please dont squeeze the garmin wrote:
Of course. And what's so wrong with that?
People try a lot of other things to attain happiness, cope with depression and anxiety and whatever else, etc. Eating ourselves happy, spending ourselves happy, drugging (recreational or pharmaceutical) ourselves happy, on and on.
Religion is clearly a very effective road to wide-ranging lost-lasting positive change for some people. As long as their religion of choice isn't some virulent extremist form of Islam or Christianity or Scientology, this atheist sees that as a good thing and, for many, a more powerful option than anything rooted strictly in the modern world of scientific rationality can offer. Is it any more rational to say "you were better off miserable and aimless, but godless?"
Nothing is wrong with that and I agree with you that religion can cause a postiive change.
However, people should recognize that this change attributed to divine intervention by Jesus is actually a change resulting from the psychological and social aspects of the religion associated with Jesus.
In my opinion, it would be better for people to take some credit for their positive change instead of attributing it to Jesus. As a corollary, responsibility should be taken for negative actions instead of claiming that since Jesus has already been asked to forgive, all personal fault has been absolved (this seems to be the attitude of some very religious friends). Here starts the slippery slope that leads to extreme actions such as abortion doctor killings.