Well, in the first place, I don't know that I'd say religion has to involve the supernatural.

I define religion as involving the supernatural, and that does seem to be the generally accepted definition. There is usual some faith in a supernatural existence or force, usually a type of deity. How the religious practitioner chooses to act depends on the supernatural force, and the impact in this world may be slight to severe. The definition of religion simply becomes meaningless if you open it up to any kind of belief - aka I believe the earth is round based on scientific evidence, but could conceivably be wrong, maybe I am the victim of a computer experiment ala The Matrix, thus I am practicing religion. That is why I do not support your extension of belief in an attempt to equate.

But I used "stand-in" deliberately. Communism served in the place of a religion.

I don't agree that communism served in place of religion as you suggest. The state did not take the place of a deity. A deity is supernatural the state is not. If a god issues an edict, it's an argument between god and man. If the state issues an edict, it is issued by humans (who are the state) and is an argument between humans if they disagree.

And so also I do not agree that under atheism is a belief system that functions like religion. There is a significant distinction, in that religion involves action based on a supposed existence of a supernatural force. By contrast the atheist acts based on evidences in this world. There is no supernatural mover that needs to be taken into account.

Well, in the first place, I don't know that I'd say religion has to involve the supernatural.

But I used "stand-in" deliberately. Communism served in the place of a religion. It involved central tenets to which one must hold. It required a belief that the State knew better than the individual. Thus, the State took the place of deity. Believing could get you rewards; disbelief, punishment. It had its own code of ethics. In these ways it provided the cohesion--like a religion--that motivated masses of people in one direction, toward one goal. So, yes, I see it as at least an ersatz religion.

We always argue that atheism isn't a religion. I agree. It's no more a religion than is theism. Theism itself isn't a religion, but beneath it are many religions. Likewise, although atheism itself isn't a religion, beneath it are many belief systems that function very much like religions. Because atheism is so particulate--each of us has his own variety--we tend not to label these "religions." Communism was (is) an exception to that general rule.

Unless I'm mistaken, Plato was talking about a deliberately contrived religion. Those tend not to work. (Coming immediately to mind are the French religion of the Revolution and Communism, which was, at least, a religion stand-in.)

Is there some supernatural component of communism that I am unaware? Otherwise I do not view communism as a religious stand-in. A key element of religion is that it involves people making decisions based on supposed supernatural forces. The actions of the religious can be highly problematic when they are guided by a supernatural force, because they may not be open to rational argument. By contrast, if one does not agree with the communist, one can have a rational argument of why certain aspects of that social system are wrong, without the communist justifying his/her position by invoking a supernatural force. That is a big problem with religion - how can you argue with a supernatural entity.

No, unless a belief system grows from the ground up, it's not likely to last long. Often there's a Mohammad or Joseph Smith to act as a nucleus, but the pearl comes by the work of many others. It lives on because it fills a need (which, by the way, is no evidence there's any transcendent truth in it). It shapes itself as it grows to better meet that need, such that after a few generations the founders would hardly recognize it. You really can't impose that kind of thing from above and expect success, for the same reason you can't say, "Believe this," and expect people to really do so.

But all this is getting off track as to the topic. I just us to recognize that we, too, have our beliefs. We'd better think long and hard before pressing those beliefs on people who don't see things the same way. (Which, of course, is not to say that we never should.) I fear tyranny. I don't don't care whether it comes by way of Fundamentalist Christians or Muslims or Atheists. Because I'll tell you this: I've run across many an atheist who would make impositions that I would find intolerable. Others speak against religion with such mad vehemence that I would as much fear them gaining power as I would theocratic Christians. If it ever came to that, expect to find me standing on the believers' side of the road, pitchfork in hand. No, I could never be one of them, but I'd defend their right to be wrong.

I would not want to dismiss the royal-lie theory of religion out of hand, but I think that one ought to be honest about it, as Plato had been.

Which makes me wonder if certain people would have similar objections to other large-scale efforts to control STD's -- and if certain people would mourn the success of such efforts.

I'm reminded of

In America the earthquake of 1755 was widely ascribed, especially in Massachusetts, to Franklin's rod. The Rev. Thomas Prince, pastor of the Old South Church, published a sermon on the subject, and in the appendix expressed the opinion that the frequency of earthquakes may be due to the erection of "iron points invented by the sagacious Mr. Franklin." He goes on to argue that "in Boston are more erected than anywhere else in New England, and Boston seems to be more dreadfully shaken. Oh! there is no getting out of the mighty hand of God."

The full story: Andrew Dickson White on Ben Franklin's Lightning Rod

ADW mentioned elsewhere in that book that it used to be common to believe that various diseases were God's punishment for people's sins, and that to try to cure or prevent them was thwarting God.

Believe it or not, I tend to agree. My comments were directed toward a common attitude among atheists, et al. We all know religion can be very, very bad. (It can put disease to shame sometimes for the harm it does.) But, like you say, it's done a lot of good. It might even be averred that's it's done good that nothing else could have accomplished.

In fact, I sometimes get on the nerves of the unbelieving community by suggesting that not only is religion unavoidable, it's probably necessary. Some of my comments about faith among non-religionists above were toward this end. There's got to be something that unites us in a common cause. We have to be able to form consensuses about some things that aren't empirically provable. There are times when we just have to say, "This is the truth," even if we can't support it to everyone's satisfaction. Call it something else if it suits you, but, by definition, that's faith; or, rather, faith is required to accept it. Thus, at some point we return to something very like religion, theistic or not.

Vaccinations protect groups by preventing contact through spreading in populations. Most vaccines are not 100% effective at preventing the disease, but by inoculating a certain percentage of the population, the disease is prevented from spreading. Some in the group can still get the disease, whether or not they are vaccinated, but the likelihood is severely reduced, since contact is diminished. This is why if some in a group are not vaccinated, the risk can be negligible. Although at a certain point the risk does become significant, as we have seen in some countries where vaccination rates have fallen below a certain percentage of the population, allowing the disease to spread.

So from a risk point of view, the case cannot be made that every person needs to be vaccinated from all diseases, only that a large percentage of a group should be vaccinated from targeted diseases. One then needs to decide who should be vaccinated, and from what disease the person should be vaccinated. For example, some people have a family history that indicates negative reaction to certain vaccinations, one reason the doctor usually asks about this prior to inoculation - or should. There may be a case where a particular vaccination should not be given to a child. Depending on the group and vaccination level, the risk is negligible, and in fact the risk of giving the child the vaccination could be worse than not giving it.

There is a reason why we are not all vaccinated for the many diseases that exist in parts of Africa. We are not part of that group, unless we live in or become part of that group through travel in that population. Then we usually get inoculated. We have to look at the particular group and then determine the risk of vaccination. For example, given the polio risk in the USA seven years ago, when the live vaccine was still in use, I would not have vaccinated my child with that vaccine. This is because the risk of getting polio from that vaccine was greater than getting it from that particular population.

It should be evident that the issue is not simply one of vaccinating everyone, but of looking at groups and assessing risks. We vaccinate based on our risk group, taking into account that not all need to be vaccinated to protect the group, and that at the individual level some may have a valid reason not to be vaccinated.