I think you missed the point of the article. The article is more of an explanation than an argument. You seem to have been triggered by certain negative statements I made about Christianity, but this article doesn't attempt to prove that Christian doctrines are groundless. I've written dozens of other articles that do that. This article here, rather, takes for granted that Christianity is empirically flawed and is throughly mythical, and aims to explain the nature of the theistic beliefs and practices, given that atheistic verdict. What's the social function of monotheistic beliefs, for example? My answer is that they're shibboleths.

I'm not going to go through your quibbles here because they're irrelevant to the point of the article. I'll just point out that when you say "when large numbers of people believe similar things there is more to that belief system/philosophy than just 'our [collective] emotions and instincts,'" that's a perfect case of the fallacious appeal to popularity.

Have you really considered whether certain mass beliefs and practices are indeed based on little more than emotion and instinct? How about all the ancient cultures you as a Christian reject as preposterous? Wouldn't you have to say that those non-Christian myths and rituals were foolish? So wouldn't you want a sociological theory of how those erroneous cultures sustained themselves? What was the social function of those preposterous myths? Those are the questions I'm addressing here, and what bothers you is that I'm addressing them with respect to your beloved myths.

I know you'd say there's no need for a sociological explanation since there's a theological one: erroneous cultures are those that have been led astray by demons. But precisely because this account would be theological, it would be more like a poetic insult against the non-Christians than a genuine explanation of their behaviour.