Religion is a phenomenon that civilized man has been dealing with since the dawn of time. Only in isolated tribes and animals, do we find a conspicuous lack of religion. In this article, I would like to elucidate my musings into a structured monograph.

1. Origins of Religion

2. Needs that Religion Fulfills.

3. A short commentary on major religions.

4. My Ideal Religion

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Origins of Religion are as varied as the people commenting on it. Karl Marx famously described it as the opium of the masses. Modern scholars associate religion as the raw, simple method through which ancient humans tried to explain away their surroundings. Believers in Ancient Aliens prefer to describe Religion as the way in which the aliens kept the savage humans in check. My own ideas are a blend of everything. 

Sure Religion started as a way of explaining cosmic evens, natural disasters, anomalies, happenings, etc in our surroundings. But that can only explain the primitive tribes' worship, not the sophisticated religions and scriptures of big empires. For that, I prefer to believe in the ancient alien theory as well where religion was a way to discipline a large group of people and worship the aliens as their gods. When the stay on earth became untenable for the aliens, they left but humans clung to it because religion in a way, satiated their spiritual hunger.

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Some people believe that Religion is a waste of energy and should be completely removed from society. However, seeing that Religion has persisted for so long and some of the greatest scientific thinkers of humanity were deeply spiritual, tells me that it definitely fulfils certain human needs. I prefer to call the needs that religion fulfils as "Pillars of Religion".  After contemplation, I came out with 3 fixed pillars and 1 movable pillar. A fixed pillar is nothing but a pillar that requires the creators of the religion to act in a certain, measurable way because the outcome of that pillar is linear. Movable pillar is more customized and variable because it consists of side effects that religion causes and isn't necessarily intentional or linear.

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                                                                           The 4 Pillars of Religion are: -

                                                                           1. Spiritual Satiation (fixed)

                                                                           2. Mass Disciplinary Action (fixed)

                                                                           3. Racial/Cultural Expansion (fixed)

                                                                           4. Mass Behavioral Change (variable)

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Spiritual Hunger refers to the questions like "Who am I", "What's my purpose here", "Am I going in the right direction", "Why did humans come to Earth", "Is there a supreme power" and to the times of helplessness where you need someone better than yourself guaranteeing better times or survival through hard times. These fundamental questions are hard to solve by logic and reasoning primarily because they don't have fixed answers. Or, you could say that our science is not advanced enough to deal with such questions, yet but one day, it may be able to.

Spiritual Hunger is faced by the majority of human beings, in different forms. Just because someone is a smart scientist or a throbbing party-goer, doesn't mean they don't suffer pangs of spiritual incompleteness. Greater the emotional quotient of the person, the higher or deeper the spiritual hunger. Some rare cases (exceptions or people following outside 3 standard deviations) might not suffer any spiritual hunger, but those are usually not normal people and usually suffer from some affliction or abnormality.

Religion is the primary and easy way to solve such questions by creating a divine framework of deities (or deity) to reinforce the transmitter's words (the transmitter refers to the priest or the mullah or the bishop or even the shaman) which are nothing but a philosophical way to obliquely answer the unanswerable questions and pleas of the supplicant. Religion's key factor of "faith" or "dogma" makes it impossible for us to test it's assertions and thus encourages us to have faith. Faith, in turn, gives the courage to accept the philosophical musings and go on, facing our troubles head-on.

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Mass Disciplinary Action is nothing but coercing a society to behave in a certain way to fulfil the so-called "evolutionary" needs of a species.  Humans by their basic nature are chaotic and selfish. They prefer the least resistance way of doing things and if given the choice, would go for personal pleasures and prosperity over the others. However, social structures and culture force people to behave in certain ways. If unconstrained, most humans will simply abandon their duties and go for the selfish, chaotic way of the animal world. Disciplinary Action of religion funnels the collective human block to behave in a certain way that keeps society orderly, cooperative, industrious, and expansive. The specific actions may differ (for example, compare an Islamic, Jewish, Christian, Taoist, Buddhist, and Hindu society) but overall, reproductive capacity, wealth, and orderliness are preferred in every society. 

Most of the disciplinary action comes with the threat of divine punishment and societal abandonment. This can vary with civilization's march towards progress but due to some reason, we haven't been able to invent new religions with relatively different disciplinary actions. Certain New Age cults and sects may be already doing something innovative on this front, but they haven't come to my knowledge. For example, I can create an ideology where we don't punish adulterers, gays, and blasphemers by stoning them, yet have a structure where people are loyal to their own, reproduce healthily and work hard to prosperity. 

