I don’t know about you, but personally I can’t think of any better way to stroke your own ego than starting your very own religion and amassing millions of devoted followers. Well, as long as it’s a successful religion that is; obviously there’s no point starting a religion that doesn’t outlast your own mortal lifespan. For a truly enduring sense of self-importance you want your followers to continue worshipping you for at least a couple of millennia and that’s going to be difficult if you don’t have any by the time you die.
Clearly the mythology surrounding Jesus, Buddha and Mohammed make them difficult role models to emulate, but if a B-grade science fiction writer can start his own religion in our own life times then you can do it too. So here are my tips on how to start your own successful religion:
Endow Yourself With Divinity
Having an easily recognizable icon to brand your religion will help too.
Nobody argues with God. Well, nobody that you need to worry about anyway. So if you want to start a religion, you need to claim some divinity for yourself. The simplest way to do this is to just outright claim to be the messiah from some ancient religion; but many have tried this and failed. A more effective way is to make ambiguous statements like “I am who I am”, and let your followers fill in the blanks. They’ll feel very smart for having worked out that you’re divine before everyone else, and will spend the rest of their lives spreading your gospel for you thus saving you a great deal of time and effort.
Claiming divine inspiration is important so that when you are questioned by the unbelievers down the track you have something to fall back on. Stories of archangels can come in handy for this, and stone tablets engraved with divine teachings have paved the way before you for centuries. More recently, golden tablets have come into vogue. Never mind that the alleged tablets always go missing; that just adds to the intrigue that helps keep your new belief system alive.
