Religion 2.0 by @mengwong
Industry Structure: Mature, Competitive
Strong Brand Loyalty
Powerful Network Effects
Extreme Vendor Lock-in
Competitive Matrix
Extraordinary Market Share!
Extraordinary Market Share!
This is a job for…
The incumbents are ripe for disruption.
Very Crowded Market
I know "adults" in their 40s who have not learned how to cope with disappointment.
In Japan, men don't know how to talk to women.
In Korea, women don't know how to talk to men.
Most modern people, Campbell writes, turn, "of course, not to archaic religious texts but to science" for this information. In fact, one reason that many mythological stories, and a participation in organized religions in general, are losing popularity is because the ancient cosmologies they are tied to are contradicted by modern scientific evidence. 
http://drake.marin.k12.ca.us/staff/doherty/fourfunctionsmythology.html
Cosmological
Sociological
Psychological
Mystical
How does the world work?
Where does lightning come from?
What causes obesity?
How should we behave toward one another?
How should people resolve conflicts?
How do we live the good life?
How do we achieve happiness?
How do we react when our expectations aren't met?
What is the present? The past? The future? Eternity?
Look, I'm in the world!
for the lulz
What does it mean to be sane?
Science versus Religion!
By invoking fundamental ethical principles, I am not advocating a fusion of religious ethics and scientific inquiry. Rather, I am speaking of what I call 'secular ethics' that embrace the key ethical principles, such as compassion, tolerance, a sense of caring, consideration of others, and the responsible use of knowledge and power -- principles that transcend the barriers between religious believers and nonbelievers, and followers of this religion or that religion.
                  Dalai Lama
You are what you eat.
No pain, no gain.
Gluttony and Sloth are Deadly Sins.
Self-denial is good for you.
Want a low-fat body? Eat a low-fat diet!
Some foods are sinful. Some foods are virtuous.
How many wives can a husband have?
Ethical Man
Economic Man
I took the job because…
I enjoy doing this work.
it pays well.
After I make enough money, I will…
retire and enjoy life.
try to make more.
and in Singapore…
Let's begin with a theory of market demand.
A stable religion/culture supplies these demands.
Traditional cultures used to have
What are the customs and rituals of our tribe?
Should we use shampoo?
Are dogs edible?
Should boys be circumcised?
Should girls be circumcised?
How many husbands can a wife have?
Let me show you a better way to run your life.
Let me show you a better way to run your computer.
Don't like the OS you got?