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Racial Cultural Expansion refers to increasing the dominance of a country, where the particular religion originated. For example, Islam propagates Arabic dress and food style (halal), Hinduism propagates dhoti, teeka, and idols native to India Christianity propagates Hebrew and Latin names, European dress code, and so on. Some modern cults and new age religions don't' particularly propagandize any cultural symbols but they aren't taken very seriously as well. This pillar exists because adherents, in the beginning, want to distinguish their followers from others. 

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The last Pillar or the Movable Pillar is the "Behavioral Change" that inadvertently comes with the spread of religion. It is usually not enshrined specifically in any scripture but is a result of the preaching done by the priestly classes. The original culture of the area from where the religion starts also has a large role to play in this pillar. For example, religions born in the Middle East, the land of deserts, caravans, and raiding are in general more intolerant than the ones born in fertile plains of Asia and Europe. Intolerance, Spirituality, Warlikeness, etc are examples of traits that entire populations get moved towards as a side effect of religion.

Now why I called this as a movable pillar is because it can be used as a customizable option by someone who is trying to craft a new religion. 

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Commentary on Other Religions: -

1) Hinduism

PROs [Deep Spirituality; Meditation; Yoga; Tolerance; Wisdom ] CONs [Caste System; Lack of Material Advancement; Lack of Unity; Sloth, Chaos]

2) Islam

PROs [Racial Equality; Charity; Unity; Fanaticism (Debatable) ] CONs [Violence; Fanaticism, InTolerance; Discouragement to Empirical/Creative Thought]

3) Buddhism

PROs [Meditation, Spirituality, Equality, Pacifism, Orderliness] CONs [Military Weakness; Lack of Material Advancement; Supremacism]

4) Jainism

PROs [Veganism, Tolerance, Unity] CONs [Military Weakness, Naked Saints, Focus on Trivialities, Less Charity]

5) Sikhism

PROs [Charity, Tolerance, Better Morality, Righteous Violence, No Evangelisation] CONs [Fanaticism, Trivial/Cumbersome Hair Rituals]

6) Christianity

PROs []

7) Judaism

PROs

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                                                                         My Ideal Religion and Morality System

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So this thought has often crossed my mind whenever people discuss morality and give their points of view. Morality is often fluid and vague, with different personalities of people arbitrarily labelling certain things as bad immoral while others as good. But the vast majority of people in a similar set of circumstances (prosperity, progressiveness, contact with others, etc) do agree on general morality unless they are heavily brainwashed by their religion/cult.

Apart from Morality, a lot of inefficient and bad things that I see around myself also prompted me to write this. For example, If I see that if I am surrounded by a lot of stray animals uncared for while people waste their money on luxury and religious rituals, can I do something to prevent it? Why not turn the fanaticism of Religion to good use? Of Couse, Despite Religion's strengths it definitely can't streamline the hundreds of different personalities and individuals, but it can be a good start. 

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I will divide my religion into the following parts: -

 

1) Myths and Backstory

2) Commandments

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1) Myths are the stories that Religions create to give a general sense of how the world came into being and answer the basic questions of their followers about the natural world, life, and the afterlife. In my case, the story will be such: -

We are simply inferior celestial beings, a laboratory experiment of some far advanced alien race whose purpose with us is not yet fully known. However, with the evidence of archaeology and world religions, we can speculate that it does consist of the following things: -

 

1. Human Contentment

2. Worship of Some Unknown Beings

3. Final Joining with the Creators

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Human Contentment can be visualized by a computer program [run by the unknown aliens] where we are the target variables and the objective of the program is to maximize our happiness for the maximum amount of time possible. Note, we can't (don't want to) maximize ecstasy. We can only maximize lack of sadness, our systems are inherently wired to prevent us from acquiring intense happiness. Whenever we go to acquire intense happiness, our systems backfire and we are presented with agony to compensate for it. The reason could be speculated to be that we don't want to be held back from progress and civilization (which would be the case if we were for eg, drug-addled ecstatic vegetative bags). 

