[bawolff]

I think OP is being reductive, but at the same time, people do make new religions. We usually call them cults. Christianity didn't get a billion followers overnight, it took literally 2000 years of proselytizing. Who knows, the scientologists of today might be the mainstream religion of tomorrow

[avmich]

Cults are cheap, they come and go. Religion - a true one, that's what counts. Cults we've had in the high school, nobody remembers them after a while.

[bawolff]

Survivorship bias? Or am i just missing the joke here?

[avmich]

The point was that there are illusions which hold lots of people for long time. Religions are a good example. However to keep really lots of people for a really long time, religion should survive itself - and outcompete others, and that's not easy. So the argument "religion" shouldn't be brought every time a government is suspected in doing something... conspirological.

[mullingitover]

How do you define 'a true one' when it comes to religion? For most people the true religion is just whatever religion you grew up on.

And cults turn into religions all the time. There's a fine line between a cult and a religion, and that line is ownership of real estate.