@LukeAlmighty forgive the rant pls

people who actually go to church frequently probably view it as both for the most part. the people who only go on easter and christmas probably only see it as religion, but maybe closer to tradition than religion.

personally, i won't ever go to church again. if people treated church ONLY as a community thing then that's fine, but i don't think participating in religion is really not that healthy and i do think that no religion on earth is true anyway. Jesus never set up a religion because men are corrupt... He came to abolish religion, to get people away from it and to follow Him instead. then, what do people do? they make a religion anyway. "oh but it's not judaism this time, it's different!" yeah i think Jesus would kick the pope's ass, unironically.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6TxjrHPHypA

even the mormon prophet makes $100K salary (and the 70+ people under him make close to that much as well) and the church also owns a fuck load of land, has a shit ton of money in big pharma, etcetera. what's crazy is that i was told a lot as a kid that the mormon church was better than catholicism because all of the teachers and bishops and such do it voluntarily and don't get paid... but that's only true at the lowest level... and that 100K is just what is made from people paying tithing to the church. there's plenty of stuff they get like health care, royalties from stuff the business branch of the church sells, the works...

i think a lot of people in general feel like they need religion or need church in their life, and at least in utah with the mormon church it seems heavily rooted in tradition as well as fear of breaking that tradition, with a sprinkle of making sure you look good to everyone else in your neighborhood. "keeping up with the joneses" if you will. with a lot of catholics i'm sure a lot of it is rooted in tradition too.

something i have said for a while now is that religion makes good people feel like sinners, and it makes sinners feel good about themselves. bad people know they can repent and be absolved while good people develop guilt for being human.

of course i am just talking about abrahamic religion because that's all i've personally experienced. eastern philosophies like buddhism are a lot different and seem to be focused more on the individual than the religion/community.