RELIGION VIA NEGATIVA
So, when you say ‘religion’, we all need the services provided by ‘religion’ whether or not we consume them directly or indirectly through others.
The question is whether we need supernaturalism, fictionalism, and outright falsehood. The answer is demonstrably no.
On the other hand – more precisely – it means those of us with a great deal of agency do not need it, but desire it’s consequences.
It means that those with the pretense of agency – the ‘atheists’ need a substitute for it, and have chosen pseudo-rationalism and pseudoscience.
It means that some of us mouth pretense to it because we understand the value of religion but find the superstition, supernaturalism, fictionalism, and outright falsehood merely an absurd cost of obtaining the good produced by the rituals and discipline.
And it means that those without the ability to trust those with more agency than they, need the superstition to sate their emotions, the supernaturalism to grant authority to the fictionalism, and the outright falsehood as a means of insulating themselves from suggestion by those who would sway them from the strategies embodied in all of the above.
There is no reason we cannot cause the production of truthful religion by the suppression of fictional religion. History replaces myth. Fiction fictionalism. Science superstition. And the natural law of men, resistance against suggestion, deception, and predation.
Curt Doolittle