

Well now, we can't judge death until we are dead right?  So, why should
we judge religion without having experienced it?  People have said that
religion is bad by any account, and that it is in no way useful, etc.,
but I don't totally agree with this.  Of course, we cannot really say
how the religious folk would act had they not been exposed to religion,
but some people at least seemed to be helped in some ways by it.

So basically, we can not judge whether religion is the right route for
a given individual, or even for a general population.  We can say that
it is not best for us personally (at least, you can choose not to use
religion--might be hard to try to find out its benefits, as you state
above).