Sounds like a reasonable approach.

what the particular belief is. Is it the nature of mind, something akin to the placebo effect?
The problem with organized religion is one related to power and the sorts of people drawn to that power. It seems that religions begin with a well-meaning "saint" or avatar come to bring some fundamental truth of reality. The message resonates with certain people and they begin forming a community. At first, they will typically run askance of the existing power structure and gain their ire. If they survive and flourish, they eventually become a force to be reckoned with on a different level. Roman Emperor Constantine provides a perfect illustration of this in "adopting" christianity as the state religion, tweeking it to make it more palatable to pagan beliefs. Constantine, in all likelyhood, was a pychopath. Like all psychopaths, he recognized that there was a real power in the christian community. All the attempts at suppressing christianity had failed, so Constantine simply joined it with the state in a deft move. The modern Roman catholic church has also demonstrated the infiltration of psychopaths at the highest levels (again, being drawn to the power there) in the pedophelia scandals, particularly in church officialdom's complicity in facilitating it.

Whether god exists or not is not a question that I think will be answered, but studying religion can provide great insights into it's origins and effects.

Good stuff. Thanks for posting this.

but to get back to the suicidal moths, the point I see is that the poor things were fine before men invented candles.

Back then religion made sense too.