No pun intended.

of how religion doesn't conflict with science?

I better check with Bill Maher.

what you mean?

There are many anti-vaxxers who are not religious, Maher being one of the more prominent.

IOW, Personal Beliefs ARE the same thing as religious beliefs.

Both beliefs are based in irrational and unfounded ideas about vaccinations.

It is ideology-blind.

So this is where religion and science come into conflict. Or do you not think people who object to vaccines because of their religious beliefs are doing it because of their religion?

I accept that people can be wrong about science for other than religious reasons, there are forums here to discuss that too.

By framing it as “population immunity” versus ideology, rather than church versus science or church versus state, they make a cleaner and more persuasive argument.

But at the heart of parents who refuse for religious reasons is a "church vs science" debate.

Though I am in favor of getting it done with whatever approach works.

and damaging effect on the public.

An ideology-blind recommendation like this makes it easier for a court to do so.

Except in cases like birth control insurance and Hobby Lobby, then the court squarely sided with religion to the detriment of society.

But this SCOTUS court has a majority that doesn't care a wit about damaging society.

But since herd immunity doesn't require a 100% immunization rate, it fails at that.

The issue isn't whether some exemptions are okay from a public health standpoint; unless we have a zero-tolerance attitude in which government is responsible instead of a parent for decisions involving children at an early age, they are and have been for decades.

Where the public health breakdown has occurred has been in places where "personal belief" was the standard, and a lot of different personal beliefs were invoked; and where there were concentrations of a single faith system that avoided vaccinations in the name of religious freedom. The latter have been a bane for decades; the former has blossomed only recently.

The reason for the muddling is that organized religion, where one person vouches for the existence at least formally of a belief in non-vaccination, provides a shelter against just saying "it's a matter of convenience." I've known people who've suffered horribly for this "convenience," whether pain or institutional hoops.

However, if you have no "organized religion" provision because, well, why should anything that's collective or communal be more important than the sacred individual, then "personal belief" is anything. "God doesn't want me to rely on human wisdom for what he says he's in charge of" is the same as "I don't have time between now and tomorrow to get my kid vaccinated, plus it's expensive" is the same as "I think the fact that the vaccines are an intentional plot to get massive amounts of mercury and thalium and plutonium into my kid" are all the same. The CDC person rather misses the point for many, possibly because there's a cognitive category missing in her thinking and it's simpler to just say, "All uninformed opinions, i.e., those not like mine, are wrong and to be ignored." (IIRC, it's a "her".)

They want to limit the extent of the exemptions, but lack any criterion they consider acceptable for distinguishing between producing too big a range of exemptions and zero. Since the majority always has the right to demand conformity of the minority--at least in some conditions as required--zero is the right choice. Of course, the original reason for the exemption, apart from issues of personal liberty, was non-intrusion into religion. The small violations of herd immunity didn't constitute a sufficient government interest in such intrusion. If you redefine "religion" as "any opinion" you make your life easier; of course, you also gut that Constitutional provision.

It also satisfies the bureaucrat's daily psychological requirements. If you don't use your authority and power, what good is it? Few bureaucrats, apart from those who gain power from forcing others to respect personal liberties, respect personal liberties.