It might feel like you need religion to keep you acting like a good person, but that’s not what makes someone act in an ethical way.

certainly a person could choose to act ethically without religion (as defined by religion), but religion defines what ethics even is… without some definition, it’s just my subjective opinion of what ethics is versus yours, hence people could choose to act “unethically” since it’s just their opinion of what ethics is.

Religion causes death and suffering throughout the world

Militant atheism with communism has created a lot of death and suffering (Communism is officially atheist). However, for the atheist, who lacks objective morality, a system that causes more death and suffering isn’t necessarily even less preferable to one that causes less, because again there is no objective standard.

I definitely think the philosophy of atheism opens up a lot of cans of worms…