Yeah, people have been selling an invisible product since thousands of years (religion), so it is quite possible to get billions of people to lie to themselves and to others.
These ideas constitute groups around them, forming a bedrock of a social belief system.
Ironically, this is exactly how conspiracies function: "we never landed on the moon".
This does not apply to people with material goals, rather than social(/epistemic) ones. The goal, "let's poison everyone with 5G" isn't an essentially meaningless doctrine ie., whose only impact is on belief, not on the world.
Goals to change the world, rather than to regulate belief, require actual self-awareness, coordination and a desire to realise that end-goal. In this case, i'd require >1mil+ people absurdly committed to poisoning everyone around them (and not least, to have some magical ability to induce a virus with a wifi signal).
You can't apply "religion" argument that easily.
L. Ron Hubbard. Church of Latter Day Saints. There have been major religions established in the last 2 centuries in the USA alone.
>> people have been selling an invisible product since thousands of years (religion), so it is quite possible to get billions of people to lie to themselves and to others.
The "billions" qualification comes from your specific interpretation of this statement to mean a single religion. This is not the assertion. Nor is the specific count relevant to the point, as billions can be read to mean all relgions combined. Large groups of people can deceive each other and themselves. Full stop.
The argument was "people are believing in imaginary things, in billions and for centuries". For billions - or so - and for centuries - or so - arguments to apply, the religion ought to be major.
> The "billions" qualification comes from your specific interpretation of this statement to mean a single religion.
Oh, so now goalposting mean not a single example, but a combined group :) in comparison to one specific - and rather located in time and geography - government program.
Frankly, at this point I don't see much sense in more hairsplitting. Points were made, anyone can think for oneself from these.
And cults turn into religions all the time. There's a fine line between a cult and a religion, and that line is ownership of real estate.
Pascal's wager (at least) would suggest some kind of logic to it
Picking the wrong one may even come with greater loss than picking none of them, because praying to false gods may bring upon me the wrath of the true gods more so than simply keeping an open mind.