I'm afraid that I cannot agree with you when you say that something is good if it benefits someone, because that thing might very well hurt somebody else. So while it is good for someone it can be very damaging for someone else. A good thing is something that benefits everybody not just some group.
I figured it was implied that I meant net benefit instead of absolute benefit. The benefit minus the harm is the total goodness (we also have to include marginal utility, for example, giving a sandwich to a starving person is better than giving a sandwich to a fat person).
I guess it's still up for question whether or not a little good to a lot of people is "better" than a lot of good to a single person... but I'll leave that up to individuals to decide.
I belive people need faith more than ever today, because we don't live in world where people are empathetic and compassonate. We live in a world where people exploit people. For example the West has a easy life at the expense of those poor countries we have exploited and invaded for centuries.
I'm gonna have to disagree with your hidden premise here -- that faith makes people more (net) empathetic and compassionate. In fact, having a strict sense of external morals seems far less consistent with empathy than a dynamic system such as the one I described in my last post. If you believe in something because of faith, you are by definition less connected to visible evidence -- someone disagreeing isn't a suggestion to question your views, since your views are not predicated on environmental change (like hearing someone say something).
So people need faith and hope in a better after life in order to not go crazy and destroy everybody that oppresed them for century. I mean if there is not Heaven nor God why should they suffer here? It wouldn't matter if they start killing and robbing at all. There would be nobody to condemn them. And the social law can't do anything about this. Because they could take their revenge and then commit suicide. It wouldn't matter at all if there would be nothing afterwards.
So you're saying without faith people are sociopaths? I strongly disagree. Atheism and hedonism are entirely different things.
I have a suspicion that people that think not having religion would lead to moral weakness are actually confusing the issue of LOSING your faith and the crisis that would ensue with the actual belief system people without faith have formed over time. I agree that the moment of world-shattering realization would probably be pretty traumatic and would have long term emotional consequences. But that doesn't really have anything to do with whether or not good morals are harder or easier to reach without God. Like I said before, I think they're easier to reach, since you don't have the confounding factor (Hitchens referred to it as a moral dictatorship) of not being able to question your core beliefs without "sinning". Now, there are many pick-and-choose religious people that basically build their moral systems the same way I have, and I have no problem with them. But then, what's the point of God in their systems? They just choose when to follow the word and when not to -- when to take it literally and when not to, etc. I do that too, I just focus on all external influences instead of giving extra weight to the bible, which is clearly just a book.