Hi,
i had the idea to make a thread about a few atheistic religions i tried in the past 2 years

a) Thelema
b) Discordianism
c) Transhumanism

a) Thelema says:
"do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law, love is the law love under will"

Although Thelema mentions gods, there are alot of thelemits who dont believe in gods or wont pray to them.

Most Thelemits believe in themself as the last instance and that their goal in life is finding their true will and doing it.
Alot of them believe in immortality, magic and spiritual stuff, but as far as i understood you dont have to.

Although that sound like ulitarism, Thelema was popular in the hippiecommunity, as "every man and every woman is a star"

b) Discordianism

Discordians believe they should never believe what they read :-). Discordianism is a troll religion like the flying spagethi monster and stuff, but it is far more developed.
Highest goddess is Eris (from the greek mythology) and her job is to create seperation and confusion as much as possible.

So as a discordian, you see the world as a crazy place created without anyplan and mankind is a bunch of apes trampling over another. Everything you do doesnt make much sense, but instead of moaning about the senselessness of life, life is more fun because it doesnt make any sense.

Most discordians like to laugh and prank other people, some belive in conspiracy stuff.

c) Transhumanism is a vision of mankind using its technology to develope itsself further ahaed. That means altering their genes and using intelligent implantates.

Transhumanism comes along with diffrent ethics, most Transhumanist have a vision similar to star trek and stuff.
The idea is, that we can reach the next level of enlightment threw technological enhancement or that the machines will replace the biological body.

An important role plays the technological singularity. that is the point when a machine reaches human intelligence, so basically when skynet (from the movie terminator in case you dont know) is born. :-)
most transhumanist though think skynet will like the humans, or wont care much about them, so it is unlikely the AI will kill us all.

so far so good. i hoped you liked the read. Feel free to share your atheistic religions

Why are those "religions"?

a) Thelema
behaviour: doing your true will
practices: searching for your true will
sacred textes: Liber AL vel Legis
holy places: a lot. places in egypt (were Crowley had his inspiration), italy (where crowley founded the abbey) come to my mind
ethics: h omo mensura
societal organisation: alot of diffrent organisations, mainly the OTO
order of existence: the slave shall serve, the kings rule forever. orgasmic pleasure is the highest form of existence.

b) Discordianism
behaviour: doing stuff that appears random and confusing to others
practices: pranks
sacred textes: Principia Discordia
holy places: every place mentioned in the Illuminatus! Trilogy
ethics: "We discordians have to to keep apart for each other" or "a discordian never believes what he reads" or "A discordian never eats a hotdog" or .... there alot of such sentences
societal organisation: church of the subgeniuss and other organisations
order of existence: order is the lowest form of chaos. reality is always more confusing than you can imagine

c) Transhumanism
behaviour: consuming Sci-fi, talking about scientific developement, being open to body enhancements, stuff like this
practices: Biohacking for instance
sacred textes: maybe "the world, the flesh and the devil" (first mentioning of the cyborg idea)
holy places: i dont know any
ethics: go beyond the arbitrary borders of your human existence and beyond the arbitrary borders of mankind
societal organisation: parties and clubs
order of existence: transhumanism is in the tradition of enlightment. Knowledge will grow with time, Knowledge is science and knowledge is power.

A particular statement intrigued me the most. How do you "try" a religion?

I brush my teeth. I'm an atheist. But the larger question is, "Am I practising an atheistic religion?" Also, full disclosure. I do not always brush my teeth. I also am a little familiar with Discordianism.

thelema i met an intresting person and she made me go into it deeper
discordianism i found an internetforum and got into it by discussing with these guys
transhumanism i watched a documentation and got hooked

i am a curious person and love to make new experiences. also i think all 3 got intresting points in their views which inspired me a lot and still do.

thelema helps you to get honest with yourself, and accept yourself as the person you are without trying to adjust your views to others.
dicordianism helps you to smile and see at everything a bit more relaxed. also it encourages you to try out unusal ways
transhumanism is a positive vision for mankind finally. i think at least.

Yes I know, you could say all three named are just philosophies. But: they have practices and communites connected with them and are not just ways of viewing certain things.

Atheism for itself doesnt have a practice, and teethbrushing has no community known as the teethbrushers and not a theory or worldview behind it.

if you dont like calling it religion, i guess you dont have to.

