I'm not "religious" either in the sense that I don't go to church or strictly follow a dogma, but it has become undeniable how important it is to society and how much these stories can affect how different groups behave.
Higher questions about reality aside, people act based on fundamental cultural beliefs, and Christian beliefs align more with the higher values I aspire to. Buddhist too. And there are other sets of beliefs which actively undermine those in our culture and society.
I agree but there are also beliefs/values from religion that are problematic. For example, the belief that prayer will fix our problems. This is reflected in the rates of people working in fields of science and research. It’s mostly atheists in those fields. When religion was king, the Catholic Church became the tyrant holding humanity back.
Look at science today. There is truth in what you're saying, but a ton of past advancements in science were made by people of faith. The Catholic Church is an institution, it isn't a set of values itself. It can be corrupted and we've seen that be the case, especially during that period and Roman Empire times.
Prayer will fix your problems, but it is a metaphysical idea. It's more comparable to meditation then to writing a letter to Santa. I reccomend meditating on it, or if you're in a big hurry, taking a psychedelic and reflecting on it.
That sounds like incentives to me. Incentives is what led to corruption of the Catholic church and the Roman Empire (e.g. the incentive to clip coins and to bribe peasants with forgiveness of sins).
Prayer never fixed my problems. It’s always been my own actions which are driven by incentives. The incentive to have a better life led to me to look for solutions to my problems. Eventually this led me to bitcoin.
