What Does the Next Messiah Look Like?
Religion Reborn, Crowdfunded Tithing, & Momentous Movements
The world is crazy right now. But here’s the thing: it’s always been crazy.
Just look at nature — everything from sea anemones to amoebas — they’re nuts! Life is this chaotic mess. There’s no preordained path from bacteria to apes to humans, it’s a lot of twists and turns. And as our knowledge of the world grows, we’re beginning to realize how tumultuous, how ridiculous, how fragile, the world has always been.1
Ho Nam, one of the cofounders of Altos Ventures, likes to say that the human mind is brilliant at rationalization and survival. It’s not made for rational decision making.2 We didn’t evolve to figure out what’s right. We evolved to figure out how to survive. But through this survival, we’ve looked around and asked why things are the way they are.
In this search of knowledge, it makes sense that humanity has sought to explain the unexplainable. We’ve looked for ways to simplify and understand why and how the world works. It’s one of the reasons why religion is so powerful — it gives order to the chaos.
Religion is such an encompassing part of our species’ existence, and I’d be remiss to not state that I am grossly uninformed about humanity’s relationship with religion. This piece isn’t really about that, it’s about asking what religions of the future will look like now that we have software and smartphones. Existing religions have and will undoubtedly continue forward, but we’re also seeing record rates of people stepping away from religion. The question I have is: What will replace it?
I’m not providing a definition of religion because that seems too difficult, nor am I going to evaluate which existing religions will thrive and which will decline. Instead, this piece will discuss what new religions may look like, and how they might appear. How will software and technology change religion?
I think this is very important, because the underlying motives behind religion aren’t going anywhere. They seem to be innately human, and we’re seeing people latch on to new religions, regardless of the accuracy of that designation.3
Aimless, Alone, & Afraid
One of the themes I’ve focused on is today’s State of Affairs. One key element is the growing sense of aloofness, loneliness, and fear that seems to be festering more broadly.
Most people assume it’s due to social media, and that probably plays a role, but this actually began long before that. Robert Putnam’s book Bowling Alone does an excellent job detailing how social cohesion has been on the decline in the US. This chart below illustrates the decline in the past few decades. In the 1970s, almost 70% of the US had a great deal of confidence in organized religion. In 2015, it was 42%. That’s a big deal.
There’s always been a spectrum of religious affiliation. Even after the past century, the number of devout religious people is largely the same; what’s changed is the generally religious people, who didn’t actively practice, are abandoning religion entirely.
As Bowling Alone explains, Americans have been losing their support networks, at the same moment they’ve begun to step away from religion; this coincides right at the moment when change has greatly accelerated. It’s hard enough when the world feels like it’s moving too fast for you, it’s a whole other matter when you feel like there’s nowhere for you to go discuss these hard transitions.
I think this speaks to why so many people are eager to find new groups to associate themselves with, whether that be subreddits like r/WallStreetBets, or politics and political parties. People are starving for belonging, and that’s created an opportunity, one that one company in particular has focused on. You’ve probably heard of them.
Ingredients of Religion
John Foley, founder and CEO of Peloton, had a fascinating talk a few years ago about how he was trying to make Peloton emulate the key ingredients of religion. He didn’t go so far to say he was making a religion, but if your product, company, or movement have all these ingredients, the lines start to blur between being a religion vs just a product.
At the 5:20 minute-mark, he lists out the ingredients: Guidance, Ritual, Identification, Community, Reflection, Spirituality, Ceremony, and Music.
Crucially, this is what Peloton’s instructor-led group fitness classes provide. To be candid, I never thought I’d enjoy these Peloton classes. But after using a Peloton bike for all of quarantine, I have an appreciation for what Foley is talking about. I get it. And after I saw this talk he gave, I noticed other products (and movements) that gave us glimpses of the future of religion.
Previews of the Future
If you want an example of what a modern religion might look like, look no further than Elon Musk and Tesla. There’s a lot to unpack here, but the most poignant aspect for this piece is that Tesla shows us what happens when a large group of people is mobilized in a way that encourages them to take (financial) action. Tesla options calls purchased by retail traders move the market, much to the chagrin of financial analysts.
Mike Green, chief strategist at Simplify Asset Management, explains:
We don’t really have the language to describe Tesla any more, it’s like explaining to a person in a two-dimensional world the concept of ‘up’.
The article continues:
The nominal trading value of Tesla options has averaged $241bn a day in recent weeks, according to Goldman Sachs. That compares with $138bn a day for Amazon, the second most active single-stock option market, and $112bn a day for the rest of the S&P 500 index combined. This makes Tesla’s stock more prone to whipsaw movements, because of the “leverage” inherent in using options to trade.
Tesla is in a world of its own. You can even see this in Foley’s Peloton presentation; just look at the chart of top NPS scores for brands. Look who’s #1.
GameStop, AMC, and Doge Coin are other, looser examples of people buying into a movement. Some undoubtedly were duped and thought they’d become rich, but I’d point out that some religious movements have also had elements of that in the past. (“Follow us and you will see salvation/ascendance”).
