Michelle Ting's Answer

(1)Disadvantages of religion are:
-causes people to fight against each other because they believe that their own religion is the only true one (example: Israel and the middle east)
-Require people to take time off and analyze the religion, thus decreasing productivity
-Prevents scientific research because it is often the opposite of the teachings of a religious text (example: Darwinism and creationism)
-Acts as a limitation (e.g. Jehovah's witness followers have to refuse life saving blood transfusions or, Muslims cannot consume pork which is a cheap source of protein)
-A religion's law maybe different from a country's law.

(2)How does religion unite people:
-Discourages evil doing amongst believers, thus creating a 'nicer' society (example: Islam tells its believers to cut off the hands of those who steal)
-Discourages fighting amongst a religion's own believers (example: Romans 4 : do not fight with other christians)
-Gives people a common factor, thus increasing the feeling of requirement of a person to do good deeds in the name of the religion
-Removes other barriers that render people unable to blend together (ae: race, colour)
-having the same idea and opinion of unite

(3)How can people interpret religion differently:
-Different feelings at the time of analysis of religious text (how you feel will affect your judgement. Example: the book of Mormons is derived from the translation of glyphs supposedly found by its founder, John Smith)
-No literal meaning to many religious text, leading to multiple translations. (example: while christians believe that Jesus is the savior mentioned in the book of Isiah and Joel, many Jews do not believe so.)
-The interpretation of a religious text is often submitted to the ability of the interpreter's resources at the time of interpretation
-Different settings at time of interpretation of text
-The possibility of the interpreter providing false information