Why Pseudoscience is worse than Religion.

[brimstoneSalad]

Great post Energy! You covered just about everything I was going to say.

I will say that this mainly applies in the Western world (and maybe not the Islamic world as much), where religion is on the down swing, and is more placid and tolerant.
In the West, pseudoscience is certainly more dangerous, and on an upswing.

The Islamic world may be more complicated; there are issues of pseudoscience and fundamentalism.

While many pseudosciences may come out of religion, the vast majority of the most popular pseudoscience in the West are actually secular.
Getting rid of religion doesn't get rid of pseudoscience, it just changes its character and origins to a more religiously neutral type.

I think it's more important to attack the pseudoscience and encourage religious people to stick to Gould's notions- to discourage conversion of religious ideas into pseudoscience.
Particularly because religion can even have a protective effect against pseudoscience.

A fundamentalist Christian is more likely to seek medical care and just pray in addition to that, rather than turn to something like homeopathy- which they would (in their fundamentalism) consider "voodoo magic".

Christianity, and Judaism before it, take a very strong stance against outside magic.
"Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live".

The same is true for some Muslims, who reject some of these things as "magic", which is outlawed in the Qur'an. Whether that's fortune telling, or alternative healing. Of course, plenty of Muslims are also ignorant enough of their own religion to accept these things anyway, but used correctly, religion can be a kind of inoculation.

That's not to say that this inoculative effect is worth the dangers posed by religious fundamentalism (I don't think it is), but it's something to consider.