If you were to create your own religion..

[TheMonster]

Just a thought experiment!

If you were to create a religion, how would you do it and how would you get others to follow it?

[vorlon13]

Dear God in heaven, I hope to be fucking better at it than that RETARD Joseph Smith !!

[Salacious B. Crumb]

1. Establish a fear of hell

2. Make up a holy book, claim it’s the true word of god

3. Make up original fairy tales and miracles

4. Force people to believe and act every way I (god) demand in that holy book

5. Collect all of their money, until people realize it’s all bullshit

However, I would not do that, because I am much more moral than that. That’s what I call evil, but many people don’t seem to think so. They love that shit!

[Spooky]

Blackjack and hookers?

I don't think I'm cut out to be a cult leader.

[Metis]

Just a thought experiment!

If you were to create a religion, how would you do it and how would you get others to follow it?

Well, it's a lot harder these days. I can't exactly fly to Jerusalem on the back of a donkey, not without a few jetpacks and some way to beat back the Hamas and Israeli rockets anyway.

I think I would draw upon the "exotic" eastern traditions, as these tend to impress the wealthy middle classes who demographically speaking are the most likely to become cultists and follow a plan like this...

1. Cultivate a history/CV that would make me appear mystical and mysterious that I could put on the back of books; perhaps spend a few years in a monestary, any monestary it really doesn't matter. Take up Yoga, an unusual diet, perhaps even begin to neglect my physical apperance; becoming underweight to heighten the sense of me being an ascetic detached from worldly concerns.

2. Write craptons of New Age self help books, of the "Chicken Soup for the Soul"/Deepak Chopra flavour.

3. Set up seminars and workshops where for exhorbitant prices people can learn from me basic stuff they could learn in five minutes from a book and receive some back patting and ego stroking lectures.

4. Rinse, lather and repeat.

5. After a few times doing the above buy myself a nice big manor with "donations" in Beverly Hills, fill the pool with dollar bills and hire an army of "Pool Boys" from a modeling agency to wait on me hand and foot as I lounge around in it.

6. Repeat step 4 as and when a nice new shiny Bentley or Rolls Royce model I like shows up.

It's perfect! All I need is a name for my new cult

SOON!

[TheMonster]

Just a thought experiment!

If you were to create a religion, how would you do it and how would you get others to follow it?

Well, it's a lot harder these days. I can't exactly fly to Jerusalem on the back of a donkey, not without a few jetpacks and some way to beat back the Hamas and Israeli rockets anyway.

I think I would draw upon the "exotic" eastern traditions, as these tend to impress the wealthy middle classes who demographically speaking are the most likely to become cultists and follow a plan like this...

1. Cultivate a history/CV that would make me appear mystical and mysterious that I could put on the back of books; perhaps spend a few years in a monestary, any monestary it really doesn't matter. Take up Yoga, an unusual diet, perhaps even begin to neglect my physical apperance; becoming underweight to heighten the sense of me being an ascetic detached from worldly concerns.

2. Write craptons of New Age self help books, of the "Chicken Soup for the Soul"/Deepak Chopra flavour.

3. Set up seminars and workshops where for exhorbitant prices people can learn from me basic stuff they could learn in five minutes from a book and receive some back patting and ego stroking lectures.

4. Rinse, lather and repeat.

5. After a few times doing the above buy myself a nice big manor with "donations" in Beverly Hills, fill the pool with dollar bills and hire an army of "Pool Boys" from a modeling agency to wait on me hand and foot as I lounge around in it.

6. Repeat step 4 as and when a nice new shiny Bentley or Rolls Royce model I like shows up.

It's perfect! All I need is a name for my new cult

SOON!

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That is a very interesting response. maybe come with a really Chinese sounding name and you are good to go!

But yes it is immoral

[Dragonetti]

Hookers and Blow!

[Holden Caulfield]

Blackjack and hookers?

I don't think I'm cut out to be a cult leader.

I'll make my own religion.  With blackjack and hookers.  No forget the religion.  Meh forget the blackjack as well. Ah screw the whole thing.

[Longhorn]

Everybody gets cake

but really only me but shhhhhhhhh

[ComradeMeow]

I am a very big fan of polytheism and would simply create a pantheon of gods that do not explain nature yet instead are used to express human qualities. True gods are without a doubt very anthropomorphic while the "gods" of Abrahamic polytheisms are just bad visualizations of the cosmos.

I would have a series of goddesses and gods in a dualistic fashion in representation like this:

Maarifa - Wisdom
Adab - Goodness
Khuluq - Morality
Kalam - Promotion of good speech

Collectively this would form al-Rabb and be deemed the expressive qualities of the ideal human (Ubermensch to Nietzschean philosophy).

Pretty simple I would say and very elaborate to some degree