Response to: Designing a new Religion

Im going to start my own religion too

Virtuism.. oh wait someone already did.. well ill turn it into an ORGANIZED religion!

thats right, we pray to the God of the Agenda, the organizer, we believe in the pillars of cleanliness, punctuality, priorities and to do lists.

Stephen Covey is our prophet.

we bring leather bound agendas to every meeting in ritual.

We turn off our cell phones while in meetings, not do so is a SIN and punishable

Sins are repented by attending personal effectiveness and life goal setting seminars established at our various stationary shops.

To not repent is to welcome the sin of randomness and destruction into ones life. To be unorganized is to be unreliable, unclean, not-punctual and narrow minded (shortsighted in some scholarly works). These are the 4 cardinal sins of this organized religion.

We host regular charity events where the community gathers all their recycled paper and we make new agendas out of them. Its great, and the kids love it because we serve lemonade.

oh yes, and no organized religion is complete without a creation story!

It all began with the birth of a Man,Hilroy, who lookethed upon his mother-dear's sweat beaded face, then over at his father who took a small stone and marked a dashmark before hurtling the newborn into a pile of other babies playing and googoo ga-ing.

That monumental moment filled the baby Hilroy with joy and so he grew up to know his identify because his father had kept track of all the babies he had. Such organization inspired the boy so much that he set out to give purpose and meaning to all things, so he set out on a journey all over the world counting animals, stones, and organizing them on a piece of parchment. Then on the 365th day he landed where he began his journey and decided to call it a year. Thus time was born.

the rest is history!

(NB. there has been some recent evidence indicating that the first born man was in fact a women named Hilary, however this is still in speculation)

End.

Designing a new religion

From Edward De Bono: Designing a new religion

We analyse a situation and identify standard elements. We then understand
the situation and also know what to do about it.

Although individuals might practise it, the Western culture of thinking is
lacking in design. Architects, graphic designers and fashion designers might
practise design, but it is not part of general education. This is a very
serious fault in education.

My latest book is called 'H+ A New Religion?' (published by Vermilion Press
in London, part of Random House). This is a religion in the sense that
Buddhism is a religion. There is no new god-system or other-world structure.

H+ can be used in conjunction with any existing religion or belief system:
Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Taoism, etc.

Many religions are about 'sins' and the things you should not do. Today that
aspect is adequately taken care of, both by the law and existing religious
systems.

So H+ is about 'positive action'. So instead of 'sins' there are 'pons'
(derived from 'positive sins'). These are small acts to help others or to
help the world.

Each person sets a small agenda of pons to carry out each day, etc.

H+ stands for Humour, Happiness, Health, Help, Hope and Human.

It all started with a realisation that no existing religion emphasises
humour as such. Yet humour is a key lubricant of life. Humour illustrates
the possibility of switching perceptions and seeing things in a different
way, etc, etc.

Traditionally new religions are revealed to suitable people in some mystical
process. This is very different from design.

The parameters of design might be: simple to understand; simple to operate;
satisfying; leading to increased self-esteem; leading to achievement;
helpful to the world; helpful to other people; easy to spread.

You can sit in a corner with the right attitudes, committing no sins, and
you will get to heaven. In itself that does not help the world very much.
There is usually not enough focus on action