The reason religion is so powerful

[Brian37]

It is quite common to listen people saying that political ideologies, for example, can be as dangerous as religion. Nonetheless, I disagree with this statement.

The reason religion is so powerful is because of the concept of God. God is above everything. The universe, the Earth, humanity, were created by God. Since religion exists due to God, then religion is above everything too. Above politics, countries, economy, etc.  

Life after death, for example, is exclusive to religion. No political ideology promises you heaven after death. Religion tells you you will meet your parents after death, and reunite. No political ideology promises this.

This is why religion is so dangerous. Since God is above everything, so is religion, as the cause of its existence is God, and God is absolute. So your beliefs are absolute.

I would tend to agree. I think if one would put together a "top 40" list, Religion most certainly should be listed as Casey Kasem #1 hit on the charts.

But as dangerous as religion can be, there really is no pragmatic way to rid a planet of 7 billion of religion. Most humans worldwide get sold the social norms of their parents at birth long before they can formulate adult critical thinking skills. 

But political ideology is also simply another excuse to control resources. "Communism" makes false promises but so do "Libertarians". There is no perfect economic ideology either. But even with the various economic/political ideologies, the followers do imply that one can just follow this model and hand that model down to the next generation. It really is also still a form of "forever" thinking, even if you are not involved after you die. Be it religion, or politics or economics, humans mostly defend that to which they are familiar, and both religious/ political and economic views are passed down to the next generation.   So all of those things can become dogmatic.

I'd only agree that Religion is at the top of the chain when it comes to group think having the most potential to lead to human horrors. But I'd argue, no matter how true that may be, I think the best humans can do is to have checks and balances on it so it doesn't go off the rails, in the same way we have checks and balances on political parties and economic views, at least in the west.