Firstly, the Church and religon are two different things. The Church is an institution, and probably the one with the most blood on its hands since the dawn of time. Religon itself is a personal matter, whether one chooses to believe in life after death, God, Jesus, Mohammed, whatever. If the title of the post is correct, it is the latter we are discussing. So the crimes of the Church (Indulgences anyone?) are for another time.
Secondly, Interpreting something as old and hacked together as the bible literally is folly. Each book of the Bible has about five different authors, and as such contradictions abound. It is definately no tool for living ones life by, unless you desire the stoning of homosexuals and child slavery.
However, in the Bible one can find words of great wisdom, as in Corinthians, where we read: "When I was a child I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child. When I became a man I put aside childish things." It is the same with the development of our species. When the human race finally fulfils its destiny and is able to stand on its own two feet and live life to the full, it will no longer require the prop of religion, a supernatural being to whom to pray or the false consolation of life in another world than this.
(Additionally, anyone wonder why the The common idea of "life after death" is more or less a continuation of the life we have led on earth, since we can know no other? After the soul has fled the body, it apparently "wakes up" in a beautiful land where we are miraculously united with our loved ones, to a life of eternal joy in which sickness and old age are banished. It is sufficient to pose the question concretely to see that this is impossible. If we consider all the things that make life worth living: eating good food, drinking fine wines, singing, dancing, embracing, making love etc., it will be immediately evident that all these activities are inseparably connected with the body and its physical attributes. More cerebral pastimes like talking, reading, writing and thinking are equally bound up with our bodily organs. The same is true of breathing, or any other of the activities which, in their totality, we call life.)
When that moment arrives, humanity will cast off religion with the same ease that grown people put aside the fairy stories which they so loved in childhood, but which have outlived their usefulness.
[ December 18, 2001: Message edited by: Massy ]</p>