Religion as a mental illness

[abaris]

If you had a society where chopping off people's arms was commonplace, would you consider that to be normal?

A common mistake to project emotions. There have been societies where human sacrifice was the norm. These people haven't been insane, they only had a different outlook. My emotions say it's unnatural, but my mind asks, why did they do it. As a historian, as I said in another thread, you virtually go blind if you allow your emotions to take the driver's seat. You never will understand what made a society like that tick. And you never will understand why it happened and if it could happen again.

Also, that's usually not what makes or breaks any given society. It's only part of a complicated mix of different influences. So, if you want to learn anything, you better don't make any emotional judgments from your very own perspective, based on what you were brought up to consider the norm.

And by the way, it's the most common mistake theists make when dealing with atheists. Judging by what they call a universal system or morals.