As someone who does not have schizophrenia, the thoughts don’t have to feel foreign for the religion to work. All it takes is persuasive people convincing you that your very normal, intrusive thoughts aren’t actually just your brain doing brain things. My intrusive thoughts always felt like they were mine, but my former religion convinced me they weren’t.
I also don’t know that we would see a lot less religion if errant thoughts were better understood by regular people. Maybe we’d see less theistic religion, but perhaps people would just gravitate towards some other non-theistic spiritual practice instead.
As someone who does not have schizophrenia, the thoughts don’t have to feel foreign for the religion to work. All it takes is persuasive people convincing you that your very normal, intrusive thoughts aren’t actually just your brain doing brain things. My intrusive thoughts always felt like they were mine, but my former religion convinced me they weren’t.
I also don’t know that we would see a lot less religion if errant thoughts were better understood by regular people. Maybe we’d see less theistic religion, but perhaps people would just gravitate towards some other non-theistic spiritual practice instead.