Doesn't religion demean and degrade its followers?

[icarus62]

On the very few occasions I've ever been to a church, I've been struck by how religion seems to degrade people. I cringe at the attitude that we're all worthless scum, incapable of doing anything decent without divine help, and fit only to worship and grovel before God. It's genuinely quite disturbing and distasteful, isn't it?
gjohnson: Fortunately here in the UK we don't quite have the level of cynical, obscene, money-grabbing religion that seems to be prevalent in the US, but I do know what you mean.
Axl: Good answer, thanks.
"in ourselves we are wretched sinners. but in the hands of the God of our salvation we are beheld as brothers to the very Son of God" - my point exactly.