For nearly two centuries, political philosophers and social scientists approached religion as
a dying vestige of our primitive, pre-scientific past. Religious commitment was seen as
independent of, and largely antithetical to, the rational calculus. A cost-benefit approach to
religious behavior made little sense, because socialization reduced most religious calculations to tautological decisions to choose what one was trained to choose. Indeed, Freud and many other influential scholars argued that intense religious commitment sprang from nothing less than neurosis and psychopathology. Although contemporary research has shed the overt, antireligious rhetoric that characterized earlier work, it has tended to retain the antirational assumption not because it has proved fruitful but rather because its origins are forgotten, its status unexamined, and its presence unnoticed. Traditional theories of religious behavior have accorded privileged status to the 2 assumption of non-rationality. The assumption has, in turn, hobbled research, promoted public misconceptions, and, at times, distorted law and politics.2
The distorting force of the received wisdom is underscored by the body of stylized facts
that it has spawned. For example: that religion must inevitably decline as science and technology advance; that individuals become less religious and more skeptical of faith-based claims as they acquire more education, particularly more familiarity with science; and that membership in deviant religious cults is usually the consequence of indoctrination (leading to aberrant values) or
abnormal psychology (due to trauma, neurosis, or unmet needs). Most people know these
statements to be true, even though decades of research have proved them false (Hadden 1987, Stark and Bainbridge 1985, Greeley 1989).
We argue below that the traditional view of religion as nonrational, not to mention
irrational, emerged from a 19th century scholarly tradition largely devoid of empirical support and tainted by prejudice, ignorance, and antireligious sentiment. The relevant data suggest that most religious behavior is, in fact, associated with good mental health, is sensitive to perceived costs and benefits, and is compatible with scientific training.
You seem to be sincere, and presumably well-intentioned. Allow me to point you to the forum rules, esp the parts about not proving C false. Some may take exception to your candor, and I'd hate to see you censored due to honestly not being aware of forum guidelines. Consider figuring out how to express yourself honestly within that framework to be ... a challenge?
Is that not a strawman? I think our FF's did a magnificent job of safeguarding these things.
