Problem is: they're metaphors.
Metaphors educate but mostly mislead.
Religion isn't a disease nor are apologists for religion
protecting a disease nor are those fighting against religion the
cure.
That's a metaphor.
Religion is primarily:
a pursuit or interest to which someone ascribes supreme
importance.
Its most general meaning is primary to me as it has the broadest
and most useful application.
But it has more and more specific meanings, depending on how
detailed one wants to get in their usage of the word.
Does it reach the level of specificity that it becomes a
physical ailment that is detrimental to human physical health?
I don't think it does.
The metaphor has been used to denigrate one's enemies for a long
time, usually as a precursor to war.
If your voting public believes their enemy is an infection that
needs to be cured, or a cancerous growth that needs to be cut
out, then you've gotten their consent to destroy people with
bombs.
But they're people. They're not cancers. Beliefs are not
cancers. Cancers are cancers.
Metaphors can educate but they mostly mislead. ========
Metaphors are amazingly powerful things... .if they can be
called things at all, They assist in conceptual connections
between diverse topics, bringing someone from a belief in one
area and over to another, otherwise unrelated realm.
They assist in sensemaking, but they can also constrict
comprehension.
For example, look at the woo factor of quantum physics.
Where does the woo come from?
We think of particles as billiard balls. A 100 year old metaphor
that just won't go away. Physicists themselves likely fall into
the same trap.
It's ok if chemists do. In their realm, acting like billiard
balls is perfectly fine; the ball-and-stick model functions
fantastically as a practical concession to a human's limited
abilities to comprehend tiny things without making models that
are relatable in some fashion.
But when we get into the realm of quantum mechanics, the
metaphors just get in the way of understanding after a while.
But that's an extreme example; in an everyday manner, metaphors
push and pull our beliefs in a very fast way.
Unfortunately, what they get utilized for mostly, it seems to
me, is for confirmation bias.
Humans are terribly suspect to confirmation bias, myself
included because I'm no less human. It takes a LOT of effort
sometimes to detangle the metaphors from the realities they are
attempting to model. ========= If you'll notice though, I
used metaphors in my argument as well.
I compared the use of a metaphor towards religion by those are
are against religion to governments using metaphors towards
their enemies to justify war to the voting public.
