Very well said. I mean, I suppose you're right in that.
It's just... I dunno, the politics of it all and its effects on
how people treat one another.
For example, in my view, religion isn't a thing. It's the
personification of human activity, performed by human beings.
When one compares religion to a disease, since religions are
caused by the activities of human beings, then to 'cure the
disease', the activities of these human beings must be stopped.
How does one stop human activity?
That's when things can get messy... and ugly. === Well, it's a
replacement: Here is [x]. I suggest replacing it with [y]. Well,
it's ideological replacement. "Your ideology is deficient. My
ideology is better. Try mine - your society will like it better"
smile emoticon === Well, in that sense, I don't see them as
necessarily conceptually exclusionary either.
But I have been lucky. While I am agnostic at present, all of
the religions I had been exposed to were not these horrid
constrictive infectious things. They were rather pleasant,
containing a lot of good information to assist me in considering
my fellow human and the world in a grateful, respectful light.
But when I would see/hear of activities of "Religion The
Political Entity", I'd consider that politics... which I find
distasteful.
So when something enters into realm of political - such as
converting people from one belief system to another or forming
coalitions or groups, or strengthening the confirmation bias of
a group, or modifying the education of the young....
...these are things that I critique carefully no matter WHAT the
source of the ideology, including modern ones. ===