What’s different today is how easy it is to mobilize a large number of people in a way that leads to meaningful outcomes. So far, they’ve largely been financial movements, but there’s nothing preventing this from extending to other areas as well.
Begun, the Crowdfunding Wars Have
A few weeks ago, a Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO) raised over $40 million to place a bid to purchase an authentic copy of the Declaration of Independence. They didn’t win the Sotheby’s bid, but they did raise $40 million in under 72 hours.
Other people will write about the significance of what this means for Web3, Crypto, and DAOs, but the takeaway I have is much more straightforward: crowdfunding has barely begun. This won’t be the last time we read about a DAO raising substantial sums of money, and I anticipate that while the ConstitutionDAO was originally a jest, it also was a test. A test to see if this type of mass fundraising could be possible.
I’m old enough to remember the crowdsourcing mania in the 2010s — all these Kickstarter campaigns about cool new products that you never knew you wanted. Each of these projects had a promotional video showing what the product would do. It was supposed to help the layperson understand what they were crowdfunding, but from my vantage point it felt much more like a way to generate hype and excitement about something that didn’t exist yet. I backed one of these projects, and after a year of delays, I stopped receiving updates. I never got the promised product.
This same phenomenon will happen with DAOs. We’re going to see a wave of promotional hype videos talking about amazing new possibilities, and I anticipate there will be a lot of smoke and mirrors. But there’s a lot of money in crypto, and some of these DAOs will be successful. Some will purchase land, some will become exclusive SaaS memberships — replete with all sorts of interesting perks: access to people, places, and opportunities.
The most successful crowdfunding projects will be the ones that offer the pillars Peloton does — movements that provide exciting visions and a sense of belonging.
This is how future religions will fundraise.
The Ultimate Venture-backable Business
I saw this tweet recently (which has since been deleted), and a lot of things just clicked for me.
A venture-backed religion sounds preposterous, until you remember that religions are some of the most financially lucrative businesses in the world.
I mean, why not? There’s demand for it, there’s opportunity to fundraise for it. The key question is can you galvanize enough people to buy into this vision? Kevin Kelly has a famous essay called 1,000 True Fans that discusses the economic viability of serving an audience on the Internet; I see no reason why religion wouldn’t be included in this proposition.
The demand is clearly there, and the fundraising angle is ready now. I anticipate we’re about to see a wave of propositions — some of which will be clearly religious, others will be less overt.
Ideologies — The Next Messiah
People are starving for meaning, but they’re also starving for a path forward. Almost every form of media talks about how doomed our species is; few mention the triumphs we’ve seen in the past few decades.
There’s an appetite for optimism, and if politicians don’t provide it, apostles will promise it. Elon essentially does that with space travel, and others will follow suit.
If I had to put weight behind one ideology that gets strong backing as a religion, I’d say that Techno-Optimism / Transhumanism gets the nod. People are craving for optimism, and technology has been one of the bright spots during COVID. That’s how we stayed in touch with family and got record-breaking vaccine development.
In a way, it’d deviate from other religions because it would fully embrace science (the process and method).4 There’s room to embrace that, and it remains to be seen which religion(s) will do that. It could very well be an existing one! Either way, my hunch is that new movements will use the scientific process as a modern holy scripture. In a way, it’s an enriching ideology: if the world is shaped by such a system, that means that we can use it to build a better one.
Again, I’m not the final word on this; my knowledge of religion is very likely less extensive than yours. But this idea is worth paying attention to, because other people have proposed similar visions.
For example, Tyler Cowen recently wrote: “The most important thinkers of the future will be religious ones.” I’d argue that has always been the case, but in today’s hyper-connected world, I don’t see that reversing course.
He argues:
Secular traditions (libertarianism, progressivism) are comparatively less innovative today.
Religious thinkers have fewer constraints (e.g. not bound strictly to experimental science).
Religion is a form of rebellion for educated elites. The rebellious have more weird ideas.
Religion gains from volatility on the global scale (and the world is getting more volatile).
Religious ideas last longer and spread farther than their secular counterparts.
Tyler posits that the key driver of these movements are individuals, which aligns with the histories of the religions we have today.
But of all the potential roles humans have played, perhaps none is more dangerous than the peaceful preacher — the one who calls on others to join in worship, whether that be in prayer or in pursuit of a dream. The fates of these individuals are all strikingly quite similar: assassination.5
That very well could happen again. It’s also possible though that a New Messiah may fake their own death — a sacrifice for martyrdom. It’d advance the movement, be widely circulated, and would build conviction with existing followers.
Most notably, if advances in technology continue, then such an act really wouldn’t be that challenging to pull off. Where would they go? The Metaverse, where the pseudonymous economy reins: filled with avatars, voice synthesizers, and smart contracts.
Before we continue, please recognize that this is all conjecture on my part, so don’t take this too literally. This is a thought exercise.
Anti-Atheism?
