It's very trendy these days to only point to the negatives of religion but if you view religion as a social technology, you can work backwards from the assumption that every one of those practices initially solved some problem. For example it turns out that giving daily thanks helps us stay positive in the face of arduous times - especially given that our human history was full of disease, war, poverty and famine.
Personally I'm not convinced that the vacuum left behind by going to church (and having a community) has been well replaced yet and instead our collective religious tendencies have been steered towards identity politics and idol worship by social media instead.
I'm not religious in the slightest but my mother is a harmless Christian and when I see how a little bit of faith anchors her and make sense of a world that is completely unrecognisable to the one she was born into (she didn't even have a fridge let alone an iPhone lol) I am always reminded to stay humble and open minded
Personally I'm not convinced that the vacuum left behind by going to church (and having a community) has been well replaced yet and instead our collective religious tendencies have been steered towards identity politics and idol worship by social media instead.
I'm not religious in the slightest but my mother is a harmless Christian and when I see how a little bit of faith anchors her and make sense of a world that is completely unrecognisable to the one she was born into (she didn't even have a fridge let alone an iPhone lol) I am always reminded to stay humble and open minded