Religion is not the best strategy to achieve worthwhile human goals

My computer's been restarting randomly, and I don't want to type for long just to end up with my arguments erased, so I can only offer a brief response to each argument. First off, bringing calculus into the equation isn't logical for this particular problem, because while revenue and money can be measured, "wellness" cannot be done the same way. What is a unit of wellness? How can you KNOW that you have reached the maximum wellness? What are the solid variables, and how can we measure and compare them? Is it even possible? I would imagine that if it was, we would have done it by now, but "wellness" cannot yet be defined by hard sciences. Your argument was that religion is not the best way to reach maximum wellness. You have yet to prove that, though, since you haven't been able to offer any real alternative. We can talk theoreticals all day; theoretically, there IS a maximum wellness, and theoretically, it can be measured. But because we don't live in a theoretical world, the theoretical method of how we might reach maximum wellness is NOT the best way of reaching maximum wellness, since we haven't been able to reach this theoretical point (hence it being... theoretical). So what are we left with? Well, we are left with our own minds. If we cannot study scientifically how to reach the maximum amount of wellness possible, then we are left with reaching the maximum wellness we can. That peak may rise based on new information, but all that means is that a new maximum is set, and without having any way to find or realistically define an absolute maximum, then the best way of reaching the maximum wellness humanly possible (rather than theoretically possible) certainly can be religion. The afore-cited articles would agree with me on the science of that. Second, once again, the truthfulness of the stories of religion in no way affect the ability for one to know that they are essentially happier than they have ever been. The main disagreement we have, I think, is that you believe it is important that there IS a maximum possible wellness value, while my point is that if it does exist, it doesn't matter, because we have no way of understanding it (at least not that you have been able to show). Therefore, the ONLY maximum we can rely upon is an individual maximum set for each person who can say honestly, "I am as well or more well than I have ever been." If they can say that, then they HAVE reached the maximum wellness they can. "Maximizing our well-being", your original stated objective of all humans, does NOT mean, "reaching the maximum well-being possible." If a person is as happy as they have ever been, then they have, in their own context, maximized their well-being, even if that means using what you see as false truths to do so. Third, the "scientific methodology", as I pointed out, cannot apply to something as ethereal as well-being. I can guarantee that if it were possible to discover the maximum possibility of wellness scientifically, it would have been done by now already, and there would be thousands of books written about how to attain it. The ultimate problem comes down to this. If you cannot possibly find the maximum well being, whether the problem is a bad formula, a variable we can't measure, or whatever, then you cannot use that as a standard by which to measure any possibility of maximizing well-being. Therefore, the only truly experiential way of observing maximum well-being is on a more subjective, personal level based almost entirely upon the person's feelings of wellness (unless we wanted to go so far as to measure brain activity). If that is the case, then the ONLY way we are capable of measuring wellness is to compare groups of people attempting to maximize wellness, and compare the relative happiness of all groups to each other. Then we pick the group that uses the method producing the highest mean of wellness. It's a silly experiment, but it's all we can do at this moment. Your argument was originally that religion is not the best way of reaching maximum wellness. Without a usable definition of maximum wellness, a scientific process that is NOT theoretical and could actually be used in true measurement, or a method that, using the possible experiment above, could produce a higher wellness than religion, you have not been able to prove your original assertion. I will admit that it is POSSIBLE that religion is not the best way of maximizing wellness, but until we come up with a way to measure religion against ANY other alternative, there is no way to PROVE that.