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It has happened many, many times, not just twice- the dividing lines between Ideology and Religion are more of an illusion than a reality.
No they are not, they are highly cautious about defending their own non-theistic Religion, which we call "wokeness". Their core narrative is that their own non-theistic Religion is the One and True Just morality, and heretics have only ever covered the world in blood while their own ideology has liberated the masses. It's a highly convenient narrative, but it isn't true and their bloodlust against heretics is not driven by caution against non-theistic Religion, it's driven by fanaticism towards their own non-theistic Religion.
I agree, but isn't this exactly what Marvel Comics does? Heroes in that canon achieve this same influence without demanding the audience believes the literal truth of the myths they portray. This was also similar to the Roman system, where there was certainly superstition among the laity but the essence of the Religion itself was civic ritual rather than a personal salvation cult based on belief in the literal truth of the myth of a dying-and-rising god. Abrahamic religion is is fairly unique in this regard in terms of demanding belief in the literal truth of the claimed miracles, and it did not appear to be a feature of European religious practice pre-Christianity.
The European gods were like tribal mascots, held dearly, but more like Comic-con on steroids than mass belief in the actual, literal resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Yahwehism demands belief in the literal truth of the miracles it claims, but that is not a necessary feature of a religion per se. That is my point. If I were to "design a religion" and somehow use AI or something to meme it into existence, I wouldn't choose to make that a feature of my religion because it has proven to be vulnerable/killed by rationalism and enlightenment thinking.
There of course is the prospect, the likelihood, that all religion has always been consciously designed by a cultural elite in order to invoke a psychological effect in intended flocks. This is how Plato saw the Greek religion, and how Nietzsche saw Christian religion as well.
Nietzsche viewed the Death of God as an existential crisis, certainly, but he still welcomed it because he viewed it as a sink or swim moment for humanity. It's a moral crisis but it's also an opportunity for transcendence.
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