I can see why you have that position, and it is absolutely valid. What I reacted to is the idea of it being faith vs religion - but if you have faith/believe in a deity or something divine, that would by definition be a religious belief, no? But this doesn’t necessarily mean it’s an organized religion like Christianity. This is what I was getting at with my poorly worded comment.
The underlying issue for this kind of conversation is that when people say “religion”, most people think highly organized religions like Christianity or Islam and such. But what if a person has their own or (for lack of a better term) a “non-traditional” belief system that includes some sort of deity/deities? Is that not religion? Maybe i see the word with a wider definition that is wrong, idk,
Anyway, as other commenter said - religion can be absolutely used as a tool for power, or to have excuses for terrible behavior. Thing is, the people that do would just use another tool if no religion existed.
As for the scientific argument - we don’t know (or at least I don’t) but Greek philosophers and scientists didn’t live or work in non-religious environment. There was religion present and yet they built important foundations for science today. Same with people in Arabic world, afaik. Hell, there were scientists that were Christians as well. It boils down to one thing - if there is organized religion with people at top who use it as a tool for power.
So to summarize - no, I don’t think religion in general is inherently bad. It’s about what people do with it. And the problem starts at a point where you want and need other people to conform to your religious beliefs.