It's got a robust immune system to defend against illnesses. If a person inside the system starts showing signs of corruption, the religion has many built-in mechanisms to disrupt, suppress, or eject the malfunctioning parts of its body. 4/
Conversation
It's got a set of DNA - a book, set of rules, or a specific ideology that serves as the building blocks for its entire being. Over time mutations can appear as culture adopts the instructions to better suit the environment, and sections that failure to adopt die off. 5/
1
1
46
Religion is identifiable as a creature in contrast to other frameworks due to the cohesive, self-sustaining reasons listed above. It has reproduction, survival, defense, immunity, and instructions built in. Most people who are host to an ideological creature are 6/
1
2
51
visibly or measurably different in their behavior than people who don't host a creature (or, more accurately, host much more fluid/smaller scale creatures). They self-segregate, they feature high-sacrifice signaling for greater acceptance of the tribe, they oppose others. 7/
2
1
43
Ironically, according to this definition many liberal churches in America are no longer hosts to religious creatures; the reproductive and defense elements have been eviscerated; their religion has been taxidermied and put on display as some sort of fond memory. 8/
3
1
60
And according to this definition many things that aren't actual religions, are doing the same thing in spirit to religions. The BLM movement seems to be heading this direction - it hits hard every single one of the points I listed above.
10
2
71
This Tweet was deleted by the Tweet author. Learn more
No, I explicitly made the point that this is not applicable in the same way to most other aspects of our worldviews - or rather, it exists on a spectrum and saying both ends of the spectrum are the same thing is wrong.
4
This Tweet was deleted by the Tweet author. Learn more
There are "truths" which want you to believe them, and truths which don't care if you believe them. Only the latter are actually true.
2
1
Again, disagree - sometimes truths that want you to believe them are also true. Those two spectrums are not the same.
Most good things do want to be believed but I wonder