Early studies with LSD and monks showed similar results. When the test subjects realized they could chemically achieve the same union with their god that they achieved through meditative contemplation, many left their religious orders, realizing it wasn't a god at all that provided the grace they felt.
I would guess that you are poo pooing a possible realization some monks may have had as disappointment in religion itself, that it is a bias you have toward religion that causes you to interpret such information in that way. Perhaps had you been one of those monks yourself you might have a different understanding. I can invent a different interpretation:
The finger pointing at the moon is not the moon itself in the same way that religion is a bridge to realization only, not itself the truth. Those who look not at the finger but see it points to the moon, those who have via some religion have discovered its inner meaning, have no need or use for the finger or the religion. Siddhartha Gautama practice a in many different schools of enlightenment according to what I have heard, including a form of straight ahead wondering that sought to destroy a major preoccupation people have with surviving physically. In this practice you wander and never beg for food. Long ago people understood there were many monks who wondered on this path and out of kindness would feed them. Coincidentally most monks had the good sense to along paths that would land them where people of that sort lived.
But Siddhartha took it to extreem and found himself in the wilderness in the middle of a river near death and too exhausted to cross, so he decided to hold on to a branch and determined to die right there if he could not reach enlightenment which he did. Part of his realization as I heard from on Yogi was that he realized he had been wasting his time starving himself and wondering around. The truth had always been right there within him. When his deciples found him radiant under the bo tree having achieved his aim, they waited expectantly for the great truth to be revealed. And he did so. He said to them, "Let's eat."
It is hubris to think you can understand the lives of those in the world but not of it if you are of it yourself. A real religion will have traces of teachings that will tell you that and you may need to waste a lot of time realizing it.
So you have realized that religions are insane asylums for people who need certainty spoon fed to them. What about you? Is all there is to do in the world that crap on other people's paths? Isn't the belief that religion is stupid just another form of self arrogant certainty. It's quite likely you are holding on to some personal grudge that some religion tricked you for a bit and you are looking to get even. Get over yourself.
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