(Untitled)

[dyne_ghost]

Comments

[starshine57]

i dont think physical moving to a place is required. all you need is a good website, a video on youtube, or a facebook group. it'll catch on as a fad, as most things do, and snare some devout followers along the way. maybe someone will transplant to be a physical leader for the area, or maybe some charismatic disaffected college kid will pick it up and lead on his own. books that can be purchased on the internet, online religious-leader certification, and finally, a petition to put it as a religion on the national census. the jedi faith is alive and well, i hear, and all that needed was nifty special effects. so, what will this pop-culture obsessed japanese religion's idol be? DDR? some anime character? are digital pets still popular? or will it be more philosophical like confucianism? if you widen the definition of religion, you might as well classify Oprah as a diety and the Chicken Soup books as holy texts. There are all kinds of nonsense things out there that develop followings, that find people who let it run and dictate their

[dyne_ghost]

That's just it - it WOULD mostly be a physical movement because the internet-based fads and the like don't carry the same commitment behind them. And you're frivolizing the entire point I was making! I don't mean there's going to be a group of people going around preaching the Word of Chia or some shit like that. I mean an actually spirtual/philosophical religion, something along the same lines as Islam, Christianity, or possibly even an abstract form of Buddhism. Something with a set "guideline" as it were...with an iconic symbol as the main focal point and a physical personage leading the flock.

Otherwise, it's just a club.

[starshine57]

maybe i just don't see japan as the birthplace of something like that. it's based on my own perception and lack of experience with its reality, but maybe that's something in itself - the status of the movement's birthplace in the perception of the common people as affecting it's overall success. also, things like new religions need large populations of disaffected and impressionable people to get a good start. I'm thinking a more third-world country. Maybe a rogue missionary, someone educated who comes in to expose new thoughts to unadulterated minds. For it to one day be on the level of major religion, to escape the stigma and role of fad or trend or merely splinter group, it needs people who aren't already aligned with something else and/or haven't been jaded by their past experiences. atheists wouldn't go for it. devout followers of other religions wouldn't go for it. it needs a group of people with problems and desires, with a current system that doesn't meet those problems and desires, and it needs to be a system that does meet

[dyne_ghost]

Interesting...I'd say South Africa would probably be the most likely in that particular scenario.

But the disaffected...that's my point exactly! America has a rather large gathering of disaffected youth, spread thinly throughout the country, which is why I don't believe there'd be more than a token presence here. However! The UK...Great Britain...FULL of them! Probably no more, and likely even less, than here in the USA, but the fact is...there ain't much of a landmass for them to spread out in.