4 ms·

Didn't mean to offend your faith. I am talking about the way faith spreads and not about faith itself. People who need faith are very similar to people who nee

by hux_ 9y ago

Didn't mean to offend your faith. I am talking about the way faith spreads and not about faith itself. People who need faith are very similar to people who need a job or an income. They are all suffering. That is the commonality. One way faith spreads, if you are a student of history, is to claim faith is a "shortcut" fix to suffering. But if you know your faith, you know faith is hard work/just like keeping a job or earning a living honestly. That doesn't stop people from selling a "shortcut". Because selling a shortcut is easy. Neither does it stop people from buying into it.

yorwba 9y ago
Although the reasons people join a religion may be similar, there is a qualitative difference between the spread of religions and pyramid schemes. In a pyramid scheme, the participants are mostly busy recruiting new members, and the tangible benefits of membership are tied to the stream of recruits. Once that stream stops growing, people start dropping out and the same pyramid structure that accelerated the growth also leads to accelerated collapse. Religions that have endured over generations have a very different balance of promises and recruitments. Instead of large immediate rewards that can't be kept up over the long term, they rely on hopes about the indefinite future (e.g. paradise) or benefits that are proportional to the size of the community, not it's growth over time (e.g. caring for their sick). Religions do rely on missionarizing to grow, but they can remain stable even without growth, and mostly propagate themselves by parents converting their children.
- viraptor 9y ago
  > Instead of large immediate rewards that can't be kept up over the long term, they rely on hopes about the indefinite future (e.g. paradise) I think that's ignoring many immediate things people get from religion. Immediate sense of belonging, getting to listen to someone who's "got life figured out", getting some motivation, and many other reasons. Whether that's provided by a megachurch, a local friendly priest, an MLM convention with a charismatic speaker, or another way doesn't matter. I met a masonic priest who joined the group because his wife died and he needed people who would take him out for dinner once a week. I come from a country that's virtually 100% Catholic (or at least was) and don't believe that many people really cared about the final paradise. Or at least that wasn't really the reason they turned up to the church every week.
  - yorwba 9y ago
    I classified those "immediate things people get from religion" under "benefits that are proportional to the size of the community". The point I was trying to make is that successful religions avoid the cycle of frenzied growth and collapse by not making promises that are likely to disappoint their adherents.
ainiriand 9y ago
Thank you very much for your clarification. I think I know what you mean.

by hux_ 9y ago

yorwba 9y ago

Although the reasons people join a religion may be similar, there is a qualitative difference between the spread of religions and pyramid schemes. In a pyramid scheme, the participants are mostly busy recruiting new members, and the tangible benefits of membership are tied to the stream of recruits. Once that stream stops growing, people start dropping out and the same pyramid structure that accelerated the growth also leads to accelerated collapse. Religions that have endured over generations have a very different balance of promises and recruitments. Instead of large immediate rewards that can't be kept up over the long term, they rely on hopes about the indefinite future (e.g. paradise) or benefits that are proportional to the size of the community, not it's growth over time (e.g. caring for their sick). Religions do rely on missionarizing to grow, but they can remain stable even without growth, and mostly propagate themselves by parents converting their children.

viraptor 9y ago
> Instead of large immediate rewards that can't be kept up over the long term, they rely on hopes about the indefinite future (e.g. paradise) I think that's ignoring many immediate things people get from religion. Immediate sense of belonging, getting to listen to someone who's "got life figured out", getting some motivation, and many other reasons. Whether that's provided by a megachurch, a local friendly priest, an MLM convention with a charismatic speaker, or another way doesn't matter. I met a masonic priest who joined the group because his wife died and he needed people who would take him out for dinner once a week. I come from a country that's virtually 100% Catholic (or at least was) and don't believe that many people really cared about the final paradise. Or at least that wasn't really the reason they turned up to the church every week.
- yorwba 9y ago
  I classified those "immediate things people get from religion" under "benefits that are proportional to the size of the community". The point I was trying to make is that successful religions avoid the cycle of frenzied growth and collapse by not making promises that are likely to disappoint their adherents.

ainiriand 9y ago

Thank you very much for your clarification. I think I know what you mean.