist Phil Zuckerman and researcher Gregory Paul, “Not a single advanced democracy that enjoys benign, progressive socio-economic conditions retains a high level of popular religiosity.” When people feel prosperous and secure the hold of religion weakens.
CONCLUSION
As you can see, the negative effects of religion on society are enormous. To blindly follow a religious or any other ideology simply means to restrict your perception, suppress your thoughts and emotions, and live in hypocrisy — in other words, to live in pain and misery.
Many people choose to follow a religious dogma, even though they’re suffering from this choice, simply because religion frees them from personal responsibility. To live spontaneously one has to take responsibility for oneself, and this can be quite burdensome.
Life is made up of choices, and to make the right choices isn’t always that easy. So people prefer not to choose for themselves but to have others choose for them. They prefer to walk on paths made by others, instead of creating and walking on their own paths.
But unless we stop having an authority that tell us what to do or what not to, we will never be free to live the way we deep down want to live. And unless we are free, we will never be happy and find peace with ourselves and the world.
“Only sheep need a shepherd.” ~Voltaire
I therefore recommend that, in order to embrace peace and comfortable life for all humans especially in the developing nations like Nigeria (where religious centers are prioritized than industries), religious groups and the interfaith community could usefully get more proactive about peace-making. This will require leaving the safe zone of like-minded religious organizations and engaging more fulsomely with international agencies and the business community. Religious leaders should also become more literate with new technologies, not least social media, finding ways to promote positive values both on- and offline. And successful instances of interfaith cooperation - including through powerful networks like “Religion for Peace” - need to be better marketed. This is because signals and symbols of collective action across religious divides are needed more than ever in our disorderly and fractured world.
REFERENCES
1. Jegede, O. P (2019). Implications of Religious Conflicts on Peace, National Security and Development in Nigeria. Ilorin Journal of Religious Studies, (IJOURELS) Vol.9 No.1, 2019, pp.53-70
2. Sofo A. (nd). The Negative Effects of Religion on Society. https://sofoarchon.com/the-negative-effects-of-religion-on-society/
3. Valerie T. (2014). 6 reasons religion may do more harm than good. https://www.salon.com/2014/11/17/6_reasons_why_religion_does_more_harm_than_good_partner/

Please can anyone help In summarizing it

Separation is the best.