How to Create a Religion

Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju

Compcros
Comparative Cognitive Process and Systems
"Exploring Every Corner of the Cosmos in Search of Knowledge"
The recent furore over Islam, bringing to a focus the troubling prominence of
the religion since the beginning of the 21st century, challenges me to reflect on
religions as ideologies created by human beings in unusual situations.
I am intrigued as to how the pronouncements of individuals, the founders of
religions, can have such a magnetic and profound influence on countless
people across time and space.
I once argued with a Muslim that the Koran, like all religious texts, is partly a
human creation.
I also stated that the histories of the creation of these texts demonstrate a
body of procedures their creators have followed.
These procedures are quite straightforward.
They often involve physical seclusion for long periods of time.
During this seclusion, the seeker engages in intense prayer or meditation or
both.
Those who created new religions not only did this, but they sought something
different from what already existed.
Those practising such a discipline within an existing religious framework
discovered or created something new within that framework.
I think that anyone who subjects themselves to the discipline of a Buddha,
Muhammad or Jesus can achieve something like what they achieved.
Another quality the founders of religions shared is that they were
totally identified with what they sought. They did not mix their vocations with
any other occupation.
This commitment to their vocation was at times so radical that they had
no families, like Jesus and the Buddha.
I expect a related depth of commitments can be developed but within the
context of involvement in social life.

I am interested in the psychology of creating spiritual ideologies or religions as

a theoretical study and a practical discipline, something people can learn
and practice, helping to develop a more balanced approach to the culture
of
divinising religious founders, those whose achievements are made
possible by their subjecting themselves to disciplines others are
not committed enough to engage in.
As the world grows, may we not have modern forms of equal depth and
novelty for their time of the insights of Buddha, Jesus and Muhammad?

25 September 2012