Religion has positive benefits and most were created out of a genuine sense of awe and love for what was perceived to be a great spiritual entity worth worshipping. Most major religions began as some form of sun worship, because to peoples who were not aware of the existence of the sun as a star, (moreso seen as a glowing ball in the sky, doing battle with it's dark brother the moon) it certainly appeared to have amazing powers. The power to grow crops, the power to illuminate the world and make it safe for passage, etc. I will not try to appear smart and hide the fact that most of that opinion really came to bear for me after watching Zeitgiest, because it tied together so many different things so succinctly for me and a lot of other people I think. But I would add that I had long since discarded Christianity by that point. In watching that documentary I enjoyed discovering what I now believe to be Christianity's true history and roots, punctuating my long-held disdain for it. It was moreso an icing (a very interesting and enjoyable icing) on the cake.
What prompted me to discard my mother religion in the first place was firstly my own sense of having not been answered despite an earnest attempt to connect to God in my youth. I prayed and asked serious questions but Judeo-Christian religion continually dropped the ball. I also came to realize while studying in Uni. that governments have used religion as leverage for centuries upon centuries to control people and have also used it as an excuse to wage wars. In fact its such a useful tool that political powers have modified, changed, augmented and created religions for these ends alone. Aside from these obvious negative consequences, there are also the personal issues religion creates because it pits people against their nature as human beings, again often because they're trying to please their God and in doing they also indirectly follow the bidding of political powers who don't want them acting up, or who want them acting a certain way.
Science is another religion if you ask me, although a different kind of beast. I think Science is a tool, something we used to understand nature and energy and ultimately God, but in and of itself it is not complete and is also severely corrupt as of late.
The only thing I think that's necessary to find God is a sense of spirituality and an open mind. Seeing the spirit and life in things around you, understanding that by definition we are all one energy and are separated by the thinnest of veils, knowing that there is much we cannot see but that there is still much around us, (absence of proof is not proof of absence, call it faith if you want but I prefer to call it the middle ground between faith and science; knowing in theory, logically, there should be more, but accepting that you're not able to see it in your current state) and accepting the idea that perhaps we are not alone in the universe and have yet to expand our knowledge base and definition of what we really are. These are all things that in my mind major Western religions do not teach and therefore they cannot be used to understand God.
Eastern traditions are a whole different ball game, and while all religions are susceptible to abuse I don't think one could argue that Eastern traditions are quite as horribly abused and misguided to the same degree these days. Haven't seen any oil wars waged, markets blown up, or people stoned/hanged in the name of Buddha as of late.
