When is a Religious Belief Delusional?

[robvalue]

I do not consider the practice of prayer, in and of itself, evidence of delusion. The idea that there is a level of reality deeper (or higher depending on your perspective) and more fundamental that what is currently known does not seem on its face to be irrational. After that, it is more a difference of degree than of kind by which we evaluate its reasonableness.

To think there may be a deeper level of reality is not delusional. To act as though there is, is.

To claim you know stuff about it, also is. I'd be shocked if there isn't "more going on" than we can detect; perhaps that we will ever detect. That's not the same as acting like you have special information about it.

Like I said in the other thread, belief in a generic creator is just a guess at a fundamental question for which we have no way of knowing. It makes no difference to anything. But claiming to know stuff about this creator, and especially to interact, is entering delusion terrirotry. It's easy to see why, because of how thoroughly theists all disagree with each other about what this "one creator" is like, and what it wants. They can't all be right, but they can all be wrong.

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PS: to my earlier point, say I have a religious belief in gravity. What would that even mean? Most people would expect me to drop the "religious" part, because it's a demonstrable fact. Religion needs to speculate on the unknowable, it seems to me.