
They Tried to Start a Church Without God. For a While, It Worked - dalbasal
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/07/secular-churches-rethink-their-sales-pitch/594109/
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dalbasal
This general area has always been the interesting to me. Historically, people
often think of society divided into "estates." A medieval take was to see
these in class-ish terms: peasantry, nobility and clergy, for example.

In modern terms, we might think of it terms of methods of organisation, or
organization types. We have governments, our biggest organisations. Religions
still exist and are substantial. But, the culturally dominant type are
corporations. It's corporate culture that tends to be mimicked.

The big modern difference is that these are not exclusive. You participate in
corporate organisations, democracy & such.

In any case, I suspect that developing healthy diversity of estates is
important. There are "jobs" that's church or church-like organisation will do
better than a corporation or government body. The formula is elusive though.

When Louise Theroux researched Scientology, he spoke a lot to ex-
scientologists. Many still believed in Scientology (especially at the start),
they just wanted out of the"church." The plan was to "do Scientology" without
the extreme stuff. Louise commented that it seemed to devolve to a "self help"
group, too banal to be substantial.

Organized religion is ultimately interesting. It's been with us for a long
time, had a lot of influence. I'd like to think there's continuity, without a
supernatural basis.

