Maybe different for us, but not necessarily for them. If you are an atheist, you see religious claims as epiphenomenal, unrelated to the actual things that happen (which may include the social effects of the organized religion). You have a clear line between things that exist and things that don’t, and the latter includes all the claims of supernatural. But this “religion kinda works, but for reasons completely unrelated to their claims about the supernatural” is inherently an atheist perspective.
For a religious person, sometimes things actually happen as a result of God’s influence. People in a religious group don’t feel lonely, because it is the Holy Spirit acting in them, or whatever. People don’t waste resources on zero-sum status competition, because God doesn’t want his people to do that. People are nice to each other, help each other, prevent social dysfunctions, etc. because this is what Jesus told them to do. And the fact that they can coordinate on large scale and keep the coordination going for millennia is evidence of the special relation God has with His church.
You could try to explain that people naturally don’t feel lonely when they become members of the group, but I assume the response would be something like “yes, that is a part of the reason, but the other, more important part is the Holy Spirit”. They might give you specific examples of some small religious groups that survived various adversities, and examples of secular clubs that quickly fell apart (and yes, from our perspective this would be selection bias), as evidence that your explanation is not sufficient.
So they would probably be like: yes, communities are good, even if they are not religious; also nonbelievers can be nice to each other, etc., but… why do it the complicated and unreliable way, if you could simply ask God for guidance and receive tons of supernatural help? You are just stubborn and you refuse to accept the overwhelming evidence that your strategy simply does not work.
tl;dr—if you assume that God is epiphenomenal, you are modelling religious people incorrectly
Maybe different for us, but not necessarily for them. If you are an atheist, you see religious claims as epiphenomenal, unrelated to the actual things that happen (which may include the social effects of the organized religion). You have a clear line between things that exist and things that don’t, and the latter includes all the claims of supernatural. But this “religion kinda works, but for reasons completely unrelated to their claims about the supernatural” is inherently an atheist perspective.
For a religious person, sometimes things actually happen as a result of God’s influence. People in a religious group don’t feel lonely, because it is the Holy Spirit acting in them, or whatever. People don’t waste resources on zero-sum status competition, because God doesn’t want his people to do that. People are nice to each other, help each other, prevent social dysfunctions, etc. because this is what Jesus told them to do. And the fact that they can coordinate on large scale and keep the coordination going for millennia is evidence of the special relation God has with His church.
You could try to explain that people naturally don’t feel lonely when they become members of the group, but I assume the response would be something like “yes, that is a part of the reason, but the other, more important part is the Holy Spirit”. They might give you specific examples of some small religious groups that survived various adversities, and examples of secular clubs that quickly fell apart (and yes, from our perspective this would be selection bias), as evidence that your explanation is not sufficient.
So they would probably be like: yes, communities are good, even if they are not religious; also nonbelievers can be nice to each other, etc., but… why do it the complicated and unreliable way, if you could simply ask God for guidance and receive tons of supernatural help? You are just stubborn and you refuse to accept the overwhelming evidence that your strategy simply does not work.
tl;dr—if you assume that God is epiphenomenal, you are modelling religious people incorrectly