Select a name
This is important because it has to sound impressive in it's full length and must also be able to lend itself to being turned into a nickname or catchphrase.
Beware of acronyms, though. Followers of "Aging Hippy Atheists For Jesus" wouldn't mind saying "I'm an A for J'er" but members of the "Temple Of Secular Saints" or "Western Alliance of Neoclassical Knights" will have a problem converting people into TOSS'ers or WANK'ers.
Only The Founder Knows It All.
As founder of this religion the final authority rests with you and it's a wise move to declare yourself infallible, although it's best to have some sort of grounds to prove why you are infallible.
Try using the following ~ they've worked well in the past for others:
- Fall off your donkey on the road to Damascus and, after banging your head and thrashing around for a while, you can inform everybody that you've spoken to Jesus and you now know what He really meant to say.
Worked for Saint Paul and nobody seemed to notice that a lot of the new rules went against Jesus's teachings.- Have a Joseph Smith type of angelic revelation and find the Book of Mormon written on a collection of golden tablets. If asked to produce them you can always say that the angel took them back.
- Live in a cave for awhile then emerge with the good news that
you have been visited by an angel, informed of the new rules and
given instructions on how to edit the Bible and correct all the
mistakes therein.
Worked for Mohammed...
The Carrot and the Stick
You'll need something to get people to join your new religion because saying things like "be a good person and you'll get to heaven" won't result in many members because you're not offering anything special. This where you can learn from Chrisianity...
The Christian carrot
- 'You can shift the blame' ~ most people don't like feeling guilty but Christians can say that Satan made them screw up. The fact that the evil Satan is a Christian invention doesn't faze them at all.
- You get forgiven and escape the consequences ~ always
a winner, this one, especially with Catholics. Confess and
repent, say a few verses and Jesus will forgive you. Comes with
the added bonus that because some Catholics believe that thinking
about the sin is the same as perfoming the sin itself, you might
as well do the dirty deed ~ after all, you're going to be
forgiven anyway.
This might seem a bit unfair and unjust to the person who is sinned against because no one asks the victim for their forgivness: it's all done through a mythical third party.
Of course, the Christian God is unfair and unjust to begin with. Don't forget that this God is going to condemn anyone who doesn't believe in Christ as a savior. Too bad that 80% of the world's population doesn't believe in or has never heard of Jesus.
- Only their lot get saved ~ one of the big selling
points of Christianity is that only by going through them can you
be saved, and that every one else is going to hell.
What they don't tell you is that hell is also a Christian invention .
The Christian vision of hell ~ a place of eternal torment presided over by Satan who is assisted by legions of fallen angels is exclusively from the New Testament and has no factual basis in any of the Old Testament writings.
- You get to feel smug and superior to every body else because even though your God has the entire universe to run, He still finds time to take a close, personal interest in your life.
- You get a complete, ready made, pre-packaged belief
system, all set up and ready to go. ~ This frees you from
having to think and find the answers for yourself ~ you take the
deity with the dogma. If you started to think for yourself you
may come to the conclusion that all religions are not based on
provable facts but on faiths, rituals and myths that evolved from
and into each other.
You may even reach the conclusion that man invented God and religion when he knew nothing about science and the natural forces that shaped his existence.
The Christian Stick
- Only the people 'saved' by the Christians get in to
heaven ~ This is where they throw Adam's Original
Sin at you. The idea being that because Adam took a bite out
of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of Good and Evil every
other person born since shares that sin.
What a wonderful concept! This means that everyone is inherently evil and doomed unless they become Christians. Even new-born babies are set by default to burn for all eternity in hell. Not just a limited punishment consisting of a few thousand years to expiate the sin of some one you've never met and didn't even exist, but forever.
Of course, to save you from such a fate, many 'true christians' will go to any lengths to save your soul. So what if this involves Crusaders converting the 'heathens' at knife point, or engaging in witch hunts or torture? It's for your own good, after all.
Unfortunately, because of the fact that the 34,000 different Christian denominations have different views on the matter, it's very difficult to decide how you can be 'saved'.
Moslems get off the hook in this area as well. They believe everything that happens is the Will of God and they aren't responsible for it. Considering the severity of punishments under Islamic law, what this says about the character of their God is perhaps problematic. Since God made the thief steal, does it really seem fair to chop off his hand for doing something he had no control over? Or is the divine purpose of stealing actually to cause amputations? Arguably, Moslems don't actually believe in a God of Justice, since a just God wouldn't impose punishment on people who have no control over their actions, and are just doing what he is forcing them to do.
Keep the faith simple
This is were the Jews make a big mistake. Instead of having their religion made up by various people over the years, pinching stories, myths and central figures, such as Jesus, from other, older religions,they got theirs directly from God. They also got stuck with the most complicated set of rules of any western religion.
As soon as the Christians got in they dumped most of the old rules, such as circumcision and strict dietary laws, and reduced the number of commandments from 613 to 10.
Having a few hard-line fundamentalists is always a good idea. If it's written in 'The Good Book' then it must be true. It's also a lot of fun to wind them up and watch them go. Endless hours of fun can be had while they use all the techniques of anti-processing to defend the indefensible.
Defending The Faith
Non-believers laughing at your beliefs is a sign that your beliefs are true and are trying to destroy your faith because they know that this is so. It must be remembered only those who share your beliefs are the chosen people. Everyone else is a tool of the devil and if they can't be converted to the "True Faith" it is your obligation to wipe them out.
Again, you can learn from the Christians on this one. They have a vast amount of experience in wholesale slaughter and murderious Crusades.
Those who leave the group are obviously delusional and should be avoided if they refuse to come back. Learn from the Witnesses on this one.
It's also very important to defend against internal strife and power struggles. It's vital that you encourage the belief that only you are the conduit for the Mysterious Divine Purpose.
Other ways of defending the Faith include:
- ~ Expel doubters from the group. If they are no longer around, no-one will hear their blaspamy. Killing them is the prefered method, but remember that is method is now frowned on.
- ~ Explain that the doubts are sent as a test by God and must be overcome by faith. The devil's useful too. Explain that even though the doubts seem to be based on logic and evidence they are really the devil tempting the Faithful and should be ignored.
- ~ Remind your flock that only you are qualified to interpret the message.
- ~ Practice sayings such things as: "who are you to question God?". "It's a mystery", "We are not meant to know these things at this stage", "God works in mysterious ways", "Do not question these teachings".
- ~ Divine Revelations are useful in allowing you to adapt the
beliefs to changing circumstances. If your followers are
dumb, stupid, ignorantenlightened enough they will accept anything, even a complete doctrinal U-turn.
That's the first few basic steps to starting your own religion. As you go along you'll pick up more advanced techniques such as gaining martyrs, justifying any deviant behavour you engage in, explaining where the money's gone,etc, etc.