I've always used this important rule when it comes to forum posting...don't discuss Religion or Politics.
With that said
People ruin everything...it doesn't matter what institution people look towards, they'll eventually ruin it.
Example:
Religion - Ruined throughout history by a small percentage of people who abuse its power.
Politics - Umm, yeah, lol, I really don't even have to say anything here.
Porn - The majority of good webmasters get this reputation from the few that abuse the situation. Would you like someone saying, "All Adult Webmasters are child pornographers" It happens, unfairly, but it happens.
If there was no religion, people would move to another institution and corrupt it and bastardize it and then the institution itself will / would be criticized instead of the fact that the human race sucks and they'll bring everything down.
So moral of the story...People suck, they can ruin anything given enough time, it's just their nature.