Prep Sheet by Matt Weinhold for Episode 65 Gaining My Religion

Jake Podcast – Our Religion

Bullet Points

  1. Who is going to be the Jesus of our religion? Do we let our followers decide? Do we draw straws? Will one of us have to die?
  2. How bid to we want to go? Catholic Church big? Scientology big? Or do we fly a bit under the radar? Pentecostal? Storefront? Online?
  3. From a purely financial perspective, should we be racist? If so, who do we hate?
  4. Do we need a Bible? If so, how long should it be? Pictures? Real book or ebook? Who should we get to read the audiobook?
  5. I’m a big fan of The Who’s Tommy. Would the deaf/dumb/blind messiah thing work for us?
  6. Very important: HATS! What’s our headgear? Big, fancy hats like in the Catholic Church? Small hats like in Judaism? Helmets? Wigs? Maybe we make no hats our thing.
  7. Clothes?
  8. What are our 10 Commandments?
  9. Do we even have a God? How about going back to multiple gods? Maybe we worship a force, a thing in nature, or an emotion: electricity, clouds, anxiety, dogs, humidity, right angles, etc.

10.  Do we have a Devil? Or a Hell? What time of punishment will sinners/disbelievers get, if any? (Same question for Heaven/angels)

11.  There are countless contradictions in The Bible and yet Christianity is still huge. Do we need to work in some contradictions in our sacred text to compete? If so, what would they be?

12.  What’s our Genesis story? How do we think the world began? Do we lean toward science at all or is it complete bullshit.

13.  Speaking of bullshit, how much should our religion have? Again, we need a good amount just to compete.

14.  Is our God angry or loving? Maybe he’s: indifferent, neurotic, insecure, douchey, inappropriate, gay, etc.

15.  Looking at other religions, if we went through their sacred texts with a red pen, what things would we get rid of/fix?

16.  Will we have church services? What will they be like? How often to people attend? What time? Does have to be so early on my one day off?

17.  Celebrity endorsements! It works for Scientology. Which celebrities would best fit our religion.

18.  What would be the role of women in our religion? Would it be matriarchal, patriarchal or transgender?

19.  Prophecies? Do we make prophecies about the future/end of the world? How do we think the world will end? Maybe we just admit we have no idea. Maybe our prophecies are mundane. Ex. We predict how Homeland is going to end. Speaking of which, should The Book of Revelation start with the words “Spoiler Alert!”?

20.  If we genuinely want to help people with our religion, how do we avoid the mistakes of past religions (religious wars, intolerance, sexism, basing it on fear)? Or by simply calling our philosophy a religion, are we setting our followers up to expect those negative things. Will they be disappointed if they don’t them? Should we start with some negative stuff to make our followers comfortable; then gradually phase them out.

21.  What do we call our religion? Johanholdanity? The Shit? Nototherreligionism?

22.  What’s our take on the strange stuff? Miracles? Exorcism? Faith Healing?

23.  Does our religion negate other religions? Can you be in our religion and also be in another?

24.  What about holidays? Do we have a Christmas? Are their presents?

25.  Do we have prayer? Maybe our prayers are done in a different way. Maybe up front we see say you can pray but since we’re a new religion, it may take some time to get back to you.

26.  If we decide to get onboard the religious war bandwagon, which religions do we think we can take? Should we start with the Amish or the Quakers, just to get our religious war sea legs?

27.  Tithing: What percent of our follower’s income should our church require? Standard is 10% but we maybe we should advertise that we’ll beat any other religions prices? Or we could charge more but include more services: roadside service, bi-monthly haircuts, an all you can eat buffet, etc.

28.  Merchandise! What should we sell? Our Bible obviously but also T Shirts, action figures, etc. How do we break the Gideon’s monopoly on hotels?

29.  Let’s think ahead: At some point our religion will seem ridiculous/unfulfilling to some of our followers. Let’s already be thinking of ways to win them back.

30.  If this podcast is the official start of our religion, don’t we have to restart all of our calendars.

31.  We should probably have some persecutors to get us sympathy.  Should we reach out to people for this or just start preaching and see who we get?

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