At it's best, religion or faith can give people a sense of being loved, and belonging that makes them very much part of this world, not navel staring, or longing for heaven. At it's worst, religion or faith make a bunch of people huddle together, against the rest of the world, thinking of the reward that will be theirs.
Today, I read my newspaper, and missed being part of a church. Two articles, one of a church arranging lots of practical help for people in and outside their church, who, due to economising, could not get the psychological/psychiatric help they needed without that help. The other some people with faith, who trained dropout youngsters, who had been given up by professional youthworkers, to get the kids a job, the stamina to do the job, and the sense of being part of this society, because of the job they were trained to do. None of these people were thinking about glory in the afterlife. Faith for them meant connecting with people outside their comfortzone.
Faith in itself, is as strong as music, literature, language. It is what is being done with it that gives it meaning.
