This post should have both negative karma and negative agree votes. Community is good, and spirituality is good, and recognizing the beauty in the universe good, synchronized activity with other humans can be good—but submitting yourself to a religion is always bad. Religion is right up next to culthood.
In particular, since religion is extremely related to and often coincides with cults, have some links:
https://www.microsolidarity.cc/articles/cults—this site is in general my favorite site on the internet right now; it discusses how to create healthy co-supportive, solidarity-heavy social groups without accepting domination or cutting off friendships. Domination and isolation being a key component of cults.
I kind of feel like you failed to read or engage with the post. Like are you willing to say that effective altruism is basically a cult? Or are you rejecting my reframing of religion and just not saying that?
I think I’m explicitly disagreeing with your framing? I thought it wasn’t ambiguous. But yeah, disagree with the framing; religion doesn’t become something else just by saying so.
I might use your definition temporarily if talking to someone who already holds organized religion to be a reasonable idea, so as to explain what I mean before I use the words they don’t like.
This post should have both negative karma and negative agree votes. Community is good, and spirituality is good, and recognizing the beauty in the universe good, synchronized activity with other humans can be good—but submitting yourself to a religion is always bad. Religion is right up next to culthood.
In particular, since religion is extremely related to and often coincides with cults, have some links:
https://www.microsolidarity.cc/articles/cults—this site is in general my favorite site on the internet right now; it discusses how to create healthy co-supportive, solidarity-heavy social groups without accepting domination or cutting off friendships. Domination and isolation being a key component of cults.
https://www.culteducation.com/warningsigns.html
http://www.ex-cult.org/fwbo/CofC.htm
https://www.lesswrong.com/tag/cults (of course)
https://faenrandir.github.io/a_careful_examination/asking-if-its-a-cult-is-wrong-question/
https://cultrecover.com/cultdef
https://cultrecovery101.com/faq/
https://cultrecovery101.com/cult-recovery-readings/checklist-of-cult-characteristics/
I kind of feel like you failed to read or engage with the post. Like are you willing to say that effective altruism is basically a cult? Or are you rejecting my reframing of religion and just not saying that?
I think I’m explicitly disagreeing with your framing? I thought it wasn’t ambiguous. But yeah, disagree with the framing; religion doesn’t become something else just by saying so.
I might use your definition temporarily if talking to someone who already holds organized religion to be a reasonable idea, so as to explain what I mean before I use the words they don’t like.