Is religion the result of a confused sexuality, madness or something else?
As a species we like stories. We also have a curiosity about the world melded with a strong desire to understand things. Not least, we are self-aware beings confronting death and loss.
Myths did a fair job of filling the bill and served a vital purpose for much of our history. Curators of myths found thereby a route to position and power. Religion may not have been inevitable, but its existence certainly is understandable. I'd say it's not a mistake so much as a regrettable diversion.
increasingly i believe that religion has no redeeming qualities.
quakerism appears to me to be an exception that proves the rule, but even that is suseptible to degeneration.
Religion is the culmination of hoomankind's fear, ignorance, and arrogance.
To me, religion is no mistake when your goal is power.