In religion class, our teacher will praise blind faith and unquestioningly following the teachers. Movies about the vatican glorify the city for being the last civilized theocratic monarchy, failing to see the irony. The vatican is filled with ridiculous splendor while a majority of their followers live in poverty. Catholic logic isn't logic at all. Any time they can't answer a question, they can find a church teaching, and, despite the logical flaws, refuse to listen to any more reason.

The clergy of any religion, especially Catholicism, don't know what they preach, and don't try to know.

And that's my catholicism rant...

It's a sad situation that so many people come to view the world in which they live based almost entirely on what fraudsters say. I call them fraudsters because they are pretending to speak for a supernatural being that no one has ever truly encountered. If this god truly spoke to anyone of us, he would do so individually, not through these self-proclaimed authority figures.

And those of us that do see reality for what it truly is are ridiculed, ostracized, and dismissed as immoral. Wake up True Believer! See the world as it truly is, not as you wish it was. I know I don't know everything, and I certainty don't know as much as many other people, but I do know that I can't speak for the creator of the universe. I speak only for myself, because that's whose thoughts I do know. And one thing I do know - the authoritative preachers who speak for god are nothing but charlatans.

Of course, human nature being what it is, it's not a point you'll hear very many Protestant theologians making to the wider public today.

I'm reminded of one of the most unsettling scenes in Craig Thompson's graphic novel memoir "Blankets" (an absolute must-read for atheists, btw). He's a child in Sunday school, being told about Heaven and angels singing and playing the harp, etc. He asks his Sunday school teacher if he'll be able to draw in heaven (even as a child he loved to draw), and he is told, unequivocally and with complete confidence and authority, "No. You can't draw in Heaven."

Now, set aside for the moment how appalling it is to squelch a talented child's creativity by saying something like that. My point is this: How on earth did the Sunday school teacher know that you can sing and play music in Heaven, but you can't draw? On what basis was she making that claim?

None at all, that's what. It's not what she was taught about Heaven -- she was taught about singing and playing harps, not drawing -- and in her closed mind, drawing therefore couldn't be part of Heaven. But she didn't really have any basis for her answer. She was just making it up.

Just like all of them are just making it up.

Yes, religion-as-supernaturalism is bunk, and we shouldn't be afraid to say so. But there *do* seem to be real and legitimate human wants that religion often provides (as you say, community, teaching moral behavior, guidance and counseling).

If so, it stands to reason that as a culture we will not be wholly free from religion until we figure out how to carry forward the "good bits" without the "bad bits." My perception is that there are currently two main classes of communities -- ones that are truly non-religious (listings on the AHA and CSH websites), but not terribly widespread or organized, and ones that are more established (UUs, liberal Quakers) but otherwise non-optimal, e.g. accepting nontheistic members but still corporately being religious organizations. Personally I'm starting to think organizing the former is more promising than trying to reform the latter.

I've seen Catholics claim that the existence of God is unprovable and that Thomas Aquinas's famous five proofs are not really proofs but "reasons to believe". But according to their church's teachings, that is heresy, since one of the Catholic Church's dogmas is that the existence of God is provable.

You can find chapter and verse on that in First Vatican Council (1869-1870)

If anyone says that the one, true God, our creator and lord, cannot be known with certainty from the things that have been made, by the natural light of human reason: let him be anathema. (Canon 2:1)

There are additional such no-nos, like atheism (of course!) (1:1), materialism (1:2), mantheism (1:3), the belief that the Universe emanates from God like light from a light bulb (1:4), the believe that God couldn't help it when he created the Universe (1:5), that the Apocrypha are not divinely inspired (2:4), that only internal experience can possibly be convincing (3:3), that miracles do not happen (3:4), that all the Church's dogmas can be understood with pure reason (4:1), and this doozie:

If anyone says that human studies are to be treated with such a degree of liberty that their assertions may be maintained as true even when they are opposed to divine revelation, and that they may not be forbidden by the Church: let him be anathema. (4:2)

In other words, if such studies propose that the Earth moves around the Sun, and that revelation states that the Sun moves around the Earth, then one must believe that the Sun moves around the Earth. And one isn't even allowed to claim that it will be one day be shown that revelation, when properly interpreted, shows that the Earth moves around the Sun (4:3).

As humans, we all need some form of employment to sustain us. Without it, we'd be on the dole. In one sense, then, churches provide employment for priests, nuns, ministers, some lay persons, etc. The guys at the top, however, are like a giant Amway pyramid scheme. The people at the bottom sustain the ones above them, who sustain the ones above them, until you hit the head honchos, who require a cadre of people below them, all generating revenue to sustain the ones at the top, who do nothing but supervise.

Imagine if the veil was lifted from the faithfuls eyes, all at the same time? The Pyramid would instantly collapse. Who would support the Vatican? I guess they could turn it into a museum.