Want to Start My Own Religion: Need Help with Details Please?

Question

I want to start my own religion. I am writing to the experts on Yahoo Answers seeking your help.

I need help with the following details:

What should we believe?

How should we pray?

Should we wear magical underpants, or not?

I look forward to hearing from you all.

Answer 1

That's easy enough (Having started a couple of religions myself I figure this is right up my alley)

First: It won't much matter what you start out believing (it will eventually end up being corrupted, mis-interpreted, and abused by your followers anyway), but you want to make sure that there is some part of church doctrine that requires the donation personal income to the church in order to get into heaven. You also want to stick with the idea that your deity of choice is omnipresent, and can not only see what people are doing, but also what they are thinking. A level of free floating paranoia is always a plus, so members should be allowed and even encouraged to report each others 'unacceptable' behavior to the clergy.

Second: Modern prayer has become rather dull and personal, so I think you should do anything you can think of to spice up the experience. Ululating, nude dancing, body paint, orgies, pyrotechnic displays, live heavy metal bands, anything that will get the proles thinking about your god. Also, you should consider instating human sacrifice at least once a year at major church celebrations. (You can sacrifice the members who's annual donation totals are not quite up to spec)

Third: Magical underpants should be reserved for members of the clergy, and for five members of the church who donated the greatest sums of money during the previous fiscal year.

Answer 2

All of the traditional deity-focused beliefs have already been taken - people have worshipped everything from trees to invisible aliens through ancient prophets - so you need something new, perhaps worshipping the Human spirit or technology or something. Or you could just worship something random, like the webbing between the toes of ducks. However, the best belief system for a religion wishing to attract followers is something all-encompassing, enlightening, which provides a doctrine to live your life by, but is ultimately unprovable one way or the other - like the fact that Tuna sandwiches contain the answer to every scientific problem in the universe if you just look hard enough.

Prayer is a method of communication, albeit one-way, between the worshipper and the worshippee. Because most religions like to be able to berate people for not praying, the act of doing so is usually marked by a physical act (pressing your palms together, kneeling facing east, etc) which is visible to other people. So you need some sort of action, like standing on one foot, or sticking your fingers up your nose, which, combined with closing your eyes and mumbling, will give the effect of conversing with your intended prayer recipient. The act of prayer is often dependent on the object being prayed to; for instance, if you worship ants then your prayers might take the form of waving your fingers above your forhead like a pair of antennae.

In regard to magical underpants, I think that wearing clothes tailored to your beliefs is certainly necessary, especially seeing as many other religions have some sort of requirement to don clothing or jewellery to mark you out as believer - and you don't want to be left out. It also fosters a feeling of togetherness and of shared experience in your followers, as long as it can be seen - therefore I feel that it would be much better to wear your magical underpants outside your trousers (or skirt) as a symbol of your faith.

Good luck with your new religion, whatever form it may take. I look forward to watching it take over the world.

Answer 3

What should we believe? : I'd say you have to be creative, distinguish yourself. You don't want to seem to closely related to other existing religions. The main question you need to ask is "are we going to worship a deity or just a set of beliefs?" I'd say deity, but only if you can get a cool enough name for him. I'm thinkin Ted. Or Ned. Something -ed.

How should we pray? Screaming at the top of your lungs. Just screaming, no words. This will help get you recognized in the religious community.

Should we wear magical underpants? Of course not, thats blasphamey against Ted. Or Ned. Your new religion should go commando.

Anyway, those are my thoughts. I started a religion once in Waco but it didn't work out, hopefully you'll have better luck!

Answer 4

Religion is created by the "creator" NOT the "creation"

God created one religion in this world but he changed it over the years by sending prophets, they all have the same message worship the one and only God and obey him, they were sent to different people, different tribes depending on there beliefs at the time and there culture.


these religions that were created by the people them selves are stupid they have no meaning, why in they world are you worshiping a cow or a fire? both can die and they are found everywhere, what if you were in a place where there were two fires, which one will you worship?

all you need is to clear you time and start to think around you, stop doing things just because people are doing them!

I'm not stopping you from reading about different religion, go ahead read all about them and follow the one where you'll find all the answers to your questions.

Don't be a Christian just because you were born Christian!

I'm a Muslim and read about different religions and how they are...they just don't get in to my mind, they're just hard to believe that actually many people follow them without knowing there religion, the main purpose of it!

Good Luck~

Answer 5

I'm sorry, the magical underpants thing was tried in Utah and resulted in all sorts of trouble. People spying on their neighbor's laundry line, stealing from same. It was dreadful. They had to go to full sized union-suits to make them harder to steal. But then they ran into problems with getting overheated, so had to go into the holy of holies in their skivvies. Shameful! Don't go there.

Will Gordon be a high mucky muck?

Answer 6

What should we believe?
-Believe in like 3 different gods, each with special powers. You can make a TV show out of it too.

How should we pray?
-Make it something easy to do, so more people will be attracted to the religion.

Should we wear magical underpants, or not?
-Yes, that way you can make more money charging people for 'magical vestments'.

Answer 7

You should believe in God. It should be a genderless, loving God who cares for humanity. This God created humanity at the beginning of time.

We shouldn't have to pray because God already knows all of our thoughts and concerns. God reacts to all our concerns.

We should wear magical underpants, but they should cost at least $500 and be patented to me. If you don't have magic underpants, you are not part of our religion and you will only go to an inferior heaven. People with magic underpants can be invisible or fly or be invincible.

Answer 8

Funny you should ask; Ira Glass once recorded a segment for his radio show _This American Life_ which dealt with just this kind of question.

Here's the link:
http://www.thislife.org/pages/descriptions/06/311.html

Good luck, and I say *yes* (always) to magical underpants, whether there's a whole theological apparatus to support them or not!

Answer 9

There are thousands to use as examples, both current and past. You could restart a Baal religion, of sex and reproduction. The symbols are the rabbit and the egg, for sex and reproduction, so you will already have a recognized holiday for which people get off work.

Answer 10

today's religions are dreadfulyl boring. Try adding something to do with hot chicks and make sure everything is based off an infinitive, as they can not be proven false or true..for example your god should be 'perfect' and exist 'infinitively'. :P good luck.