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For me, religion at its essence is about the fear of death.
Many people cannot process the idea that one day, they will just...end.
Religion is there to give a comforting notion that their existence will continue.
A comfortable delusion to soothe the existential dread and remove some measure of accountability for one's actions.
P sure it makes people more accountable based on what they do in their life. (provided they aren't deluded to the point of doing horrific things for the sake of religion)
I see absolutely no evidence this is true, and plenty of evidence to the contrary. So we're going to have to agree to disagree on this one.
I'm going to make the argument from an Islamic standpoint mainly bc I am Muslim and have a background in it from both a religious and academic (it was one class at college but I learned a lot) side. Day of judgement is a thing, basically to get into heaven: pray to god, don't be a shitty person.
That being said, you can see shit like terrorist attacks that would convince you otherwise. Terrorist attacks are basically "martyrdom" (read: fanaticism) where fighting for a religion would "theoretically" bring you in the good graces of the things you believe in. In reality, they just murdered people because they thought they deserved it and it would punish the people who are doing it when in reality it doesn't work like that.
But the "don't be a shitty person" is just an action, what's the reasoning/intention behind it. Like you can do good things for society for a multitude of reasons, bc it is a good cause to contribute to society for, it will get you into heaven, fame, a diversion from something else etc. Religious people just have one extra reason to be a decent person.
You don't have to follow religion to be a "decent" person and religion doesn't automatically make you a "decent person". I've met wonderful people who were both religious and not, and shitty people who were religious and not religious.
There's a lot more to Islam that I don't think I can unpack in a comment, and it's tied to societal norms etc.
All I can really ask of anyone is don't be a shitty person.