Xanikk999 said:
Im just wondering this. Could you make up your own religion and fight it in court to gain non profit status?
That would be good for my business if i ever have one.
But seriously what do you have to do to make an official religion?
I think your looking for a cult rather than a religion but ever helpful, scientology makes a bomb but it's pretty morally reprehensible, I wil endeavour to outline a plan according to past history though, just AAMOI.
1 question first? Don't you think their enough religions around without creating more? The people who follow the current ones can't seem to get it quite right, what makes you think throwing more nuts in the mix is going to help?
I think you need a shed load of followers, a shed load of money and a shed load of political and legal acumen, since all but the followers can be bought, then the most important thing is money, which is probably why most cults tend to suck their worshippers dry, where as most organised religions don't have to, having generally either recieved enough donations, taken enough plunder through war, or manipulated enough politcal and economic avenues or whatever. Either that a less expensive but still practical way would have been to recieve the status through the historical age of a religion, or just because there happen to be a hell of a lot of the bleeders. Or through cultural status alone. Above all though a religion isn't a religion unless it has enough followers and is accepted, I'd say though with money and charismatic leader(sanity is not a must nor is belief) This shouldn't be too hard to do.
I wonder if you want a religion or a cult though? A religion would take alot longer and may well require genuinely deep and long lasting philosophy or revelation through a divine spirit or spirits? Stick with montheism as it's all the rage at the moment, is my advice, Keep it simple.
Although of course the divine spirit need not be real, and in fact in most religions, he, she or they apparently weren't, so blessed be Ungathor lord of the Mengionites! Or whatever, go nuts?
And remember the scoreboard is the number of followers, you don't have to be right necessarilly, in fact you can be self righteous and wrong, in fact most likely your wrong about alot of things, you can't be right about everything surely?
Even the big ones are wrong about alot of things, seriously I kid you not
some are allowed to admit it but generally humility takes hundreds of years even with those that are. With a few notable acceptions but there wrong anyway apparently. So to sum up as long as you have millions of people following you it's fine, being right isn't the be all, it helps to be right but it matters less,especially if a minority of your number will generally persecute or kill those who happen to disagree, or they'll weed them out as being conspicuously evil and make there lives hellish or whatever, fear not they don't have to be right either, historically this seems to be par for the course in most religions, but be careful in modern times for some strange reason this is frowned upon? Go figure?
Of course you don't have to form a self righteous religion, you could form one based solely on peace and the eschewing of wealth, of living in harmony and of spiritual fulfillment over the physical more base pursuits, but beware, only the Budhists appear to be close at the moment; don't forget human nature will likely be used as an excuse for your religions tennants to be ignored and a huge swathe of political BS too, so long as your leaders are hypocrits generally though all should be well and your religion can sway with the breeze, it all depends on whether you want to follow it in good conscience and genuine belief or just make it up as you go along, whilst pretending to believe in the founding values, in religion it's generally a matter of try it and see with most followers, pick and chose, so why should yours not cater to them
Thinking on it so long as you start with pure values, humanity will generally do it's best to corrupt your faith anyway, it may survive but be warned there are few religions who have survived intact, if you want something pure, steer clear of politics, rule number 1. Power corrupts absolute power corrupts absolutely, the more power you have the less you will feel the need to follow your tennants, it's kind of like wearing the one ring in this respect.
Anyway I advise a cult, you may still be alive to see it pay out, but if your looking for something meaningful or long term go pacifistic and pure, who knows you may even stand the test of time without being essentially ignored or having a concensus of corrupt followers? Stranger things have happened? Not very often but I'm reliablly informed they have
EDITED for spelling. Alot, in fact I'm bored of EDITING now so if it aint legable tough, things making sense is a privellage not a right!
