Excellent. The framing of many issues by the second estate leads me to think in terms of the more intense political ideologies as cults, being that they are based on articles of faith that only the insiders consider valid. Looking at these as a meta-religion with a priesthood cuts through a lot of the fluff and nonsense justifications. It also calls into question the idolatry of older religious denominations and institutions that have been ideologically captured by said theological-political cults.
I completely agree, I think people have this weird shut off switch in their heads - they hear about religions for the past 2000 years and then eventually they hear about rationalism, and the enlightenment, science, the media, and they flick the switch marked “thinking about religion” to the off setting because the word “god” has been left out.
And certainly, 100% it is a discontinuity, some of the ideas and beliefs DID change, radically, but they are all still “belief and persuasion systems” and some parts of them are very much the same. Or at least, we should categorize them in the same way, so we can think clearly about them.
Excellent. The framing of many issues by the second estate leads me to think in terms of the more intense political ideologies as cults, being that they are based on articles of faith that only the insiders consider valid. Looking at these as a meta-religion with a priesthood cuts through a lot of the fluff and nonsense justifications. It also calls into question the idolatry of older religious denominations and institutions that have been ideologically captured by said theological-political cults.
I completely agree, I think people have this weird shut off switch in their heads - they hear about religions for the past 2000 years and then eventually they hear about rationalism, and the enlightenment, science, the media, and they flick the switch marked “thinking about religion” to the off setting because the word “god” has been left out.
And certainly, 100% it is a discontinuity, some of the ideas and beliefs DID change, radically, but they are all still “belief and persuasion systems” and some parts of them are very much the same. Or at least, we should categorize them in the same way, so we can think clearly about them.