I choose to respect religion for those who earnestly believe in its values because it does do good for many people but I refuse to follow instructions on how to live. If God can dictate my every move then he can very well be there to help out in hard times and help with some of the stupidity.
People so blindly believe in the notion of god because it is a defense mechanism, in defense of feeling helplessness. It is this innate desire to believe that someone is there for you when no may really be. That someone with all the answers, power, and reason is watching over you in time of need and that gives people hope, it gives them strength and the courage to go on. The belief in a possibly fictional character allows them to comprehend the mystery of life through an easy answer: "God did it" even though they are possibly enveloping themselves into a lie...but this lie helps them with a feeling of hope.
The human mind has this annoying need of wanting to have an answer, an a explanation for everything so we have a feeling of semblence of control over this phenomenon that intially firghtens us. What we can't explain scares us, so we we tell ourselves God did it and he works in mysterious ways.
God is nothing but an instituition for feeling of safety and hope in an uncertain world and somewhere along the line it became the way of life. This has been the greatest strength and crutch of the religious institute and humanity itself. When belief turned into faith....and when that happens it produces two types of results.
1) It turns men onto the right path. So many have found their lives through faith in religion and god. So many reformed and turned into functioning members of society through the "love" of god. Religion has the power to do great amount of good....
2)...but when belief turns into faith it also produces blind zealots who take the name of god to carry out their vendetta against what they see as a failed version of society...be it theirs or another society. Some do it unintentionally and some do it in all concious and open eyes.
I choose to respect religion for the good it can do, the fruitful changes it can have on a lost individual but I do not follow the guidelines of religion because, to me, it asks too much for a human being who is already struggling for an indentity to claim in an always uncertain world. It causes humans to stop questioning what goes on around them and makes them weak by accepting god as an answer to every problem or creation. Leaving it up to god gets you nowhere and so many let their lives be a hell-hole due to this misconception that anyone really cares for them outside of the benefits they provide for them.
God and religion has been man's greatest and worst creation...either way it deserves respect and its followers need to realize that opression is not the key. As curious as we are and as desperate we are for answers...we are also rebels...opression does bode well for some of us.