The Satanic Temple and Buddhism both fill that niche for me. So, I would make it like them.
In order to make it wholesome and helpful I would not create one.
I would suggest that you reconsider TST in light of recent actions. At the very least, look into all of the people that have been summarily kicked out solely by Doug Mesner AKA Lucien Greaves, been stripped of their ministerial titles, and how many chapters/congregations have separated from the org. If you use Reddit at all, you can find some of it there. I’m friends on Facebook with some of the higher-up people that either left or were kicked out, and… It ain’t pretty.
The long and short of it is that Doug Mesner and Cevin Soling (AKA Malcom Jarry) entirely own all of the intellectual property that is The Satanic Temple, and so they have complete control over everything that goes on. It’s fundamentally authoritarian, even though they officially espouse more anarchistic, freedom-loving principles. The most recent schism is because Doug is exercising his authoritarian tendencies and throwing people out that disagree with him.
I appreciate the heads-up. I’m actually a Buddhist, so not really looking for a new religion. I mostly admire the work TST has done for religious pluralism.
I watched Hail Satan? They went into some of the schisms in the TST, but it was framed as the chapter head not following the principles and damaging TST’s overall goals (encouraging people to kill Trump). Are there other examples? I’m curious, but not curious enough to go on reddit.
No, it’s the satanic temple. Buddhism as practiced in Buddhist countries is the same shit different god, they dgaf, and have not read any scripture.
The western perception of Buddhism versus what Buddhists believe is totally different.
You kill a dog for meat? You drown it so it experiences terror and fights for its life, then you take its strength when you eat it.
It’s just like any other religion, you adhere when it suits you, and you probably know nothing about its precepts.
That’s a gross over generalization. I get it, I was a militant atheist at one point in my life too and still have a lot of similar biases in my religious views.
There are sincere Christians and ones that pay lip service. Same with Buddhism. There are many Christian sects, some dogmatic, some not. Same with Buddhism.
Half the TST principles are Buddhist. Either being path factors (Right View, Right Action) or expressions of the four immeasurables (compassion, justice).
And I just watched a documentary on TST. They’ve had issues with members too. Militant sects forming that forgot about compassion as a principle. Etc.
My point was that Buddhism is religion, they are all the same.
First, they’re all bullshit.
Second, a tiny percentage actually adhere to scripture.
So if you say ‘I believe in X’, but your actions are contrary to that scripture should I really think you believe in ‘X’?
And the TST is also a religion.
Anyway, your ‘they’re all bullshit’ comment makes it clear you didn’t join this thread to have a good faith discussion, but rather to shit on views different from your own.
So, I’ll leave you to it. Enjoy.
That’s rather simplistic and dismissive.
I would love it if there was some kind of unifying force to make the world better.
Religion does not seem to be it though.
Religion/Community. In a brighter world those words would be interchangeable.
I am an atheist at heart, but you still have to acknowledge that the core values of a lot of religions are for the betterment of others.
People don’t seem to be capable of being uncorruptable. You can have a perfect religion, or one that only adheres to goodness (like tst) and it will be PEOPLE who abuse it. Not the religion itself, just people cherry picking what they want.
It could be laws, it could be a cult, it could be a religion, it could be a government. Some people just fucking suck, end of story.
That’s a lot of projection. You just dismissed all religion as bullshit, which is simplistic and dismissive.
I said, welp, you don’t seem to be acting in good faith, so I’m not going to keep playing.
Then, you project?
We can try again, but not until you reread your comments and understand why I stopped engaging.
Any particular reason that you think we need more religion?
I don’t think we need more religion, no. I think people would like options with less archaic ideas, and that they would like the community and activity that religious groups can offer if the strange belief requirements can be left behind.
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.
You just described the Esperanto community 😅
I’d like to think these are just some of the universal things of what makes a community fulfilling and fun, as I was mostly trying to abstract some of my favorite things about being Jewish from the faith component.
I think you did a great job distilling it. I can see many parallels with other communities I know too.
Ah gotta get Festivus on the calendar! I like the rules idea too, maybe a few super random things just to be quirky.
For some people, it’s important to have rules!! Of course you need the standard social construct rules, but the less necessary ones are important too. I think they give structure and consistency to people, so even if they’re arbitrary, it fulfils that need and as long as isn’t disruptive to society, I don’t see the harm. Plus, knowing someone also follows the same rules, rituals and holidays you do gives you instant rapport with them, so it aids in building a sense of community. Polite people outside of the new religion will also be curious and interested in hearing about these rules/rituals and whatever reasoning could uphold them, and the followers likely will enjoy explaining them, so this helps them build friendships outside of the religious group as well.
Tho it’s crucial that others aren’t ostracized for not following the more arbitrary ones and that those that do follow them don’t feel any actionable feelings of superior devotion or what-not. I think you can ostracize people who violate rules that relate to already well established social constructs (theft, murder, etc), but not the more frivolous restrictions and behavioral requirements we’d invent here.
I like pancakes. And green beans.
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.
I’d make it atheistic, include meditation and be proactive with volunteering or useful projects.
Isn’t this basically Buddhism? Apart from the atheistic bit, of course.
Ha true, good point. Buddhism can be a little atheistic, I believe, the Buddha isn’t an actual deity for most adherents. (I think…?)
Buddhism isn’t dogmatic about cosmology/theology, but there’s a lot of it there. Most likely as a hold over from Hinduism, as teaching using the ancient Indian conventional worldview would have been a skillful means for the Buddha and his disciples.
That said, in that cosmology, the Hindu gods live in the Deva realm. Time there is much slower but they still do age (impermanence) and die, and cycle into lower realms if they don’t awaken. A being can be both a Buddha and a Deva. Just as Siddhartha was a Buddha and a Human.
An example of this is Amitabha, the Buddha of the Pure Lands (a Deva realm). This is a Buddha that many east Asian Mahayana Buddhists take refuge in, as Amitabha made a vow to hold space for people to practice and achieve enlightenment.
Amitabha isn’t worshiped the same way Western religions worship gods. The outward customs look similar. Offering incense and stuff like that. But the goal is gifting. It’s giving something to someone you value or love, similar to taking care of the monks and nuns. And gifting is considered a spiritual practice (because it is, giving something with no strings attached or expectation of reward nurtures joy, compassion, etc.)
Amitabha doesn’t get mad and kill all the firstborns if people don’t give him gifts in other words. That’s the difference between worship and devotion.
Reading your above comment you might like Burning Man too. The principles provide similar guidance to religion. A lot of Burners are into meditation and stuff like that. A lot of us are also into drugs, loud music that goes all night, and carnival level art spectacles. Which isn’t everyone’s jam, but it’s a very loving community based on anarchism and making art.
i feel like “religion” may not be the word you’re looking for, something closer to “system of belief” maybe?
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
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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!
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.
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.
A religion that aims to have well built and healthy bodies to earn the favor of the gods from said religion.
What about disabilities?
Well, disabled people still can try be healthy to their best extent. Helping others act upon the religion could also count.
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
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.
Dunno. Some stuff was corrupt from the start.
singing
Like, if there was some other community where I could go and just sing songs with my neighbors, church would lose like 80% of its appeal to me.
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.
Gods do not exist and find your way through science and technology.
Oh, and if I’m mortally wounded, definitely do not put me in a machine and sacrifice thousands of psychics to keep me alive.
And remember, Gods don’t exist! Definitely don’t be a heretic or an alien!
