Religion can be used to weaponize things such as homophobia, racism, and anti-medicine, however, the former two can be just from people who are intolerant of others. Any backwoods hick can be racist or homophobic without the use of Religion, if their upbringing was hateful against gays and colored people. The issue is, people like to hide behind the Bible and their Religion, because they need something to use as a symbol for their hate, or to find somewhere to find people who hold similar views. Now, where I come from, the Church does not give a damn what you are, the priests teach to love each other no matter what.

I simply do not see Religion, what it teaches, or how it teaches, as to be something to be considered bad. Someone raised in a religion, even fervently, can decide whether or not to continue being a part of it through their own logical reasoning. Unless their religion uses some kind of indoctrination process that essentially brainwashes them as children to never question their religion (in which case, that is something that should not be happening anywhere) then it is their choice to follow it, not anything the religion did to them. And if we did not have religion, it could easily happen somewhere else with something else (ex. political, social).

Believing in something with no physical evidence is not something that could be considered a bad practice, unless it is something that can prohibit everyone else on one or more regards. Believing in a higher power without any evidence, but not shoving it into people's faces or trying to hold back society with it, is not a bad practice. If one were to, however, use their belief in a higher power to force something onto someone else, or infringe on the rights of someone else, then that is a bad practice. However, the belief itself is not one, as the belief itself harms nobody, but things that stem from that belief because of the mentality of the believer may or may not be a "bad practice".