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This is because there is a huge difference between belief and religion. Belief is personal. Religion is organized.
When it's organized you get problems with dogma, corruption, power, money, bad people abusing this power as a means to control, and the steps they are willing to take to make sure the organization survives.
And when you can convince millions of people that you're doing God's work.. well then you can get away with anything, and you can make people do/accept anything. Look at all the shit organized religion has done throughout history. I think nobody/nothing surpasses that body count.
Nah. The core issue is believing things without strong evidence. Whenever you do that you open yourself up for manipulation. The core requirement of "beleif" is what causes the harms of "religion" as youre choosing to divide the terms.
Well, you're right that believing bullshit without a good reason can be a problem. A big problem. For example, anti-vaxers. But even there, individual anti-vaxers aren't much of a problem (except to themselves and maybe their kids). It's only when they start organizing and occupying power positions where they can change laws and endanger everyone else that they become an actual issue.
Then again, many people believe many things without evidence, but a lot of it doesn't really harm anyone else. Believing something in itself isn't necessarily an issue.
I could believe that an invisible purple elephant controls the people around me, and it wouldn't hurt anyone else. They'd laugh at me when I told them, but that's about the end of it. People can believe whatever bullshit they want for themselves. As long as it doesn't hurt anyone else, do/think/believe whatever the fuck you want. When you believe in some wizard on a cloud who controls and judges your life, that's your problem. But when you find millions of others who believe the same crap and then you organize and try to force your beliefs on others, that's the problem.
Belief =/= religion.
Nah, when you believe things without good evidence the rot sets in. Religion and belief in the supernatural in general are always harmful to society.
You know I'm not even really arguing against what you said, right? It's a matter of degree.
I'd rather be surrounded by 10 million people who all have their own personal beliefs (however problematic that might be in your eyes), than by 10 million members of one big religion that has the will and power to try and force me to live by their rules.
And I'd rather be surrounded by 10 million people who have no religion.
Well, excusez-moi, I didn't know imaginary utopias were part of this discussion. At least in that we are 100% agreed, that's what I would want too.
Although technically, 10 million people with individual beliefs is exactly what you describe. It's not a religion until it's organized. :p
I disagree. The phrase "organized religion" exists for a reason. Most people do not seem to use the word religion the way you do.
Alright, so if I really believed an invisible purple elephant controlled people around me, in your eyes I would be religious?
Yep.
See and we differ in this. In my eyes I would be delusional.
Something becomes a religion when the delusion reaches some kind of critical mass where it's suddenly accepted and legitimized; where the followers are suddenly no longer laughed at like the village idiot, but taken seriously and protected by society because for some reason 'we should respect every religion;' where the organization suddenly gets tax breaks and political power.
The delusional get ridicule, or maybe medications. The organized delusional get religious exemptions and their own public holidays. Village idiots aren't dangerous. Millions of them organizing, well, there's christianity.
Religion is a subset of delusion based on the supernatural, yes.
Someone who believes lizard people run the government is delusional but not religious. Someone who believbes lizard people run the government and by praying to the snake god Glycon they can become a lizard person too is both.
No, that person would be delusional until he can find enough other people who believe the same thing to become a religion. :p
Don't get me wrong, I think religious people are delusional. It's just that society doesn't treat them that way, because we have somehow convinced ourselves that mass delusions are special.
Anyway, it's clear we pretty much agree except on the definition of the word 'religion.' Shall we just leave it at that? ;)