My mother was a rc, and my father an athiest.

However, both were comitted to ensuring that their children were exposed to a religious experience in early life. I once overheard my father talking to one of his friends about what seemed to be a paradox on his part.He said that, while he was not a believer, he saw a personal and social benefit of the Christian messages. He indicated that he did not want to impose his views exclusively, but preferred to have his children exposed to religious thought so they could make up their own minds as adults. In reflection, that seemed to make a lot of sense to me, so, I followed his example, IMO, with good results.

While there is no doubt that humans have used religion and distorted religious messages to promote bad causes throughout history. But, this should be more of a reflection on the people "who did the deeds", rather than the instruments they misused.