Ask HN: Could a religion be started today? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Could a religion be started today?

20 pointsdhruvkar16 comments

If so, what ingredients would it have & what shape would it take? If not, what barriers would prevent it?

My knee-jerk reaction is that there's no way one could be created today. Freely available information, lack of privacy, and a vastly more educated populace would nip that sucker in the bud. On the other hand, there are guys like Trump that prove logic and information don't necessarily determine what people believe.

This post* and its comments prompted the question.

*https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12078784

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Scientology is obvious example. But sure. Most religions, even old one tend to adopt parts of other religion quite closely. Which also makes Scientology more unique.

Some others: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_new_religious_movement...

Doh! Completely forgot about Scientology before posting. Tha ks for the link.

An interesting trend is secular churches that provide the community and inspirational parts of church without invoking the supernatural. For instance, http://www.sundayassembly.com/

Transpersonal psychology has some elements of a religion. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transpersonal_psychology

Both the above seem compatible with logic and freely available information.

> without invoking the supernatural

I see this being a key common ingredient for a successful religion today.

Something along the lines of encompassing every positive thing about religions that pertains to the interaction of humans with other humans, environment, themselves, etc.

One that embraces debate and incites to challenge any dogmatic belief. One that doesn't shy away from hard questions, one where people would say "I don't know" instead of coming up with a story to explain something.

A human and humane religion, essentially, that takes out the divine from the equation..

If there is a God, I don't think a human can either harm or help him/her. But if you believe in Heaven and Hell, I think it's fair to assume that people go to Hell and Heaven for what they have done to and for humans, and rarely for what they have done to and for the Lord.

> Freely available information, lack of privacy, and a vastly more educated populace would nip that sucker in the bud

The evidence of the popularity of some of the sillier conspiracy theories - even or especially amongst the relatively well-educated - would suggest otherwise...

With a looser definition of religion, we already have modern forms of religion: Apple, Whole Foods, ...

They stimulate the same neural paths [1], they have the same cult following, and they for sure have reliable revenue streams from their members.

[1] (low quality link, sorry) http://www.businessinsider.com/apple-is-a-religion-neuroscie...

How different would it need to be from existing religions? If not especially different, I imagine variations spring up almost daily around the world.

Yes, Apparently they do. See Gustomaximus's link.

Pokemon Go released just the other day.

I think that starting a religion is not that difficult because almost all religions are based on austerity/deprivation with a promise.

Like starting a startup

The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster was founded in 2005. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Spaghetti_Monster

The way people write "Science" capitalising the first letter, and says things like "one day Science will solve these problems for us", sound a lot like putting faith in a religion to me. What is religion but philosophy mixed with some faith?

You only need three ingredients: miracles, prophecies, and a timeframe.

You need a couple of miracles to get people to listen. And you need true prophecies (accurate predictions of the future) to have long term following.

Good luck

I would daub that so long as there are religious/God believing people in the world there is the potential for new religions to be created.

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