Weaponized belief and mass hysteria

Are Religion and Science at War?

Jeremy Bentham [Public domain]

Some people I communicate with are aligned with the understanding that secular society is superior in some way to religious society. There are also people who are asking the question of whether religion and science are at war. My thoughts on this subject are not certain but so far I think it depends on what we mean by religion.

When I think about it carefully I narrow it down to weaponization of belief and mass hysteria. I realize that this weaponization of belief happens regardless of if the shared beliefs are called a religion, an ideology, or something else. The one thing that weaponized belief requires is ignorance of or distortion of science. We can see weaponization of belief in the ideology of racism which was based on pseudo-science. We can see it in people who fully believe in conspiracy theories to the point where they'll ignore or attack any contrary evidence. We can see it in people who feel a certain way and who will rather defend their feelings or resort to confirmation bias rather than change their opinions even when the facts are counterintuitive.

Irrationality without religion and belief networks

A religion is not required for humans to behave irrationally. Humans are irrational regardless. Atheists, theists, and agnostic humans are irrational. Cognitive bias exists regardless of whether a person is religious or irreligious. Belief networks for now I will define as social networks which are aligned based on their shared beliefs. They might not call it a religion, they might be atheist, but they have similar beliefs. A group of atheists can still believe in Santa and so they are part of the same belief network.

To Be Continued...