
Ask HN: Could a religion be started today? - dhruvkar
If so, what ingredients would it have &amp; what shape would it take? If not, what barriers would prevent it?<p>My knee-jerk reaction is that there&#x27;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&#x27;t necessarily determine what people believe.<p>This post* and its comments prompted the question.<p>*https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=12078784
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Gustomaximus
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...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_new_religious_movements)

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

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tlb
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/](http://www.sundayassembly.com/)

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

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

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dhruvkar
> without invoking the supernatural

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

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Jugurtha
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.

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notahacker
> 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...

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pesfandiar
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...](http://www.businessinsider.com/apple-is-a-religion-
neuroscientists-find-it-triggers-the-same-reaction-in-your-brain-2011-5)

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

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

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imauld
Pokemon Go released just the other day.

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

~~~
bbcbasic
Like starting a startup

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

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meric
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?

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jjoe
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

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lttlrck
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.

