this post was submitted on 07 Oct 2023
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I don't think calling religion a symptom is fair. I think it is it's own kind of virus that infects people who don't have the tools to withstand it... And misery/trauma provides the blow that weakens people and makes them susceptible.
Staph doesn't kill healthy people, but it sure as shit fucks up people who have other ailments.
Vulnerability is the symptom of trauma and pain. Religion exploits that.
Religious conviction and adherence to organized ministries is more prevalent in regions where the quality of life suffers, such as throughout the Americas. Here in the US, precarity (housing precarity, food precarity, job precarity, etc.) feeds into the kind of magical thinking that fuels adherence to faith and authoritarian ideology (that a charismatic figure will use their power to fix our personal woes).
So religion is not a personal symptom like a fever or cough, it's a community problem, like elevated hate crime or recurring rampage killings.
Again though, religion isn't necessarily the symptom of these things. Those things can exist without religion. Religion definitely thrives in these environments...
The same way staph/mrsa thrives in hospitals.