Religion is an addiction like Alcoholism

And even communism is a religion as practiced in China and North Korea where people are forced to worship the state on pain of death.

So, both religions and communism and I suppose even fascism is also an addictive religion in this sense.

It most resembles Alcoholism because alcohol is everywhere like religion is in societies around the world.

I was able to understand why I had trouble loving myself growing up last night where my parents religion was more important to them than I was. So, I had trouble loving myself unless girls and women loved me. Only then could I allow myself to love myself and so many girlfriends later I looked at all these women that loved me as a reason I was able to love myself too.

So, religion interfered with my loving myself enough to stay alive in my early 20s. For me, this is a real breakthrough in my life as a human being to more fully understand this.

So, unraveling all this in one's life is very important for psychological and physical survival and in finding ways to avoid self destructive behavior at all points during one's life.

If you don't understand this, staying alive in a human body often becomes very difficult. But, in understanding this you can become a whole person who is healthy and who loves themselves enough to want to stay alive and sane in a physical body here on earth.

This is not to say that God is or is not Real. This is only to say that religion is like Alcoholism (which I see as completely separate from whether God exists or not) so my point of view is religion itself is a problem and so though God and Buddha might be real, religion is not real in that it is not your friend sort of in the same way Alcohol is not your friend either if you move towards alcoholism.

So, maybe the Greek saying of: "Moderation in all things" might be the most helpful here.

Buddhism also addresses this in the Lam Rim or middle way path and other religions likely do as well. But, the point being extremism is not your friend. Extremism of all kinds will take your life away from you.

So, learning to be balanced in your approach to life is likely how one can survive their life and raise their families and live to old age as a whole and complete person.