I don't have anything to back this up, but I wonder if there's a strong correlation between a religion being minority in a region and how "peaceful" it is, because my suspicion is that majority/power of any kind will always come at the risk of attracting chuds or corrupting the fearful into protecting themselves by attacking others. Literally "others" I guess.
Pet hypothesis just held up by vibes though so
And a sect of the TST was removed because they started pushing for violence. Every religion is vulnerable to corruption by people's pride and other hindrances. Buddhism is no exception. Nor is any imaginary one folks come up with in this thread.
Anyway, power corrupts. We've always known that. The 'devil' in Buddhism is the lust or will to power. Lies and manipulation are simply a tool it uses. And, like Buddha Nature, we all have it.
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.
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 think it’s just a thought exercise
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.
It would have two tenets:
Be excellent to each other
Party on, dudes
you forgot 0. Wyld Stallyons!!
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.
"Blessings to the Future Generations" forward-thinking traditions rather than handicapping the now to fit the past's biases
Nice, that’s great.
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?
That sounds like a writing prompt.
like that the egg story but even after an eternity You still ends up sucking at being a god
Bruce Somemighty
Sure, but y'know it'd be so much easier to cope with the random shit life threw at you if you knew it wasn't a gigantic fuck-you, eg. you're going to die horribly to teach your loved ones an important lesson about faith lol.
There's a fantasy series that has part of this as a plot point. A normal person becomes god with all the godly powers but only for a very short time do they get ALL the power. Its overwhelming in the first few moments and they almost destroy the planet with a mere thought. They realize their mistake a few seconds later, but only have half the power by then, so they put in an ugly workaround, before most of their power runs out. Now that ugly workaround is just "life as we know it" on the planet for the people that live there.
This is a deep spoiler for a popular book series so I don't want to post the series name and I don't think we have a spoiler tag yet.
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.
Wow thank you for the info, very insightful. I’ve always been interested in Burning Man but live to far away!
I go to regionals. They're smaller, cheaper, less of a time commitment, and they help me form a sense of community in my area with like-minded people.
If you google Burning Man, your area, regional, you might be able to find something.
Ha, well, I live in China…. so I’ll check and see but otherwise I’ll just keep on camping :-)
i feel like "religion" may not be the word you're looking for, something closer to "system of belief" maybe?
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.
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.
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
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'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.
Wow great thoughts, I’ll learn from this here for sure.
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!
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.
Just worship cats.
Didn't this exist already?
Bast is best
Two tenants
You must protect those weaker than you
You may only punch up or in self defense.
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.
A religion that aims to have well built and healthy bodies to earn the favor of the gods from said religion.
What about disabilities?
Burn them!
Oh, that would make it into German nazism.
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
That’s wise, good ideas!
Tak does not require we think of him, only that we think.
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.
Thank you I’ll check it out today.
Smoking weed to resolve differences
Peace pipe or death sentence, either way, someone has a good time.
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.
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!
2 girls at the same time.
Probably a deist one. One where it says that God have left us, because he wanted that we need to go forwards without his guidance, and it's the only way to have more civilized society, especially given how bed-time stories don't have much to do with today's reality.
Free access to a ps5/ series x with free online.
Fuck no. A religion dictates:
what you think to be true or false. I'm a human thus an ignorant; there's no fucking way that I'd establish a system of beliefs that would be completely true. And the very fact that people would sheepishly look at my religion and say "its chrue cuz our faith says so lol" makes it counter-productive.
what you judge as good or bad. Except that my moral values might not hold so well across the time. Worse - once you gather a thousand people, most of them braindead muppets, some will care about the letter of those moral rules instead of the spirit.
what you do or don't. I'd be effectively removing agency from the people who follow my religion, telling them what they should be doing, be it on rituals or whatever.
Nothing is True Everything is Permitted
Origin
This idiomatic expression originates from Friedrich Nietzsche, the famous philosopher who wrote the phrase in his 1859 book, "The Geneology of Morals." However, Nietzsche attributes the phrase's origin to Hassan-i-Sabbah, the leader of the historical Assassins. This sect was a part of Isma'ili and Shia Islam. However, there is no verified proof of these claims.
The Satanic Temple and Buddhism both fill that niche for me. So, I would make it like them.
Not completely safe there with Buddhism: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhism_and_violence
I don't have anything to back this up, but I wonder if there's a strong correlation between a religion being minority in a region and how "peaceful" it is, because my suspicion is that majority/power of any kind will always come at the risk of attracting chuds or corrupting the fearful into protecting themselves by attacking others. Literally "others" I guess.
Pet hypothesis just held up by vibes though so
And a sect of the TST was removed because they started pushing for violence. Every religion is vulnerable to corruption by people's pride and other hindrances. Buddhism is no exception. Nor is any imaginary one folks come up with in this thread.
Anyway, power corrupts. We've always known that. The 'devil' in Buddhism is the lust or will to power. Lies and manipulation are simply a tool it uses. And, like Buddha Nature, we all have it.
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.
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 think it’s just a thought exercise
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.
It would have two tenets:
you forgot 0. Wyld Stallyons!!
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.
"Blessings to the Future Generations" forward-thinking traditions rather than handicapping the now to fit the past's biases
Nice, that’s great.
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?
That sounds like a writing prompt.
like that the egg story but even after an eternity You still ends up sucking at being a god
Bruce Somemighty
Sure, but y'know it'd be so much easier to cope with the random shit life threw at you if you knew it wasn't a gigantic fuck-you, eg. you're going to die horribly to teach your loved ones an important lesson about faith lol.
There's a fantasy series that has part of this as a plot point. A normal person becomes god with all the godly powers but only for a very short time do they get ALL the power. Its overwhelming in the first few moments and they almost destroy the planet with a mere thought. They realize their mistake a few seconds later, but only have half the power by then, so they put in an ugly workaround, before most of their power runs out. Now that ugly workaround is just "life as we know it" on the planet for the people that live there.
This is a deep spoiler for a popular book series so I don't want to post the series name and I don't think we have a spoiler tag yet.
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.
Wow thank you for the info, very insightful. I’ve always been interested in Burning Man but live to far away!
I go to regionals. They're smaller, cheaper, less of a time commitment, and they help me form a sense of community in my area with like-minded people.
If you google Burning Man, your area, regional, you might be able to find something.
Ha, well, I live in China…. so I’ll check and see but otherwise I’ll just keep on camping :-)
i feel like "religion" may not be the word you're looking for, something closer to "system of belief" maybe?
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.
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.
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
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'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.
Wow great thoughts, I’ll learn from this here for sure.
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!
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.
Just worship cats.
Didn't this exist already?
Bast is best
Two tenants
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.
A religion that aims to have well built and healthy bodies to earn the favor of the gods from said religion.
What about disabilities?
Burn them! Oh, that would make it into German nazism.
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
That’s wise, good ideas!
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.
Cookie based dogma.
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.
Thank you I’ll check it out today.
Smoking weed to resolve differences
Peace pipe or death sentence, either way, someone has a good time.
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.
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!
2 girls at the same time.
Probably a deist one. One where it says that God have left us, because he wanted that we need to go forwards without his guidance, and it's the only way to have more civilized society, especially given how bed-time stories don't have much to do with today's reality.
Free access to a ps5/ series x with free online.
Fuck no. A religion dictates:
Nothing is True Everything is Permitted
Maybe not the best source https://english-grammar-lessons.com/nothing-is-true-everything-is-permitted-meaning/
I would add something about it being illegal to kill people and that being nice to everyone is a virtue!