The flip side of “All religions have something of value to teach,” is “All religions have a distortion of reality baked in to serve the ruling elite.”
It may be a comforting idea like karma. The flip side of people eventually getting what they deserve is that it allows you to ignore injustice.
I'm using the term “ruling elite” very loosely here. For a micro-religion (like a cult), the elite may be a single leader who benefits from the faith of their followers.
To stretch this idea as far as it’ll go, what does this mean for a completely personal religion where the only believer also defines the dogma? In this case, you’re basically deluding yourself for your own benefit. If you don’t actually benefit, then your idio-religion has failed and is pathological.
You might argue that any self-delusion or distortion of reality is inherently bad, but that’s the thing about religions: they tend to make unprovable assertions about the unknowable, so you can’t actually say they’re objectively wrong.
Anything you do say is your own personal belief, part of your idio-religion.
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