Nice article!
There are a few points that I’d like to make…
Religion is a belief system. To believe means that you do not know, otherwise there would be no need to believe. Belief is therefore unfounded, except accidentally.
Outside of the Christian bible there is no historical mention of Jesus. This is crucial, because we have nothing to go on about Jesus except for a closed system that is heavily biased and fraught with erroneous conclusions and ancient beliefs. If we want truth, religion is the last place we should look for it. What little history is embedded in religious teachings is corrupted by an ulterior motive to glorify a dead person, consolidate power, and gain adherents.
The teachings of Jesus mirror the teachings of sages throughout the centuries and down to the present day, and there is but one message. Socrates said it best and most succinctly: “Know thyself.” It is a good message, but lesser minds always corrupt and misuse good teachings.
If one truly enquires into the sense of self then eventually it crumbles and the obvious appears: The self is an ephemeral, illusory sense of being and it is the cause of suffering. All awakened teachers know this, yet their followers warp and twist their words to create a following (religion) that is fueled by greed, ego, and a lust for power and wealth. The Christian Church is proof of this as much as any other religion.
Religion is by nature a divisive institution. It has concretized the teachings of a sage and then walled itself off from all other people and groups to create a sense of “ours is the only true belief and everyone else is inferior.” This is not only true of Christianity’s attitude, but also that of Islam, Judaism, and others. Even too many Buddhists share this belief.
By pointing out the logical fallacies used to promote and legitimize religion you have made a clear argument for its failure to satisfy the ultimate goal of Jesus (and any awakened sage), which is to bring harmony and love out from behind the shadow of the self and its nucleus of destructive thoughts.
One of the most difficult logical fallacies (as you mention) to overcome is the bandwagon argument — everyone else is doing it, so that makes it true, valid, or worthy. I would argue that the vast majority of all people on earth are not ready for the truth, which means facing the sense of self, the egoic self, and therefore they remain in fear. And to allay one’s fears (or the masses’ fears), huddling together is quite satisfying for as long as it works.
