I am most definitely not a Christian of any breed. I am not Jewish. I am not, for the sake of brevity, a member of any large organized religion. I thought for a time that Satanism was the religion that most encapsuled my ideals and values, and so I claimed Satanism for a while. There was something from the beginning of my education concerning Satanism that didn't sit right with me. After time it dawned on me. Though I like the shock value you get when you tell someone you're a Satanist I don't particularly care for the mindset held widely by religion that that particular denomination is right.

Which is why I'm considering starting my own religion. I don't know details yet, but that's why I can write it down, so I can expand and expound upon it later.

I will have no church. I will have no organization. I will not recognize formal followers. I will take what I consider to be the best aspects of various religions and mutate and then adopt them into a set of beliefs upon which to found my religion. I will not exclude anybody from practicing, nor will I attempt to convert anybody. I will not explain to anybody unless they ask specifically. Indeed I have not yet named the religion because I can't decide whether it would be better fit with a blanket name and then to let it branch as each individual adopts it to himself (in a singular sex form, not "his/herself" because proper grammar states that in matters of indefinite gender the singular masculine is preferred) into a new name, a genus and species relationship if you will, or to let each individual name it himself.

The problem with religion as it stands is that it insists on being so righteous. No matter what religion you are, you are right, and everybody else is going to whichever distopia is reserved for non-believers. My religion is not a belief that feeds itself by deflating opponents. My religion makes an attempt to understand its opponents. My religion is not right. Your religion is not right. My religion is for me, yours is for you. If it helps you get through the day and feel good about yourself, knock yourself out and practice on.

My religion will follow no set of rules, it will have no Bible. it will have no mass holidays. My religion will be a sort of celebration of the individual. Borrowing the importance of self from Satanism and the love thy neighbor philosophy of Christianity will make my religion symbolic of one who will not deny his needs and his wants while at the same time not stepping on the toes of his brother.

My religion will not denounce "sinners" nor will we extoll "saints." My religion will believe that upon death one is allowed to become a god unto himself, capable of creating a universe of his own which will change as he wants, as he feels, and as he changes. Truly the power to create ones own existance at will while not having the existance of another imposed upon oneself is a reward to he who loves himself.

My religion will value hedonism without the negative connotation. If it makes you feel good without making another feel bad, by all means feel free to do it. If you want to help an old woman cross the street by all means do so and smile. If you can do something well and want to merely show off, by all means take the stage, nevermind being overly proud. Sin is not in the vocabulary of my religion, and conversely neither is virtue. Right exists, as does wrong, to threaten or harm another against his will is wrong, but to engage in an activity by which all involved parties are pleased it right, but sin and virtue are abstract concepts recognized by other religion, as some of my beliefs are.

As time passes I will no doubt expand the definition, or lack thereof, of this concept, but for now the blueprint is here, and should I need to refer to something, this is here. Thing will change, as they always do. Things will be added, as they always are. But the tenets will remain.