Understanding Religion

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What is the difference between a religion and a cult? In my view, religions are eugenic strategies, while cults are dysgenic followings.

I felt compelled to write this blog because I have ideas that are simple yet overlooked. For example, religion is not about changing who you are as a person, but rather about changing which kind of people will be your descendants. This is simple enough a statement to be self-evident, but it never occurs to almost anyone. Most are caught up on the issue of whether or not religion can change your heart and soul, an issue irrelevant to religion.

Historically, religion operates not by altering individuals, but by gradually shaping the heritage (genetics and culture) of its descendants. An insular religion with strict rules and punishments will eventually fine-tune the genetic makeup of its population. Over time, its followers will be mostly people with the natural inclinations to follow those rules without struggle. This happens because they expel individuals who cannot conform, while those who find the lifestyle natural build the most stable families or have the most children.

Ed Dutton—a right-winged political commentator and researcher with a PhD in Religious Studies—argues that religions are eugenic strategies seeking to improve the genetic quality of their followers. I already agree, but with two caveats:

  1. First, Dutton is a firm truth realist, while I am a truth relativist. He believes in stance-independent truths, whereas I believe truths are relative to paradigms, denying that any single paradigm constitutes absolute reality. This distinction matters: the view that religions are eugenic strategies compels a truth realist like Dutton to be an atheist (or agnostic), whereas it compels a truth relativist like me to be religious. If truths are relative, there is probably nothing wrong with a religion's metaphysics unless they suffer glaring internal contradictions. Hence, I can safely ignore religious metaphysics and focus entirely on evaluating the normative (moral and aesthetic) utility of different religions.
  2. Second, Dutton is too reductionist. He ascribes all lowering of intelligence to genetics; the problem with this is culture cannot be separated from genetics. Dutton holds a purely genetic view of eugenics, whereas I view eugenics as a biocultural feedback loop. Culture shapes which genetic traits get selected across generations, and genetics shapes which cultural practices a people can sustain. Hence, when I assert that religions are eugenic strategies, I am not claiming they merely seek to improve genetics, but that they aim to elevate the values of the cultures expounded by those religions.

This raises a fun question: what are the "best" and "worst" religions? Here, "best" simply means the most fluorishing, and "worst" means the most dysgenic. The most reliable metrics for prophesizing dysgenics include high out-of-wedlock birth rates, low birth rates, high rates of premarital sex, high rates of casual sex, high rates of extramarital sex, inbreeding, poor nutrition, and the absence of cognitively stimulating activities for children. Consequently, I reject the teachings of any religion whose communities trend toward societal decay. Below, I rank major religious groups based strictly on their fluorishing in practice:

  • S tier (best)
    • Haredi Jews
    • Conservative Mennonites
  • A tier (good)
    • Modern/Dati Orthodox Jews
    • Latter-Day Saints
    • Old Order Amish
    • Old Order Mennonites
    • Sub-Saharan African Muslims
    • Salafi/Wahhabi-influenced or highly conservative Sunni Muslims
  • B tier (fair)
    • Conservative/Masorti Jews
    • Conservative Lutherans
    • Pre-Vatican II Catholics
    • Resurgent Orthodox Christians
    • Traditional Reformation Protestantism
    • Modern Sunni Muslims
    • Indonesian/Malay Muslims
    • Turkish/Secular-leaning Sunni Muslims
  • C tier (poor)
    • Reform/Liberal/Secular Jews
    • Liberal Lutherans
    • Shia Muslims
    • Highly urbanized Western Muslim diaspora
    • Mainstream Protestants
    • Vatican Catholics
    • Hindus
  • D tier (failing)
    • Jehovah's Witnesses
    • Liberal Quakers
    • Buddhists
    • Shintos
    • Seventh-Day Adventists
  • F tier (dysgenic)
    • Secularism
    • New-Aged Atheism
While I don't have the energy to explain every ranking, I will go over the S tier. Haredi Jews and Conservative Mennonites boast 6-7+ children per family, extremely low non-marital births (0.4% for Conservative Mennonites; 2% for Haredi Jews), early adult marriage, high community investment, and practical, resilient skills. Who wins between the two? It is hard to say. From what I can tell, both have an excellent future. Haredi Jews appear to have a higher average IQ, but Conservative Mennonites have an underrated intellectual following and currently face fewer issues with inbreeding and founder effects. Additionally, Conservative Mennonites have lower rates of non-marital births, and the rates could be even lower for Old Order Amish and Old Order Mennonites. (This is unknown).

I placed the Old Order Amish and Old Order Mennonites in the A tier because they represent a slight eugenic downgrade from Haredi Jews. They share similar inbreeding and founder effect challenges, but with a slightly lower average IQ. That said, a modest IQ average has its advantages: extremely high-IQ populations often sacrifice traditional constraints for individual talent output, inadvertently triggering their own societal downfall. We saw this with Ancient Greece and Ancient Egypt.

Verdict: Religions are not cults, and cults are not religions. Religions and cults are two distinct kinds of followings: religions are eugenic strategies—although some strategies are more successful than others—and cults are dysgenic followings.

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