Perhaps today’s general frustrations regarding religion stem from the fact that the power dynamic is shifting. The Catholic Church controlled a lot of the world, and now much less so. Just as the Internet Changed the Calculus with legacy media gatekeepers, the proliferation of the Industrialized Nation State changed the balance of power for religions.
You may have views on whether these changes are good or bad, but the reality is that they happened, which means the world must contend with what is, as opposed to what ought to be.
Finally, it’s worth acknowledging that the atheistic movement isn’t devoid of culpability either — consider the Myth of the Flat Earth: A misconception that Earth was believed to be flat rather than spherical by scholars and the educated during the Middle Ages. It turns out that atheists pushed this narrative to discredit the Church. From Wikipedia:
“Atheists and agnostics championed the conflict thesis for their own purposes, but historical research gradually demonstrated that Draper and White had propagated more fantasy than fact in their efforts to prove that science and religion are locked in eternal conflict” …
“There never was a period of 'flat Earth darkness' among scholars, regardless of how the public at large may have conceptualized our planet both then and now. Greek knowledge of sphericity never faded, and all major medieval scholars accepted the Earth's roundness as an established fact of cosmology.”[5] Historians of science David Lindberg and Ronald Numbers point out that “there was scarcely a Christian scholar of the Middle Ages who did not acknowledge [Earth's] sphericity and even know its approximate circumference”.[6]
Historian Jeffrey Burton Russell says the flat-Earth error flourished most between 1870 and 1920, and had to do with the ideological setting created by struggles over biological evolution. Russell claims “with extraordinary few exceptions no educated person in the history of Western Civilization from the third century B.C. onward believed that the Earth was flat”, and ascribes popularization of the flat-Earth myth to histories by John William Draper, Andrew Dickson White, and Washington Irving.
It’s interesting that people are actively trying to discredit religion, especially at a moment when it appears many people might benefit from it. Religion has its flaws, but so does everything else.
The Way Forward
“There is often a problem with perfectly well-intentioned movements.” Rory Sutherland
In Volume 5, I talked about the short list of people who transformed the 20th Century. Each one of them thought they were changing the world for the better. There’s a lesson in that.
I have no idea what the world is going to look like in 5, 10, 20 years from now. I’d like to think I have a directional sense of Where We’re Going, but if we’re really being honest, we have no clue.
But wouldn’t it be much more comforting if we did know?
This is what’s so alluring about religion: A world that can be explained.
People are starving for meaning. While we're more connected than ever, we feel more alone. Christianity sprung up through the fissures in the Roman Empire. New movements are sure to materialize in the future as well.
Over a year ago, I wrote my Magnum Opus: What If Everyone Could Code? I included something Ben Thompson wrote a few years ago on the impact of the Internet. He posits:
Count me with those who believe the Internet is on par with the industrial revolution, the full impact of which stretched over centuries. And it wasn’t all good. Like today, the industrial revolution included a period of time that saw many lose their jobs and a massive surge in inequality. It also lifted millions of others out of sustenance farming. Then again, it also propagated slavery, particularly in North America. The industrial revolution led to new monetary systems, and it created robber barons. Modern democracies sprouted from the industrial revolution, and so did fascism and communism. The quality of life of millions and millions was unimaginably improved, and millions and millions died in two unimaginably terrible wars.
Change is guaranteed, but the type of change is not; never is that more true than today. See, friction makes everything harder, both the good we can do, but also the unimaginably terrible. In our zeal to reduce friction and our eagerness to celebrate the good, we ought not lose sight of the potential bad.
We are creating the future, and “better” does not win by default.
It’s important to remember this reality, especially when change is abound. Religion is an important aspect of humanity, and contrary to what may be in vogue to say, I view it as a net benefit for society. Sure, there’s countless things you can critique and point to — violence, extremism, and tribalism — but consider this quote from Will Durant, author of Lessons of History.
There is no significant example in history, before our time, of a society successfully maintaining moral life without the aid of religion.
Given the current State of Affairs, that there’s ample room for religion to return.6
In conclusion, I’ll leave three points for you to ponder:
How will technology change religion?7
What new religions will emerge and what will they look like?
How will the points above amplify some of the existing trends we’re seeing?
As I’ve said in other Embers, COVID-19 is a great example. Supply chains are crucially important!
He continues: “Few can do it well and even the best will be delusional at times.”
A few of my friends are religious, and one mentioned: “99% of secular thinkers miss is that religious people truly feel is that experience with the transcendent and faith as a way of knowing. They understand the trappings of religion, but try to boilerplate something that often is fairly inexplicable unless you’ve experienced it yourself.” I thought it was important to keep this in mind.
Interestingly, science has clearly become a religion during the pandemic. But the actual process behind it has not.
Jesus, Ghandi, and Martin Luther King Jr. all come to mind.
Not that it ever was really gone, of course. But it doesn’t dominate today’s world like it used to.
We discussed this less, but there are many clear examples. Some churches used Zoom for digital sermons, some are using software for automatic donations, and I’m sure we will see more ways people will connect with others of faith over new social platforms.