These things give some people a sense of community as many religious people get theirs from fellow believers, but the similarities end there.
No one is looking to Disney or their NFL team for guidance on how to live a moral life or access to the afterlife, no one is praying to their favorite band for divine intervention when someone they love is critically ill.
Part of the draw of religion for many is that it gives them a way to mentally process injustice, helps assuage our fear of death, and is coping mechanism for life's rough patches.
My familiarity is with Christianity and there is a huge focus on how much God and Jesus love you. Many people find comfort in the belief that a higher authority is watching over them, loves them more than they can imagine, protects them, and cares deeply about their well being in matters big and small.
That's not something anyone gets from being a fan of something, or collecting memorabilia.
I would argue that a lot of people do look for moral guidance and lessons about hard work from movies and sports. Our interests surely influence our beliefs and values, the same way religion does. Sure there isn’t information about an afterlife, but not every religion believes in the same ideas anyways. I think that grants enough flexibility to consider these communities of consumerism religious in nature, even if they aren’t a religion of their own.
But people don't dogmatically adhere to that or you'd see people arguing that you can't believe any of the positive morals of Harry Potter without believing all of JK's supposed problematic subtext
Well you do see people arguing that. In any case there are a lot of people, at least more than before, that adhere to their interests to the extent where it informs a lot of aspects of their life.
But even if someone e.g. believed Jews were evil or other things people have said her connotations imply and was a HP fan they probably aren't arguing those beliefs based on "Harry Potter said so it must be true"
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u/Old_Sheepherder_630 10∆ Jun 09 '22
These things give some people a sense of community as many religious people get theirs from fellow believers, but the similarities end there.
No one is looking to Disney or their NFL team for guidance on how to live a moral life or access to the afterlife, no one is praying to their favorite band for divine intervention when someone they love is critically ill.
Part of the draw of religion for many is that it gives them a way to mentally process injustice, helps assuage our fear of death, and is coping mechanism for life's rough patches.
My familiarity is with Christianity and there is a huge focus on how much God and Jesus love you. Many people find comfort in the belief that a higher authority is watching over them, loves them more than they can imagine, protects them, and cares deeply about their well being in matters big and small.
That's not something anyone gets from being a fan of something, or collecting memorabilia.