thanks for reading , and responding ; i guess we cannot go on forever
for Alcohol ( and many other do not like Sex without wedlock , drugs , gambling , interest whiwh religions say are forbidden) we can come up with same explanation as you give "Utilitarianism";
but a simple search return "The World Health Organization estimates that alcohol kills three million people throughout the world every year. In other words, alcohol is the cause of 5.3% of all human deaths annually" ( now consider on top what happens to children and women born to those parent and abuse they go through and suffering)
For a religious person or society its very easy to let it go but for a rational person he has to hide under some reasoning; I guess you think all people are inherently good and when they make decision they think rationally but that is not the cause and we can see same behavior in govt since for ever for e.g Roman has these games so people are busy in those and do not ask or question the govt same mindset is used by these who rule us ( sports, entertainment, social media, drugs,..)
religion kills so much suffering with a simple command; I agree some people might not follow it that is why we have a concept of Judgement day; other wise it does not make sense for some one to live a pious life so who constraint himself will be worthy of a reward ( but its delayed) and in similar vain for any suffering one goes through it can be patient about it because that is what God loves ( and also expect reward in an eternal life)
I guess you did not get a chance to read the article I shared but I talked in there how a true religion solve most of our problem.
Another big problem I see with rational person ( atheist person) that they are just following their desire or foot print of intellect before them ( that they read in academia) instead of really using intellect and questioning ; hence recently both Ayan Harris and Dawkin are tending to becoming Christians after talking so much bad about God and religion ; I guess they got tired of following their desires so got hit by a new set of those.
Second problem is not being certain of any thing ( kind of nihilistic) so all the time they are poking on religion or God while coming up with new idols every day and confusing people and themselves.
In mean time world is getting in a more bad shape; more inequality , people are dying of hunger and war ; In short there is no action and consistency because they are not standing on a firm ground
Muslim claim Quran is the true religion; but unfortunately they are the worst followers of it and stuck in kind of orthodoxy ; corruption, poverty, .. and hence not holding to what they say or believe ( also most of them went through Colonization so puppet leaders were installed and they kind of rule them in a slave-master fashion)
this small verse in Quran if a certain population of humanity would have followed ( in right spirit) I think we would be in a lot better shape
By the ˹passage of˺ time!
Surely humanity is in ˹grave˺ loss,
except those who have faith, do good, and urge each other to the truth, and urge each other to perseverance.
What I meant by fascists' leaders is they are also following rationality ( according to them) and Evil took them for a ride and If they have God fearing thing they might have stop
religion provide the balance , because its laws and text is based on Justice and wisdom; which we cannot achieve through rationality
So for e.g if man will make a society it will make rule in its favor and women will suffer ; when women reacts to it we have a feminism of today ( where now Man are not finding women to marry because they have high demands and many women are running after certain kind of man; who are abusing them eventually) and on the flip side Man is not ready to take responsibility ( and why take extra burden when you can go out and have sex with any one) .
Than Capitalist says why not make a society according to our rules and will keep the people busy and occupied and rule them; will show them they are really electing people but we will bid who is going to get elected and make sure president follows what we say ( same is the situation with Communisms) . Now tell me how rationality is going to solve it they are not sure about what they believe in let alone fix a society ; even they argue on killing of a child why because it happened in Africa and their govt is more concerned with providing weapons to groups who killed him using the tax money they provided ( same is case in Gaza)
Heard this a while back , might also help ( an atheist teacher revert to Islam)