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Worship or faith in some unknown being has also been prevalent since ancient times. Even the smartest and most intelligent people in their old age start worshipping their gods. Even if you are not worshipping a conventional God, you still revere a higher power. Very few people in this world actually can live without privately believing in a higher power. It's human to be in fear of disintegration and nothingness unless of course, you live in constant agony (like a decaying disease or torture for eg). Worship is rationalized in my belief as a way of channelling some psychic power (or biochemical power) into the reservoirs of some advanced beings who use it for their daily chores.

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Final Joining with the creators is the ultimate goal of life. Well, at least a temporary goal of this finite life. If not the creators, then what? Simple non-existence is hard to visualize and even harder to grasp. And, all of the major religions of this world point towards an eternal state of existence with the Creator, that is full of bliss and happiness. It can be visualized in 3 different ways, for example: -

1) The Matrix. Where you wake up after death on Earth.

2) Existence of Souls:- Where you actually depart Earth to the advanced planet.

3) Reincarnation:- Where your life essence flows into some other womb (inception of a baby).

Eventually, though, whosoever created this complicated system must have also devised a way of transforming us into a more eternal life. Not completely infinite, but still pretty long when compared to a measly 85 years of the highest living nation of Earth, Japan. 

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COMMANDMENTS

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Best Practices

A) Dress B) Personal Grooming/Dress C) Behaviour towards fellow believers D) Duty towards Higher Power(s)

Companionship

A) Sexuality B) Romance C) Children D) Marriage E) Homosexuality F) Debauchery G) Population control

Unbelievers

A) Disagreement Solutions B) Individual Friendship C) War D) Conversion E) Trade/Diplomacy

Arts and Science

A) Creativity B) Freedom of Speech C) Job vs Passion (Encouragement)

General behaviour

A) Duty towards fellow believers B) Society division by culture and kind of jobs C) Morality

Metrics for culture are

1. Personal freedom (grooming, dress, expression, speech)

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Morality

1) Rights of Different Categories of People

Basic Rights are for everyone. Special Rights are for the proven ascetic, empathic & charitable humans. Men & Women have equal rights and duties. No special pampering for any group. 

2) Personal Freedom 

As long as it doesn't obtrude on other people's privacy, physical safety and public character. No idea, activity is blasphemous. Anything & everything is encouraged.

3) Personal Duties and Religious Coercion towards the fulfilment of the same.

Spread religion but only through specific, organized and non-coercive methods. Incentivization, non-compulsion but strong indoctrination and constant reminders for the fulfilment of the greater good.  

4) Behavior towards Animals

Compassion, Care & Non-Violence. 

5) Diet

Vegetarian in most cases. Non-Vegetarian if needed.

6) Equality, Hierarchy and Elitism

Equality at birth doesn't necessitate equality while growing up or when shown through ability. Nobility, Sacred bloodlines are fraught with more duties than enjoyment. Though respect, prestige and honour are awarded to both ability-based excellers and noble bloodlines (created primarily through bravery, industriousness & intelligence). Racism, Casteism & Judgmental Exclusivism strongly discouraged. Although, encouragement to forming like-minded groups. 

7) Usage of Monetary Resources

Necessity fulfillment and basic enjoyment are encouraged. Splurging on Luxury and vanity are discouraged. Helping faith kin is strongly encouraged. Basic charity is also encouraged but the pinnacle of basic charity is limited to food, water & clothing. 

8) Sexuality

Pre-Pubescent Folks strongly discouraged. Healthy, consensual & non-compulsive sexuality is encouraged from teenage. Marriage is neither encouraged nor discouraged. Single parenthood is also not frowned upon and actively encouraged. Extreme, forcible & obsessive sexuality is strongly discouraged. 

9) Greater Good

Unbiased growth in scientific methods, historical knowledge and neuro-psychological advancements. Along with sustainable, environmental growth. Actively oppose tyrannical, mob based, destructive and intolerant ideologies. Good physique and fighting ability strongly encouraged. A firm belief in maintaining the diversity of ethnicity, flora/fauna, colour, belief system & thoughts.

10) Protest: - Means & Triggers

Triggers: - 1) Procrastination in Public Works 2) All kinds of Pollution & Desertification 3) Theocratic Tyranny, Ethno-Religious Oppression, Mob Anarchy or Organized Crime. 4) Wastage of Necessary Resources.

Means: - 1) Area Isolation 2) Marches in front of Govt Properties 3) Violent Crusade involving acquiring neglected properties forcefully and maintaining a vigilante order until further negotiations.

​Morality
Compassion
Sacrifice
Justice
Personal Freedom
No Wastage