The Pragmatist's Guide to Crafting Religion

Essentially, it provides a playbook to answering the question: "how can we create a meaningful, stable, and evolving religious and cultural framework without resorting to evil or oppressive means?"

The Pragmatist's Guide to Crafting Religion is a thought-provoking and highly engaging exploration of one of humanity's most pressing issues: it's future. The book presents a collection of ideas, examining the factors that influence societal trajectories worldwide and offering a vision for creating a better future for ourselves and our descendants.

Drawing on insights from sociology, economics, evolutionary psychology, and more, the Collinses weave together themes of fertility rates, cultural norms, and societal stability to present a compelling argument that significant changes are on the horizon —potentially for the worse, but not necessarily so. They adopt a unique approach to religion, exploring how it can be intentionally crafted and shaped to act as a positive force in society, rather than a source of division and oppression. They navigate the challenges of this endeavor, highlighting that harsher ideologies often proliferate, while gentler religions tend to fade away. The book illustrates how it might be possible to harness the strengths of both worlds.

Throughout the text, the Collinses provide a rich analysis of various cultural types—hard cultures, soft cultures and more—discussing their respective advantages and disadvantages. They ponder whether any of these can form a stable cultural meme that remains resilient over time without veering into authoritarianism or destroying itself.