I share your view of the Southern Baptists and their fellow purveyors of hate and hypocrisy but that’s much too strong as a general condemnation of all religions. As a simple example, when I walk by the Methodist office near the Capitol and see a huge banner asking Congress to ban torture, improve the deplorable conditions in US prisons, help refugees, etc. that doesn’t seem like a cancer to me (and, FWIW, those are at least biblically-supported positions unlike the Southern Baptists’ which earns some respect even from an atheist). There’s also a lot of hate and violence committed by people who aren’t part of a large organized religion but instead follow their own interpretation or one hateful preacher, so that qualifier isn’t particularly useful.
The big distinction for me isn’t whether you believe but whether the focus is internal or external: some people use their religion for self improvement, pushing themselves to be better and help others more; other religions seem to use it as a justification for trying to coerce other people to share their beliefs and to ennoble the hateful things they were going to do anyway. I have far fewer problems with the first group, whereas the latter is completely toxic and increasingly dangerous since they started getting politically active in the 1970s in the backlash to desegregation (abortion wasn’t even an issue until they needed something new to dehumanize the opposition with).
The big distinction for me isn’t whether you believe but whether the focus is internal or external: some people use their religion for self improvement, pushing themselves to be better and help others more; other religions seem to use it as a justification for trying to coerce other people to share their beliefs and to ennoble the hateful things they were going to do anyway. I have far fewer problems with the first group, whereas the latter is completely toxic and increasingly dangerous since they started getting politically active in the 1970s in the backlash to desegregation (abortion wasn’t even an issue until they needed something new to dehumanize the opposition with).