Everything Is F*cked

Interpersonal  religions.  Interpersonal  religions  draw  hope  from  other  people  in  our  lives.
Examples  of  interpersonal  religions  include  romantic  love,  children,  sports  heroes,  political
leaders, and celebrities.
Spiritual  religions  are  high  risk/high  reward.  They  require,  by  far,  the
most skill and charisma to get going. But they also pay off the most in terms
of  follower  loyalty  and  benefits.  (I  mean,  have  you  seen  the  Vatican?  Holy
shit.) And if you build one really well, it’ll last way after you die.
Ideological  religions  play  the  religion  formation  game  on  “Normal
Difficulty.” These religions take a lot of work and effort to create, but they’re
fairly  common.  But  because  they’re  so  common,  they  run  into  a  lot  of
competition for people’s hopes. They are often described as cultural “trends,”
and indeed, few of them survive more than a few years or decades. Only the
best last through multiple centuries.
Finally, interpersonal religions are playing the religion formation game on
“Easy” mode. That’s because interpersonal religions are as common as people
themselves.  Pretty  much  all  of  us,  at  some  point  in  our  lives,  completely
surrender  ourselves  and  our  self-worth  to  another  individual.  The
interpersonal religion is sometimes experienced as an adolescent, naïve sort of
love  and  it’s  the  type  of  shit  that  you  have  to  suffer  through  before  you  can
ever grow out of it.
Let’s start with spiritual religions, as they have the highest stakes and are
arguably the most important religions in human history.