[redczar]

You are trying to fight how people use words and you won’t be successful. Phrases like “religious fervor” and “religiously <did some activity>” etc. are in common usage and refer to things outside of religion.

Phones are worshipped in the sense that many people are lost or will panic if they had to do without them for an extended period of time. Using worshipped evokes an image that is apt.

[BlarfMcFlarf]

The meaning of words is central to the meaning of the article. If the meaning of religion is devolved to “very interested in” then the meaning of the article is “people are very interested in their phones” which is a quite boring article.

You can’t rely on the gravity of the word religious while also disregarding it.

[redczar]

This is how people use the word now. He religiously did yoga every day. They religiously attended every game. That book became their bible. The phone is now everyone’s idol.

[keiferski]

Again; that would be fine if the post wasn’t explicitly about comparing it to real religion and quoting scholars of religion.

[redczar]

That’s a fair point.

[keiferski]

I’m just calling out sloppy thinking and sloppy word choice.

And beyond that, the author explicitly made the reference to religion as a concept and to religious sociology by bringing up Durkheim. He made the analogy to actual religion.

[redczar]

Your jihad against how these words are used in common speech will fail.