[haberman]

I personally believe that a lot of religion falls onto the "useful" side of this divide. Which is why I have no reason to go out of my way to tell people that I think their religion is not literally true. If it works for them, great.

I think this also applies to beliefs like the 10,000 hour hypothesis. I strongly doubt it is true, but some people really like it as a motivational tool. I have no reason to burst their bubble.

The only time I am bothered is if people argue in favor of unverified beliefs to people who are seeking real truth, or especially if people try to legislate such beliefs.

[crawfordcomeaux]

I find it much more useful to break the world down into functions. Then we can simply ask in what contexts are these functions useful.

We can model religions as perceptual sets & then find their uses. I'm designing a religion of absurdity as a cultural experiment in teaching the models I'm developing and can testify to the usefulness of being able to find absurdity in everything. It also helps to not judge things beyond "Does this sustainably contribute to life or not?" I'm still trying to nail down the definitions, but the point is it doesn't matter what we believe, but what we do with those beliefs.

[tinymollusk]

I have similarly softened towards people's religious and spiritual beliefs as I've aged.

Personally, I only get mad when someone tries to claim their belief is objectively true, or tries to proscriptively generalize it for others.