the goal of religion.

I was recently on a podcast and the interviewer started talking very kindly about religion - and said I think the goal of every religion is to enrich the human soul.

I did have to push back - a bit. I think the goal of every system is to make sure the system lives. That means it has to evolve, adapt, and stay attractive to enough people so as to keep spreading. That means it needs fervent followers and mediocre followers and it needs a myth and story that gives people hope. That means it needs to adapt pieces of other religions so as to stay relevant but not so much so as to lose its uniqueness that keeps it special.

Really none of this matters. The point of a system is not to make someone better, it’s to survive. This is no fault of people in it, but it is what they are often doing and it’s worth thinking about for all the systems we belong to.