Thanks for writing this out. The details of your position far more charitable than the tone of your comments suggested it is (and than even the tone of this comment suggests it is!), and I basically agree that EA has a lot of religious-like features, which is why I (incorrectly!) thought of it as being like a religion in the past.
The reasons for thinking it’s not a religion now I discussed over in the linked thread, but to reiterate, it’s because EA lacks a rich relationship with sacredness (especially shared sacredness, even if some pockets of EA manage to hold some small number of things sacred) and is not high commitment in the ways that religions are (though it is high commitment in other ways). As I’ve spent more time understanding why it is I think religion as good, I’ve been able to get more clarity on just what features make it good, and also what features set religious-like groups apart from the ones we identify as central examples of religions.
Thanks for writing this out. The details of your position far more charitable than the tone of your comments suggested it is (and than even the tone of this comment suggests it is!), and I basically agree that EA has a lot of religious-like features, which is why I (incorrectly!) thought of it as being like a religion in the past.
The reasons for thinking it’s not a religion now I discussed over in the linked thread, but to reiterate, it’s because EA lacks a rich relationship with sacredness (especially shared sacredness, even if some pockets of EA manage to hold some small number of things sacred) and is not high commitment in the ways that religions are (though it is high commitment in other ways). As I’ve spent more time understanding why it is I think religion as good, I’ve been able to get more clarity on just what features make it good, and also what features set religious-like groups apart from the ones we identify as central examples of religions.