When we say religion is dangerous, what do we mean? That there's something inherent to religion that causes dissension, disagreement, a warlike spirit and even a warlike actuality, etc. etc., to the point where societies are worse off with it given its influence as a slow drain on its survival.
But notice that this isn't religion per se. Religion (the good ones, anyways) advocate very positive principles, and there are plenty of adherents to good religions who are good people, which immediately disproves the idea that religion is inherently dangerous given that, well, they are good people rather than worse off because of religion.
What the first paragraph is describing isn't religion, but rather tribalism that is too often parasitic on religion; I call this tribal theism. This tribalistic part is actually a very deep and successfully helpful evolutionary adaptation; we couldn't even imagine the fraction of a possibility of being here if we didn't have groups that stuck together in preferential and exclusive (even xenophobic) ways.
So the problem with religion isn't religion, but the bad stuff extrinsic to it called tribalism. This tribalism, far from being a terrible thing through and through, has conferred a very positive adaptive advantage, just that in this case it's bad. You might say that all tribalism is bad if it reaches a point, as it does with tribal theism.
Anyways, the big question becomes: if religion in itself is logically not bad (at least the religions that espouse edifying principles which produce positive adherents or at least don't corrupt them), but this badness is due to tribal theism, then the only way you can make an argument that (good or non-corruptive) religion is bad is by proving that religion all by itself leads to tribalism. And I don't think you can make that proof.
But notice that this isn't religion per se. Religion (the good ones, anyways) advocate very positive principles, and there are plenty of adherents to good religions who are good people, which immediately disproves the idea that religion is inherently dangerous given that, well, they are good people rather than worse off because of religion.
What the first paragraph is describing isn't religion, but rather tribalism that is too often parasitic on religion; I call this tribal theism. This tribalistic part is actually a very deep and successfully helpful evolutionary adaptation; we couldn't even imagine the fraction of a possibility of being here if we didn't have groups that stuck together in preferential and exclusive (even xenophobic) ways.
So the problem with religion isn't religion, but the bad stuff extrinsic to it called tribalism. This tribalism, far from being a terrible thing through and through, has conferred a very positive adaptive advantage, just that in this case it's bad. You might say that all tribalism is bad if it reaches a point, as it does with tribal theism.
Anyways, the big question becomes: if religion in itself is logically not bad (at least the religions that espouse edifying principles which produce positive adherents or at least don't corrupt them), but this badness is due to tribal theism, then the only way you can make an argument that (good or non-corruptive) religion is bad is by proving that religion all by itself leads to tribalism. And I don't think you can make that proof.