This is really interesting, thanks for the discussion. Is the writing all yours or are you paraphrasing Taleb a lot?

Firstly, I think this is an important point. Religion and spiritualism, and the things that are often lumped in with religion and spiritualism, is not stupid nor pointless. There is wisdom there and only the blindest non-believers think it's pure fantasy.

However it's not clear if there's a point beyond this.

Strangers are all kidnappers is a false belief, but religion isn't about belief. Belief isn't the important part of life that insures your survival and happiness.

The "all strangers are kidnappers" (this is the correct word ordering) falsehood is only useful if believed and works well for children who are limited in their ability to discover otherwise. To apply this to adults is a bit of a mistake because it implies that there needs to be a power differential between those who really know the truth and those that don't. That not all strangers are kidnappers might be some kind of secret sacred knowledge, or a blasphemy. Perhaps no one knows it but anyone who suggests it are heretics. This is more in line with the actual (and not simply strawmanned) atheist opposition to religious practice - it can and often does attempt to suppress truth.

The fact is that not all strangers are kidnappers, but it's also true that some strangers are kidnappers, so it's reasonable to assume that a stranger could be a kidnapper. Simply using the distribution of kidnappers in the population to arrive at a probability and then (most importantly) using this probability to assess risk is really foolish, and we intuitively know why - because in the unlikely case you do meet one and the situation is in the kidnappers favor, the negative consequences are really really bad. In other words, the probably is weighed heavier by scale of the effect if it happens.