I think you’re basically right, secular people are using self-help books to get one of the things that religious people get from their religions.
This isn’t the whole picture, though. Religion offers a lot beyond life advice and norm coordination. For many it also helps with finding meaning or purpose in life and with finding community. Self-help might touch on these a bit (things like processes for finding purpose or “a passion” and advice for how to make friends), but it doesn’t in itself offer the broader containers religions often provide to offer those things.
Put this way, self-help is a bit like just doing something in the space that religion covers with texts and talks, but not covering its other functions.
(None of this is to say that religions don’t sometimes do bad things, etc. etc., because I know someone will read my comment and be like “but what about this bad thing this religion did to me/others”. Or that you can’t live a fulfilling life without religion. But it’s worth admitting that for many people, myself included, religion serves an important role in their lives, and it’s worth considering how secular people meet those same needs that religious people meet via their religion.)
I think you’re basically right, secular people are using self-help books to get one of the things that religious people get from their religions.
This isn’t the whole picture, though. Religion offers a lot beyond life advice and norm coordination. For many it also helps with finding meaning or purpose in life and with finding community. Self-help might touch on these a bit (things like processes for finding purpose or “a passion” and advice for how to make friends), but it doesn’t in itself offer the broader containers religions often provide to offer those things.
Put this way, self-help is a bit like just doing something in the space that religion covers with texts and talks, but not covering its other functions.
(None of this is to say that religions don’t sometimes do bad things, etc. etc., because I know someone will read my comment and be like “but what about this bad thing this religion did to me/others”. Or that you can’t live a fulfilling life without religion. But it’s worth admitting that for many people, myself included, religion serves an important role in their lives, and it’s worth considering how secular people meet those same needs that religious people meet via their religion.)
Furthermore, self-improvement has a lot of potential for harm too.