Hi Rebecca,

I see you popping up at the same watering holes I frequent.

It's good to see you are sharing your early development of a new religion. It takes guts to share your ideas as I find a few will attack you and try to beat you down and if it were not for the few who write you something encouraging, it would be difficult to keep using this service.

I am working on a similar concept. I am focusing on the principals that drive our thoughts, words, and actions. My religion has little to do with any existing religion.

You have chosen to accept a "Great Being" and I struggle with accepting that concept because it immediately refers to some previously defined God which I honestly do not believe in.

Maybe that is why you chose "Great Being"? I’m tried of sharing my views with the Atheists and Agnostics because I spend all of my time defending my ideas. Like you, I just want to share them and engage in some though provoking discussion. It seems our culture has eliminated any concept of thinking outside of the box.

At least, the Atheists can't look up "Great Being" in the dictionary and tell you how wrong you are :-)

You and I and ninety percent of the human race obviously feel some connection to something larger than ourselves. Even my teenagers who I have raised "religion-free" stop short of stating they feel nothing beyond their own body. There is something that connects us, something that drives us. Is it simply fear of the unknown, fear of the finality of death, fear of being ostracized from the masses for not believing in what is proper and correct to believe?

Maybe it is simply the fact that our mind is constantly scanning all its inputs for data and comparing it to memory to help us make decisions. In scanning, we find there is so much we don’t know that it would be like an overwhelming short circuit if we didn’t assign a label or placeholder to this mass of unanswered questions. So, my personal decision is to assign the value of God or in your case “Great Being” to this ever growing electrochemical unbalance in my brain. I am still hung up on the “Being” part as it implies something we can identify, something with shape and form. Do you see it that way?

I just see a place of immense darkness, a place without light which I believe is related to the physical electrochemical connections in our brain. Of course a concept without any form again leads me to darkness so the process starts all over again. (I hope I am not losing you here but I must be because I am losing myself :) We all have to assign some value or some picture to words and all words have to have a definition so establishing a “new” religion is probably one of the most difficult challenges any human being could take on.

When I form a new connection and some new insight, it is like some of the darkness is gone and it feels good to think AHHHHHH. I guess I could say that in some way when I do this it is like connecting to “God” or the “Great Being” but it I just don’t accept that if there were such a “Being,” it would be involved with my little and mostly meaningless life experiences.

Are you going to attempt to define the “Great Being”? Could the “Great Being” be the four dimensional space-time continuum that human beings are bound to?

I am about to have a discontinuous leap here; so, please forgive me: What I see is that the human race has been evolving but at a pace limited by the framers of our social systems: Our schools, religions, governments, armed forces, corporations, etc. These “organized” systems along with the mass media which is also totally under control is what twists and clouds the truth so much that getting people to “AHHHHHH” is difficult. To then rally people around a new religion, a new political system, a new school system, a new form of government, a new system of mass media is nearly impossible.

I really like the name “Responsiblism.” I have yet to come up with anything.

Another interesting thing about your direction verses mine is that there is a very obvious influence based on my being raised and genetically wired as a man and you a woman. I am driving for logic, facts, numbers, and roadmaps in black and white. Your site has a calming beauty to it with poems and outdoor scenes. Mother Nature comes to mind. Your choice of words tell me you are a well educated and mature woman, probably raised in the Hebrew faith and you have discovered great value in Primitive Native, Pagan, and Asian religions. I enjoy how those religions make me feel like I am floating away in the breeze embraced by a loving woman and child. There is no denial for me that the primitive cultures and pantheistic religions are far advanced in terms of giving man a sense of oneness with the “Great Being.” and therefore oneness with fellow man. As an ex Catholic, I never felt any connection to the “Father” except for fear of judgment and punishment. This of course does more to disconnect us from the “Great Being” as well as isolate us from each other. Once we are disconnected and fearful and distrusting of one another, we are much more easily manipulated by those who control our social systems.

I need to build something more “how to” to believe in and teach. Something that provides defensive shields to the consume and waste theme we are all surrounded by. However, I don’t want to throw away what you are trying to teach. The Christian’s didn’t throw away all of what the Pagan’s and Hebrews believed, they just interwove them. If you think about it, man was pretty much dancing naked around the fire, enjoying sex, hunting for food, and making babies for millions of years. We have managed to kill the naked dancing (except where it is profitable –one sex watches and the other pays) and the enjoyment of sex is a taboo subject (pornography and psychological counseling are more profitable) and hunting for food is almost extinct (supermarkets are more profitable) and it seems like genetic programming and cloning just may eliminate the need to make our own babies.

I suppose the monotheistic belief system which was obviously forced upon mankind with spear and sword has resulted in man’s quest for knowledge. This quest came to a critical mass in the 1600’s and 1700’s. Education and technological advancement ensued with a tremendous discontinuous leap in the 1800’s and 1900’s. I can’t help but pause to think that all this fuss has really been driven by a long forgotten peace of mind, a quest to return to a place of balance and harmony with our environment, our neighbors, families, and fellow man in general. OK getting too deep…..

So, please continue to build upon your ideas and feel free to take any of mine and mix them together with a woman’s touch. You have motivated me to keep working….

BTW, I really like the graphics and fonts on your site too.

Don

Hi, I left a message for you under Agnosticism, but I thought you might like to hear about something interesting. The Church of Spiritual Humanism ordains people by internet order. It sounded like some scam to me at first, but they really are a real church, mainly as far as ordination recognition goes (if you're interested in performing marriages and what-not in your new religion)...the Church of Spiritual Humanism figuratively is not a religion in the conventional sense and does not have practices, so you can keep your own religion...it just exists to give people the freedom to explore their beliefs. Their materials, which they do charge for, include certificate of ordination with an embossed seal, certificates for weddings, handfastings, etc., and their philosophy and ceremonial handbook as well as states' policies on acceptance of their ministers in regards to ceremonial performance (still a good idea to double check with your state for current information). They are for real, in fact, I had come across them before somewhere, and I thought it was a good thing to have in case I ever was called to use it in my new religion. I also have no problem with marriages and what-not by justices, as my sister was married that way. But for me, it never hurts to have that something extra.