There are also some beautiful things in religion. In almost every religion.

Although the religious believers think that the religious laws originate from “God”, in practice they were of course phrased by different people at different times and places, and usually with good and rational reasons – similarly to modern laws. “Thou shalt not kill”? “Thou shalt not steal”? – You don’t need God for that. Even for the ancient Jewish animal slaughter laws, which apparently also considered the interests of the animal.

The point is that the most important thing in a good system of laws… is the ability and proper mechanism to update the laws. Nowadays, for example, we have better methods to prevent animal suffering, but religion (at least in certain countries) forced us to stick to the archaic laws, which were supposedly given by “God” and therefore must not be changed. The obligation to wash our hands? The ban on planting trees every 7th year (“Shmita”)? Everything is great but is subject to huge improvements considering today’s progress. Certainly when we talk about ancient marriage laws, slavery laws and so on.

And this is also the main difference between “religion” and “values”. Religion remained “stuck” in ancient times, therefore it may contain “values” – but those are suitable for those ancient times. True values come from inside and not from outside. They are not supervised, involve punishments, Heaven, and Hell.