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It’s not group psychosis or mental illness, true, but it is divorced from reality. Sadly, the human mind is capable generating demonstrably, obviously erroneous beliefs without suffering from significantly abnormal psychology.
Religion is a set of extremely successful myths, which have survived mainly by convincing people that you can’t be a good person without them, which frequently involves disparaging people of other beliefs as bad/evil.
In other words, a really shitty worldview.
Persistent delusions are actually a mental illness
But they’re not persistent delusions. Delusions are, by definition, NOT cultural in origin. This is something that gets pretty well drilled into you when you study abnormal psychology. There’s a difference between someone’s brain malfunctioning and them simply being possessed of outdated cultural beliefs or traditions. It’s why religious beliefs aren’t considered mental illness, but still believing in Santa Claus when you’re an adult would be.
You’re right — it’s actually brain damage and cognitive impairment.
Damage to the prefrontal cortex resulting in cognitive inflexibility can result in a myriad of fixed beliefs—they’re not necessarily religious in nature.
And religious fundamentalism is a particular type of extreme religious belief; most people don’t hold to fundamentalism but are nonetheless religious, so the study doesn’t account for anywhere near all religiosity and certainly doesn’t refute the point that religious faith isn’t a form of mental illness.
I want to make something clear here: I’m an atheist and an antitheist, but I’m also a therapist and it really irks me when atheists try to conflate mental disorders with religion. It’s an example of atheists fueling their distaste for religion by giving in to amateurish ignorance about psychology. Learn what the fuck you’re talking about before trying to make claims that go against what all of the experts in a field of study agree upon. Honestly, atheists ought to know better.