The power of sauerkraut to bring on religious visions and/or mystical experiences has been highly exaggerated in the western press... ;-) (to say nothing of hallucinogenic spores)
Bill, I think what you have been saying for years amounts basically adds up, in effect, to something like this: "Because religion often is conducted in an authoritarian and dogmatic manner...because its adherents often accept unproven and highly questionable notions and dogmas...because some religious people are fanatical about those dogmas....it is my contention that religion is, by definition....(ahem)...not a good or true thing. Therefore, I am against it."
At least if that's not what you're saying, that certainly seems to be strongly implied in what you're saying.
And I can't agree with that sort of an attitude when it is applied to "religion" in a blanket sense...across the board.
After all, I could say exactly the same critical things about any number of other matters besides religion...were I to focus only on the negatives, which is what I think you do when it comes to religion.
Religion, like all other major human concerns, and be and is ALL things. It is both good and bad, both wise and ignorant, both enlightened and unenlightened, both useful and useless, both a blessing and a curse, both encouraging and discouraging of independent thought....DEPENDING on who is engaged in it, how they are engaged in it, and exactly what they are doing with it.
You cannot define the intrinsic value of organized religion in a blanket sense any more than you can with organized science, organized politics, organized law, organized law enforcement, organized education or organized anything else.
If you're against religion simply because it IS religion, then you've missed the boat and you are espousing a form of (unintentional) bigotry and revealing a form of personal prejudice which I think would have to derive from your own background in some way.
You have to assess each situation on its own merits. You cannot rightly pass blanket judgement upon "religion" in a general sense just because you are not "religious".
As one who used to do just that....I was terribly judgemental in a negative way against all religion at one time, on principle....I am quite sensitive about this. I notice it right away when someone is doing it. Nobody likes to see someone else repeating his own past errors.