That's an excellent framing of why this idea has limited utility, outside e.g. propaganda. Arguably this is one of the implicit arguments going on in between f

That's an excellent framing of why this idea has limited utility, outside e.g. propaganda. Arguably this is one of the implicit arguments going on in between factions in Kim Stanley Robinson's _The Ministry for the Future_: in it, one faction wants to exploit the way faith and the religious mindset are powerful (perhaps the only proven) mechanism for constraining social behaviors, by making a Gaia-religion. Another is uncomfortable with this idea, e.g. because it's cynical and exploitative. Whatever keeps us moving up the Kardashev scale...