Those are goofball "religions" and are not legitimate religions for several reasons. If you want to use the wiki definition, they are are not intended to relate, and do not relate humanity to what an anthropologist has called "an order of existence". They are like playing poker with chips of no monetary value, just a game for fun.

there is nothing like an objective criteria for a legitimate religion. try reading about a topic befor spreading unqualified stuff into a thread.

Atheist religions seem like a lot of work...

thats true.

transhumanism is the most work for sure, as you have to know so much to be respected in the community.

discordianism is more inspirational stuff, but good pranks are work too, so yeah, and thelema... well if you say your true will is sleeping than so be it

Edit: THe reason is, that religions tend to create their own reality, at least in the heads of their followers. this aquires alot of energy in form of work put into it.

Apparently I did read more than you . Try reading Wikipedia where
Discordianism is listed under parody religions. Check out what Bloomsbury Companion to New Religious Movements has to say about it. Why is listed on the web as "the greatest fake religion"?"Over fifty years ago, a group of pranksters founded a satiric religion devoted to creating conspiracy theories so insane that nobody would ever believe uncritically in conspiracies again. They called themselves the Discordians And their weird ideas are still influencing us today."

Transhumanism is listed as a movement and never as a religion.


Thelema's primary law is is basically narcissism, paraphrased as, "do whatever you want". If this is a religion, it is a dysfunctional one.

There are general criteria for defining a religion and you even listed some of them and they are not the same as those for a movement or a philosophy.

you are violating the forumrules by beeing disrespectful against my religion(s). i hope you will apolgize in your next post.

I find it hard to answer all your silly sentences, but i give my best.

What Wikipedia has to say about Discordianism, doesnt have to be relevant to Discordians. I didnt list Wikipedia in the holy texts, did I?

Same goes for your Bloomsberg companion.

I used the Wikipedia definition of religion, to use any. You sir, didnt give one sofar, nor do I think you can.

I know some religion science guys and they all agree "fake religion" is not a word relevant in the scientific context. So its highly likely, you dont know what you are talking about.

What you have to say about Thelema or Transhumanism doesnt concern me much either, as you seem to be completly clueless after all.

edit: damm! there is no forum rule that says you have to be respectful against the religion, only against the topic.
however, i think you laughable try to differentiate between "real" and unworthy religions should be enough that everybody can see your lack of competence. whatever

It's not personal, you know. They are someone's opinions. If you want a religion that doesn't mention God consider Buddhism. gl

Try Zenoism. It works for me.

Buddhism mentions god sometimes, but god is not really important in Buddhism.

I dont like Buddhism, because i cant get myself to meditate. I tried meditating regularly, but i think its just painful and i dont have the discipline to carry on with it.

Try sitting down in a regular meditation position and try to make it threw 15 minutes. Than you see what i mean.

i guess so. 15 years is a lot for a forum.

Is the name of this thread ment to be funny? Sorry, if it's obvious.

There is definetely no such thing as an atheistic religion.

Okay, so before I embarrass myself any further, I'm admitting that there was actually a flaw in my logic.
My definition of an atheist or atheism was simply wrong and all of my content in this thread are based on that unfortunately.

I wonder why, it's not like something I don't know. At least I recognized my mistake just randomly when it crossed my mind for a second...
Clearly I was not thinking. I was on a visit a few days and had very few hours of sleep. I guess that may have clouded my mind and logic.

Anyways, sorry about that.

I'd name Discordianism as a parody religion, don't know about the rest.

This is patently wrong. Atheism is the the lack of belief in god(s). Gods are not a necessary concept of religion.

Perhaps most atheists are irreligious and most current religions do indeed necessitate belief in god(s), but that is irrelevant.

Animism is an example of religious belief that typically does not involve worship of Gods.

Read the post that followed the one you quoted, please.

atheism is a religion just like off is a TV channel
atheism is a religion just like bald is a hair color

glgl

My apologies, I didn't notice that was you posting.

Theism is not a religion either.

A religion can be atheistic without atheism being a religion. Just like an apple can be green without implying that all apples are green.

LOL. So simply not believing in a religion is now classed as a religion?

LOL -- It was only a matter of time before this happened.

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