Ask Lemmy

The Satanic Temple and Buddhism both fill that niche for me. So, I would make it like them.

Any particular reason that you think we need more religion?

It would have two tenets:

1. Be excellent to each other
2. Party on, dudes

The most fun parts of religion are the camaraderie and intricate, abstracted rituals that used to serve one purpose but now serve a different, often symbolic one.

So lots of that. Spaced out throughout the year as to give followers a way of marking the passing of time and a reason to call out of work at regular intervals.

Oh, let's toss in a lil religious specific language to aid as a group identifier and how about some arbitrary rules/guidelines that aren't strictly enforced and vary by region but give those rules loving peoples something to grab onto.

Oh oh oh and unique cuisine! Food goods made in certain ways at certain times, with some slight variation so followers could have techniques and recipes to share and mild, inconsequential things to disagree and hold frivolous, memetic arguments about.

The details don't really matter all that much, as long as it can serve as a way to find community and camaraderie in new places, reinforce solidarity with your fellow humans, and give some rituals for timekeeping and distraction from modern life.

Make my god a well-meaning fuckup.

You got cancer? Shit! Aw, fuck man, that keeps happening, I'm sorry. I keep trying to tune this thing better, but I'll level with you, I never actually set out to be a god, things just got kinda out of hand, and... oh fuck! The stratosphere! Nonononono don't be on fire, look, I gotta take this, we'll talk later, ok?

"Blessings to the Future Generations" forward-thinking traditions rather than handicapping the now to fit the past's biases

I’d make it atheistic, include meditation and be proactive with volunteering or useful projects.

General tenants about being excellent to eachother, none of that smiting bullshit for people to cherrypick.

Multitheistic with different gods responsible for different aspects of reality with the general commandment of the religion being that the best way to become closer to the gods (or specific god of preference) is to understand their creation and thus understand them (go do science!)

Throw in some enjoyable aspects like funerals being a celebration rather than a sombre occasion; colour code the gods so we don't even up with everything being fucking gray or gilded; And have a neat little offering ceremony for each god thats simple but unique and inexpensive so people can go all starsigny on it, offerings being a good luck thing rather than mandatory.

singing

I don't think it matters what you include, people are perfectly OK taking parts as they will and leaving others behind when it suits them. Organized religion creates a hierarchy, and there is always someone who will want to bend the hierarchy for themselves but not others.

I've actually put a lot of thought into this lately, what with the most recent schism in The Satanic Temple.

The seven tenets are great. I'd keep those.

I would start with the understanding that it was an atheistic religion, and I would treat it as such. I would write a constitution, and a charter, and any group that agrees with and meets the requirements laid out in the constitution should be allowed to affiliate themselves. It should be organized as a non-profit.

I like the way that TST's ministry program worked before Doug threw most of the ministers out. I'd steal that. I would amend the process slightly though; I'd say that any person with a diagnosed personality disorder would not be eligible for ministerial positions, as narcissists, people with borderline personality disorder, etc., should not ever be in leadership positions. I would say that any person that successfully completes the ministerial program should be eligible to be a leader of a congregation, and people that have not passed would not be.

I would propose that the congregations send representatives to a national (or international) convention where they decide what the organization's position should be on issues--I believe that it takes two majority votes in the SBC over a period of four (?) years for major doctrinal changes, or changes to the constitution--and those representatives would also select board members, who would in turn select a president. (I'd have terms of board members be offset so that there was never a period where a large percentage of the board was turning over.) Fundamentally, the church should be run by the people, and should be serving the congregants, rather than the congregants serving the organization.

I believe that yes, members and congregations should be paying in to the national organization, but no person within the organization should be getting paid for their work. I don't care if it's a collection, a set amount per person per week, or what; operating a religion requires funding. That said, the only compensation to anyone within the org should be minimal travel expenses for people that need to travel for their position; otherwise, it should be entirely a lay ministry. (Yes, that would be a financial hardship for some ministers, but I'd rather see that than have people seeking leadership for the financial benefit.) Finances should be fully transparent, and visible to all members, so that everyone can see where money is coming in from, and where money is going.

