we'd be better off without religion?

just noticed this from about a week ago on ruth gledhill's blog. richard dawkins, professor a.c. grayling, and christopher hitchens were speaking for the motion. against it were professor roger scruton, nigel spivey, and my godmother. the chair was one of my late father's favourite (not so) secret crushes - joan bakewell (her autobiography was the last thing he read before he died).

the debaters won the motion, leading at the beginning of the discussion, and increasing their lead at the end. as ruth points out early on, this was not a debate about the existence of god. as i often remind myself, i believe and feel that religion is something that we humans created to help ourselves deal with questions about the unknown in our world, e.g., our origins, what happens after we die, and what is the best way to live the lives that we have. as i read her, ruth felt that religion is essentially about the search for and expression of love for both the transcendant and each other. as for the star of the debate, and ruth's response:

"'There are very good grounds to believe there is no actual truth in the claims of religion. I rather liken it to a child with a dummy in its mouth. I do not think it a very dignified or respect-worthy posture for an adult to go around sucking a dummy for comfort,' said Dawkins, perpetuating a common but gross misunderstanding of why people need religion. Some of us, I suspect quite a lot, are not religious for comfort. It is because we need to be battered, reduced, to have our monstrous egos squashed so we can control them properly. Speaking entirely for myself here of course."

but what about community? of course each individual has her/his personal perspective. is there, however, no benefit to the individual from being part of a like-minded group? going back to what dave thomas said about football ... relationships, connections, mutual support (which is not the same as sucking a dummy for comfort) ... that certainly makes sense to me. i don't know enough about xianity to discuss the concept of a personal jesus. i do know enough about judaism to state that community is central to our religious identity. our synagogues are never just houses of prayer. they are houses of study, and houses of meeting.

if we no longer feel able to be part of our religious communities of origin, how on earth will we be able to find a way to live in peace with other religious communities?