Which still provides tangible benefits (comfort, meaning of life, emotional support, coping mechanisms, a community) to many.

I don't subscribe to one myself, but I definitely see the benefits. In a way, I think my life would be better - or at least easier - if I wasn't so skeptical.

Religion is a major factor, that impacts your lifestyle, community, happiness and longevity. In most cases, positively. There are studies proving it.

So yes, most religions if not all are based on unscientific claims, but they make people's lives better.

These are merely correlational studies. Religion often makes people’s lives worse as well: sexual repression, homophobia, religious intolerance, fear of eternal damnation, misplaced guilt/shame, hours wasted on prayer/services/rituals, sheltered upbringings..

I think the underlying issue is whether a person views the objective appraisal of reality as a positive thing or not. For someone who doesn’t, self-deception may seem the better choice.

> These are merely correlational studies. Religion often makes people’s lives worse as well.

I'm not religious, but that doesn't make any sense: those cases would weaken the correlation (or correlate it the other way), and now you're also claiming a causative effect that's opposite to the correlation you don't refute?

I’m not denying it can have beneficial effects but only denying that it necessarily has beneficial effects. That’s why I pointed out that the studies in its favor are merely correlational and why I also list several negative effects it can have (although it won’t necessarily have).

It’s clear that social outcomes always have intertwined retroactive loop with psychological representations.

When we live in a society which publicly announce anyone doubting the dogma is a miscreant who should be tortured through long painful experiments, we will feel safer and better if we are in the camp of the true-sincere-believers™. Indeed it’s far less likely that any of these corrupted souls will come and trouble our peaceful minds. But if we have a ounce of skepticism in our veins, there’s no happy path for us in this society.

Sorry for a super late answer.

The reason those studies are just correlational, is because in social sciences, you don't really have many other tools.

There are no axioms, deduction is impossible. So that part of the argument is not really all that much valid. You have no mechanism to make social sciences more exact.

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Yes, there are also negative outcomes. But positive ones are stronger than the negative ones.

And also, some of your examples are not negative at all. The point of fear of damnation for example is the reason why ethics were enforceable for hundreds or thousands of years, when the state was significantly weaker, there weren't real courts, etc. Shame and guilt are important motivators. They developed in humans to make correction of antisocial behaviors possible if you don't want just violently punish people for everything. Having no shame and guilt is an attribute of psychopaths.

All mental models are wrong. But some are more useful than others. Religion falls in this category.

Religion can fall in this category.

The Taliban shows it is not always thus. Nothing is that simple.

If you look for examples of something good, or something bad, you will always find them.

I think, when we look at all social phenomenons, we need to look on the whole system. What is the role of religion? When religion is not there, what fits the hole? (Nowadays, there are many non-religion religions like consumerism, extreme-individualism, or global warming; all of those have their own prophets, the story of fight between good and evil, rituals, inherent sin and a way to 'buy out' out of that sin)

In that case, why is that the most rich and developed countries are secular and not religious?

You would expect a population with "better lives" to outperform the rest.

Not OP but perhaps you could consider Manifest Destiny and Capitalism as a religion?

Protestant Scandinavia and Calvinist Netherlands and Switzerland never really consider(ed) Manifest Destiny nor Capitalism as religions. And both regions are becoming increasingly atheist.

The effects of believing something, whether real or not, are tangible and often predictable.

You are conflating religious belief with religion. Just the word "religion" is underspecified. Historically and reaching to the present, there have been many communities where the church was the mechanism to deliver healthcare, food distribution, some forms of non-religious education, banking, community bonding and growth, etc. They also had religious services, and the religious leader managed how all the other things were done. Does that count as religion?

Many of the "faithful" were not, in fact, faithful. Or they only applied it to very limited parts of their lives. But they still showed up to church on Sunday, and professed to believe the teachings (in general even if not in any of the particulars).

Adopting a religion you don't believe in is quite common and rational. Do you think all those people who marry into a religion or different denomination are getting brain surgery at the altar? Or if you want to run a business in a community, do you want to be the one guy who doesn't go to church? In some places, that would be both stupid and pointless.