I also like the Mormon model of fully engaging all members. As long as it's not onerous, I think that this can help individuals feel seen and heard, and also keep them feeling like a part of community. I would do things like have each members selected in turn to deliver brief biweekly sermons, with sources, and then have members in each congregation engage in a roundtable discussion about the sermon. You would want to have the possibility of sub-groups within each congregation so that different needs of individual members could be taken care of.

I made some notes somewhere, but I'm not sure where they are right now.

EDITS:

Members should have to pay, because the operations of a religion cost money. You have to have a (stable) place to meet, you need to pay for power, and yes, you need to pay for attorneys and accountants. It should definitely be strictly a lay ministry though, with leaders only being compensated for their expenses, not time.

The issue with The Satanic Temple now is that Doug Mesner (aka Lucien Greaves) and Cevin Soling (aka Malcolm Jarry) outright own all the legal entities that make up TST. There is no process that can replace them; they can remove any person or group that they don't like. They have the ultimate power to make all the rules, and they are entirely above them. That means that, despite TST claiming to believe in freedom from tyranny, it's fundamentally an authoritarian organization rather than a democratic one. For all of it's many, MANY other faults, the Southern Baptist Convention is democratic, and I think that's a quality worth emulating.

In high school I made up a pretend religion (order of the gecko) with some friends as a joke that had a positive take without the baggage that the religions we were familiar with. The tenets were about actually being accepting and opposing intolerance.

A couple decades later I heard about the Satanic Temple and other than the symboligy it was basically the same!

Buddhism is effectively a "how to" guide to satisfaction , it just goes against everything corporations preach. To be fair, I'm not strong enough to be a Buddhist, but of the religions I've studied, it seems pretty open and shut, "follow these instructions and you will have a good life". Buddhism wins. But it doesn't involve parties and such

honestly I don't know. When you look at the religions of the world all of them say "love and help each other please :) be good to your fellow human beings, be kind, be gentle" and then you look at the execution of those ideas by the majority of religious people- and it's all twisted and used for hate & you see people saying that without the threat of eternal punishment there is nothing holding them back from hurting others

instead of religion forcing compassion I'd say we should just teach compassion really

Just worship cats.

It literally doesn't matter. Religions have tried before, but people are always there to corrupt the hell out of it. It's an intrinsic problem with religion; relying on blind faith will always, eventually, lead to tragedy.

Two tenants

1. You must protect those weaker than you
2. You may only punch up or in self defense.

A religion that aims to have well built and healthy bodies to earn the favor of the gods from said religion.

Tak does not require we think of him, only that we think.

• Terry Pratchett, Thud!

Discworld in general has a ton of good quotes, but Thud! is especially full of relevant ones, being about religious extremists warring against inconvenient truths.

Simply, I would love to start a religion on an already existing short story, The Egg: YouTube Link

Solves a bunch of programs with karma and if everyone believed it the world would undoubtedly be a better place.

Cookie based dogma.

I don't think there is a religion that can be overwhelmingly beneficial today.

Most religions already emphasize kindness, generosity and compassion but it is ultimately easily corruptable. Every religious group seemingly has to hate somebody.

Long ago it would have imperative to human development, to explain the world around us and to motivate people to work cooperatively. Science has fulfilled that role however and now it seems religion makes individuals closer minded, refusing to believe in reason.

If religious people sternly stuck to their principles (looking at American Christians) I don't even think we'd be having this conversation in the first place.

Ask questions. Evidence trumps all. Oh and I guess be nice.

But at that point it's effectively antithetical to anything religion is. Like the actual teachings of Jesus in the Bible are mostly good to live by. But because 90% of Christians (or other religions/pick a sect) never actually read the Bible, the actual religion in practice is a lot of preachers spreading their own shit or whatever the hierarchy says. And the core concept is to ignore reality and blindly trust the impossible.