I really liked the Edna & Harvey games

Because of anti-customer features. Hard to implement those in a FOSS project, without a fork undermining you.

Shouldn’t the ancient European pagan religions still have held on in that case? The Romans were willing to bend their religion in whatever direction to fit the cults of their neighbours and conquered people into their pantheon. They even tried to refit Jupiter into Abraham’s God. I think it died out because it was too lax.

Same thing happened with Buddhism in India imo. Hinduism and Islam are significantly more “all or nothing”, but that also made these religions more dominant than Buddhism and made the religion pretty disappear in India at least.

Cringe comment tbh. Religion is a net neutral institution. It can be nudged in any direction. Majority atheist states are not less oppressive than majority religious states. America does have a uniquely large amount of Christianity-inspired cults tho. I would say this more of an indicator of America’s failing/non-existent social systems, rather than an inheritant feature of religion.

Cults, mafias and corrupt monopolies exist primarily, when the state fails at least in one key area. They act as competitors of the state. Competition in science, art and economy is great. In governance, competition means public chaos and oppression. Multi-party democracies are the only exceptions (to some extent).

As a Naples resident pirate, this disappoints me as well

The more conservatism, the more you go towards feudalism. Where staying poor and obedient for the rich elite is your godgiven duty. Monopolies need to be protected, as they act with god’s mandate. Social rights are being formulated by a religious figurehead.

If every American exclusively votes for Conservatives for the next 100 years, America will revert to a confederation of Anglican and Catholic kingdoms.

New Mexico, New Hampshire or Maine I guess