Install a new one!
Linux Evangelist
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2009/04/one-world-under-god/7335/
productization
(computing, business) The act of modifying something, such as a concept or a tool internal to an organization, to make it suitable as a commercial product.
For the first 30 years of our lives we learn economically useful skills.
At the expense of learning life skills.
SAP Conslutant
religious catechism
finishing school
debutante balls
instead of getting pastoral care from their priest, they get it from their psychotherapist.
instead of having a system of ethics handed down -- guidance for the good life -- they have to figure it out for themselves.
by the time a lot of women figure out
1) it would be nice to have babies
2) men aren't all bad, if you choose wisely
3) how to choose a good man
4) how to get a good man to like you
you're in your 40s
and you write books like Marry Him
and you end up with 8 cats.
how old were the Brontë sisters when they wrote their novels?
how old was Jane Austen?
societies are letting down their citizens.
i feel that cultures and societies owe new instances a proper initialization routine.
how not to be depressed, and how not to be bored.
i'm not saying everybody should have kids. i'm not saying a woman's role is to be barefoot and pregnant.  until we can extend fertility to 60, some cultures are delivering too little too late.
it would be okay to not have kids. there are too many people on the planet anyway.
big news article recently: teaching philosophy to 2nd graders
this is newsworthy precisely because unusual.
at RI they teach philosophy across the curriculum.
again, unusual: most schools don't.
now that we've defined religion and culture, however roughly.
most people go to organized religion looking for answers. what's the good life?  how should we behave toward one another? why am i not happy?
i suspect a lot of the students who are now studying philosophy won't end up going to church as a result.
for everybody else, though, religious conversion is tantamount to learning a new culture. like First Culture = first language, Second Culture = second language. You use it to operate with others.  It's a bit like reinstalling your OS. The machine came with Windows, but you decided you'd rather run Linux.
William James talked about the once-born vs the twice-born.
Erik Erikson talked about the foreclosed vs the identity achieved.
Turns out that Western First Culture contains a lot of broken bits.
Fats vs carbs is one example.  Barefooting is another.
You Walk Wrong.  shoes are bad for you.
But we wear shoes because everybody else does!
We eat bread because everybody else does!
Wasn't so long that you were getting lung cancer because everybody else smoked.
This is why I love geeks and hackers: not afraid to challenge the conventional wisdom.
Let's go next door to the self-help section; to the Etiquette section.
the ideal family would teach its children all these things.
failover to schools.
failover to church.
failover to books and magazines.
worst comes to worst, failover to Wikipedia and the Internet.
yes, i'm afraid it's gotten to that.
Open Source Religion
something happened about a hundred years ago in the US.
self help books emerged. what trends drove this development?
people moving from the country to the city, from farming to urban.
society came under industrial stresses, children weren't taught life skills by parents who were working, and so they had to learn it from elsewhere when they moved to the city and had to deal with new patterns of living in close proximity with others.
they didn't need self help books before that.  when you only had one fork there was no question about where to put it.
the same thing is happening in China now.
and we are seeing new religions emerge, from the opposite end of the spectrum.
Falunggong.
First Worlders don't understand nutrition…
you get both!
charlotte was 31, jane eyre
emily was 29, wuthering heights
lori gottlieb was 41, marry him
we pray to Twitter.
Should we wear shoes?
http://nymag.com/health/features/46213/
Instead of praying to God…
Instead of priests and pastors…
We have psychiatrists. At $300/hr.
Jesus Evangelist
Am I advocating that we bring back religion?
No.
I think we can do better.
19th century: industrialization

20th century: migration from rural to urban
emergence of the middle class
secularization of society
21st century: people are now fat and depressed.
and looking for help.
The West
New Religious Movements
Based on Science and Psych
20th century: secularization of society

21st century: emergence of the middle class
migration from rural to urban
hence, recent success of
Mormonism, Scientology
Evangelical Christianity,
Radical Islam
hence, recent growth of F8G
China
Advice to Investors:
invest in "self help" movements
they're really new religions
"If scientific analysis were conclusively to demonstrate certain claims in Buddhism to be false, then we must accept the findings of science and abandon those claims." 
           Dalai Lama, The Universe in a Single Atom
Culture = learning from other people's mistakes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Buddha_teaching_the_group_of_five.jpg
http://mapsofwar.com/ind/history-of-religion.html
http://www.religionfacts.com/big_religion_chart.htm
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ybidau/2165425080/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/elphotostudio_onflickr/3368985249/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/iamthebestartist/2110957035/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/3059349393/3418857871/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/guccibear2005/1387662149/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/7455207@N05/2475092571/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Westerminster_catechism_first_page.jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Falun_Dafa_the_fifth_exercise,_meditation7.jpg
http://www.flickr.com/photos/giovannijl-s_photohut/464786586/
(Given the choice I'd rather be the non-grumpy one.)
learning to be
learning to do
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/26/magazine/26FOB-2DLove-t.html?pagewanted=all
http://www.amazon.com/Good-Calories-Bad-Controversial-Science/dp/1400033462/
Recommended Reading
http://www.amazon.com/Good-Calories-Bad-Controversial-Science/dp/1400033462/
http://www.amazon.com/Destructive-Emotions-Scientific-Dialogue-Dalai/dp/0553381059/
http://www.amazon.com/Culting-Brands-Turn-Customers-Believers/dp/B000EPFVJ6/
http://prezi.com/tj5asqyf-bhf/
20100427