I think often about how the similarities between a cult leader and an author*

I've been playing around with a story idea and doing some intense world-building. I've gotten to the point of realizing that, just as a character needs a setting in order to come to life, a setting needs a reason to exist, such that--in the case of a Philip K. Dick styled "man versus reality" conflict--it can't be made believable without having a robust epistemology. I've been thinking so deeply about building a believable and fully-featured world, including fictional belief systems and sociological phenomenon, that it has occurred to me, I'm basically just writing a religion.

*like L Ron Hubbard, who progressed through sci-fi, to Dianetics, to Scientology

I'm trying to write a future that isn't a utopia or a dystopia, but just a continuous series of human foibles. Technology, war, religion, they'll all carry on, perhaps novel or unrecognizable in form, but also remaining adamantly reflective of some deep and unchanging aspect of human nature-- the truthfulness of the depiction of which equates to the reader's overall perception that the imagined events are happening in a "real" place and time.

It's hard to imagine that there wouldn't be people just like your liberally Islamic Dad-man.

First two (of seven) commandments said everything:

Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy.
Whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings, is a friend.

And so the sheep constant chant said what only matters:

Four Legs Good, Two Legs Bad

It must be true.  So many sheep say so constantly.  Religion cannot be wrong.

And then the sheep bleated for five minutes:

Four Legs Good, Two Legs Better

   It must be true.  Constant chanting said so. Religion cannot be wrong.
 

griff wrote:

 We both want folks to treat each other as brothers.

Are you nuts? Do you have brothers? 
The only thing meaner than a brother is a big sister.