I Started A Religion Yesterday

The only thing I learnt in a year //

Where I didn’t smile once, not really //

Nothing matters more than love, no //

Nothing, no, not nothing, no not nearly

— Laura Marling

I decided to start a new religion yesterday. It’s a strange idea, but I’m running with it. And I decided that if I really want to do it, I ought to write down what happens. This blog is now about what happens when you start a religion. I don’t intend to do this is any systematic way, because I have nothing to prove. You’ll see what I mean.

What does the religion believe? That God is everything.

What’s it’s called? It doesn’t have name. In fact, it’s not allowed to have a name.

What does it do? Well, if you believed that God is everything, what would you do?

What’s the point?

I have become convinced that God is everything. Or, everything is God. Either way. I have been led, by God, to the belief that it is everything there is. And that everything there is, is what ‘God’ means.

It’s not a new belief, only a new religion. As I see it, a lot of people (alive and dead) already believe this. Many religions that already exist say this in one way or another. But this one is very specific because the religion consists entirely of that one truth-claim and that one rule. God is everything, and this religion cannot have a name.

So you see it’s very simple. But why start a new religion instead of just hold this as a personal belief? Well — that’s what I want to figure out.

I have arrived at a point in my life where I’m pretty certain about two things, for a whole variety of reasons that, I hope, I’ll write about over time. The first thing is that no one has figured it out (God, that is), and if they say they have, they’re lying. The second is that there is no legitimate distinction between spiritual and material reality. Which is to say that all material reality is spiritually legitimate and all spiritual reality is materially legitimate. There is only reality.

Can I prove this? Absolutely not. That’s the nature of reality, unfortunately. As part of it, there is nothing against which to compare. Still I’m pretty damn certain. And better yet, it works for me.

I’ve called myself a lot of different things in my life: Christian, atheist, agnostic, Christian agnostic, mystical Christian, ‘everything-ist’ (this is true), spiritualist, Christian-adjacent, spiritual but not religious, religious but not spiritual (also true), what-have-you.

Most recently I just stopped saying. If someone asked me what I believe, I’d say something to the effect of, “I’m not really anything.” I’m a none.

And basically, I’m tired of it. I’m tired of trying to explain myself to people when what I believe is always changing and growing. I’m tired of having to legitimize my experience of God when no one else has to legitimize theirs. So instead, I’m putting my belief into a religion. This way, if you take issue with what I believe, take it up with my religion. After all, I don’t know. I’m pretty sure about it, but I could be wrong. It’s just my religion.

If you want to join, it could be our religion.