[jawns]

I am a Catholic Christian and a moral objectivist, so my thoughts are, of course, colored by my own religious and philosophic views. With that disclaimer out of the way ...

I don't think this rings true. It suggests that the morality espoused by a particular religion basically just boils down to public opinion. But there are a multitude of cases from my own and other religions where the message put forth by the religion was never popularly accepted by the prevailing community. You can move the goal posts, of course, and say that it's not the prevailing community's views that matter but the tribe's, and you can define "tribe" in such a way that it only applies to the people who accept a particular opinion -- but then that becomes a tautology.

It also suggests that the primary goal of religion is to attract new members, and so the religion is going to offer views that appeal to the majority of people. I don't think religion resembles politics in that way, at least not for the major world religions.

[4death4]

I think there are different ways to interpret what a popular opinion is. For instance, there is doing thing X, wanting to do thing X, and wanting to want to do thing X. So even if a religious concept appears unpopular, it’s possible that believers of a religion want to express that concept, or even want to want to express that concept, even if they don’t directly express that concept in their everyday lives.

I think abortion is a good example of this. Plenty of people who oppose abortions have had abortions themselves.

[bsdpufferfish]

Exactly. A huge component of Christianity is separation from the world and standing out against a crowd.

There is certainly a popular folk religion, but this is not the essence of religion.

[deepfriedchokes]

In group/out group ego games are about feeding the narcissists false self, not “values”. In order to support the false self the narcissist must create an out-group in order to place themselves in the in-group. Cults are groups of narcissists. Religions are cults whose founder has died.

Read The Naked Feminist where the author talks about the origins of modesty. It’s all about power and ego.

[throw__away7391]

That’s what they claim, but it is not true in the slightest.

Christians generally maintain a persecution complex even when they are holding tremendous power over others in their society, and this goes back centuries. It is extremely common for Christians to talk about slight curtailment of their ability to oppress others as persecution.

[bsdpufferfish]

So where does this enormous power exist in the US? What powerful institutions or media influence do they control?

How would Catholicism represent the mean of public opinion?

[paulryanrogers]

> What powerful institutions or media influence do they control?

Christians (even if in name only) have maintained majority control of the executive, judicial, and legislative branches since inception. They often still publicly swear an oath with a hand on the bible.

[bsdpufferfish]

A few points.

- The founder's didn't even believe in the Bible, likely including George Washington.

- Stated vs revealed preferences are complicated among politicians.

- being jewish clearly has an influence on politicians and businessmen who identify that way, and they often make reference to it. Can you give an example of a president or supreme court judge revealing that kind of influence? George bush doesn't even believe religion is the root issue in the conflict with the Middle East.

[ben_w]

jawns wrote of Catholicism, bsdpufferfish and throw__away7391 wrote of Christianity. The latter, broader, category is the majority of the population across the USA.

The enormous power exists in the voters within the USA, because it's a democracy filled with many who hold religious views, despite the theoretical separation of church and state.

"In God We Trust" on the money is a superficial symptom of that.

[bsdpufferfish]

> jawns wrote of Catholicism, bsdpufferfish and throw__away7391 wrote of Christianity.

The claim that is addressing is that religion is the mean of popular belief. How does that account for the Catholic experience? Catholics are obviously a minority among American christians and have less political power.

> The latter, broader, category is the majority of the population across the USA.

Indeed. However they are not organized in any way. The percentage who has been to a church more than 3x in their life is probably significantly lower.

[thfuran]

It may not be a primary goal, but it is a necessary feature for a religion to spread.

[shunyaekam]

OP here. You're absolutely right. Thank you. I'm reworking the essay.

As I wrote in my top-level comment, what I really want to talk about is

> Is there a canonical parametrization of all social groups that describes their culture?

And not anything related to religion per se.

[borlanco]

That parameterization exists, of course, but are you ready to consider the possibility that it might be unknowable?