Religions vs Cell Phones

In business a company is often aware of their best sales successes.  Regarding religion and then the LDS church I was thinking these guys really did an awesome job on a couple of products.  But how do they measure up to a modern product that has been around for only a few decades such as the cell phone?  Who do you think the winner is?  Battle....BEGIN!

First big sales success - Various pre-monotheistic faiths - Getting people to accept supernatural explanations for why things happen.  Getting people to settle for the simplest explanation of "it's magic" rather than trying to figure out a real cause to some things was really probably an easy sell considering they lacked an ability to test things like the weather. But certainly paved the way for all future product sales.

2nd big sales success - Monotheistic Faiths such as Christianity and Islam - One all powerfulGod.  Probably still not the toughest sale.  It's a product streamlining at its best.  The customer doesn't have to sort through a list of Gods, many of whom have flaws.  Now there's one product that has all the product features of the many God sales model, but this one is also all knowing and perfect.  This places the burden of being wrong on the people who question him.  Talk about a great idea for customer loyalty.
 

3rd big sales success - Monotheistic faiths - Using missionaries and sometimes force to push your product around the world.  A sales force paid for by the customers themselves and sometimes using God to validate using force to open up new markets.  Simply brilliant.  No wonder the over half the planet believes in some form of religion based on a God.  Talk about market penetration.

4th big sales success - Modern faiths such as Mormonism and scientology - Holy crap these guys are good.  In a modern era where much of the world could be explained even at the time they were invented, and certainly much more is now known about the world in this the later part of their short product life cycles, somehow they managed to sell a whole new magical spin to a small but healthy segment of the market, that is completely and easily verifiable as a lemon product!  Wow.  These guys are mavericks.  Don't tell them there's not a sucker for every sale.  These guys have loyal followers who bought into such wonderful product features as Kolob, reformed Egyptian, anti-nephi-lehites, shiblons, Xenu, a thetan, and so much more. 

5th big sales success - Mormons - Successfully founding a religion on utter bologna in a relatively modern time is amazing.  But these guys have become real clever in making the product they are selling adaptable as times change.  It doesn't matter what crazy false product claims they've made in the past.  Why?  Because their product comes with the "anti-mormon" defense feature.  Now anti simply means to be against something.  But these guys have their customers buying into a new version of the word anti.  This version doesn't just mean against, it means it's a falsehood, a lie, and an ignorant attack on truth.  Whenever someone suggests that they've bought into their religious product on faulty information, the anti-mormon kicks in and whamo, the products critic is an untrustworthy deceived insulting liar.  As an added bonus, the perceived persecution complex also kicks in upon usage of this feature, and product loyalty is stimulated.  Brilliant.

 

6th big sales success - All religions when dealing with new facts and information that goes counter to previous claims. - When all else fails, what once was God's truth is now God's metaphor.  What, you've proved my religious story couldn't have happened?  It still has meaning.  Those stories were meant as metaphors we can learn from.  Or magic.  Either way your information means nothing compared to my belief.  Never mind that the same moral lessons can be learned from Disney movies, minus the killing of millions at Gods command.  We don't look at those ugly parts of our scripture....see here it says love one another.  It's still a good product right? 

End results - There's a variety of estimates for sure, but this may be a fairly good one.  In 2011 Ipsos/Reuters conducted a global poll in 23 countries of more than 18,000 people and found that 51% of the world believes in God, 18% don't, and 17% are undecided.  Religions have been very successful, selling their ever evolving product line for at least as long as history has been recorded.  They have reaped an unverifiable fortune in the process, and are even firmly in control of the governments of several countries.

VS Cell Phone

By comparison, the first cell phone was invented in 1973.  In these short 40 years, they have spread their product to the point that this year the number of cell phones in use is expected to exceed the number of people on the planet.  Currently there are about 6.8 billion cell phones in use.

Major sales successes of the cell phone.

1st major success - It works.

2nd major success - Text messaging.

3rd major success - The app store.

4th major success - Adding video.

5th major success - Combining it with a camera.

6th major success - Angry birds?



Some people are religious about their cell phones.  Ever try to convince a apple head that the iphone is inferior to other phones?  Not to mention the time spent checking their facebook status on their phone.  But then for that facebook is the religion, the phone is just the...church building?  Cell phone companies have made a tone of money in the process of this success, but at least they don't control any governments yet....or do they?

FINAL ANALYSIS

Due to the increasing amount of knowledge from scientific discovery, religion is losing market share due to making some pretty ridiculous claims.  The fastest growing group today with regards to belief is those who have none.  With the explosion of the internet and availability of information, this trend will likely continue.  So while the already have a smaller market penetration of the worlds population, their share of the market seems likely to decrease.  This trend can be countered if they work harder to suppress information and start producing as many babies as they can in which they can indoctrinate.

Meanwhile, cell phones are an a fast pace to overtake the population of the world this year, and don't show any signs of slowing.  They have also proven innovative in creating new useful features to make people more likely to want one in part because science and engineering work well together.  Things like science and the internet are great companions to the cell phone, and put it in a strong position with little opposition for growth.  Cell phones have also managed to obtain a higher market share in a much shorter time.

AND THE WINNER IS

The cell phone.

All bow down and worship your new lord and master.