Is QAnon type crap the new "religion"?

Morons gotta moron.

Gotta feel sorry for these people.

The likes of those folk who turned up at Dallas, hoping a dead man would reappear, really have a mental illness.

it is a cult and a death cult at that. expect a Jonestown type massacre soon.

Wouldn't those characteristics be shared by any assertive or activist political movement? For that matter, wouldn't they be shared by, say, the United States, or any other country with a political culture in which leaders are trusted?

What most obviously distinguishes QAnon from a religion is the complete absence of any supernatural claims. QAnon's claims may be insane and incredible, but they are completely naturalistic.

Another distinction is that QAnon doesn't fill any of the social functions that religion normally does - QAnoner's don't gather for meetings, they don't have shared rituals, etc. They don't form any kind of community, except online. QAnon is not a religion in the same way that the person you have only ever interacted with online is not your girlfriend.

Their claim, as I understand it, is that he was not dead, but had faked his own death to conceal himself, and therefore protect himself, until The Time Is Right. As I say, that may be a bonkers claim, but it's not a supernatural one.

I don't know to what extent the "big meeting in Charlottsville" etc were a manifestation of QAnon as opposed to other elements of the alt-right. I'll give you DC, though, although whether a one-off half-arsed attempt at a coup d'etat is really that comparable to the gatherings and ceremonies characteristic of religion is debatable. If it is, are all leader-driven, coup-attempting political movements basically religions?

And, for the record, i didn't say that what happens online doesn't affect the real world; I said that it doesn't substitute for the kind of real-world relationships and communities that, from a sociological point of view, are characteristic of religions.

You're missing the point. I'm not saying that the online world is unreal or irrelevant; I'm saying that it's characteristic of religion that it forms relationships and communities in the physical world - they build churches, they gather in person, etc - and, while they are active online as well, that tends to be marginal and largely ancillary to the physical reality. Even in societies which have become largely irreligious, the public, physical, real-world presence and activities of religion make it highly visible.

In so far as QAnon is not like this, it's not like a religion. I'm not saying that this makes it not relevant or not real or not signficant or not meaningful; just that it makes it not like a religion.

Are you basically saying that any political movement that you aren't a part of is in fact a religion? 😉

I like how they all have their own logo design, its like looking at a poster for a 3 day music festival.

now you've moved the goalposts. now it must be significant. how are you defining significant so I dont get caught again by your jesuitry?

Sigh.

I'm saying it's generally characteristic of religions that they form real-world communities that primarily engage in real-world meetings and practices. You're saying my view is old-fashioned. I'm saying, can you point to examples of religions that don't do that? And I'm looking for examples that (a) are uncontroversially accepted as authentic religions; don't point me to the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster; and (b) that aren't tiny, marginal, fringe movements that are too small and too left-field to be credibly offered as an illustration of the general characteristics of religion.

If the thesis is that QAnon is effectively a religion, that's only interesting if it's like religion as we actually have it, not if it's like what we imagine religion might some day possibly become.

they said the same thing about christianity.

cults generally either die out or they turn into religions.

I don't think the difference between a cult and religion is significant.