The Holy Synod of the Great Orange Satan. Hmm...no...The Orthodox, no, The Anti-Orthodox Holy Communion. Wait, start from the beginning.
In the Beginning was The Word, and the Word was from SemDem
Moreover, the media is hyping this as an "anti-gay" bill. Nowhere does the word "homosexual" or "gay" appear. This bill goes waaay beyond sexual orientation. It simply says that anyone can get a pass if sued for discrimination as long as its a A. religious belief B. sincere (I'm super cereal about that!) and C. the government is giving you grief about it (which is why you'd be in court in the first place).
In other words, anyone can use bigotry to discriminate against anyone as long as they claim its religious.
And I thought, "Hey, why don't we make a religion that works for the LGBT/Liberal/sane community?" You don't need a licence to start a religion, you don't need a permit, training, education or capital. Why not?
If we have a religion, we can found churches, tax-free places where we can do anything our (new) religion "tells" us to. Here's the thing; You can register an ice skating rink as a church, if you simply assert that ice-skating serves a religious purpose...there is not, and cannot be a legal definition of a particular religion, or what qualifies as religious. So, let's start a religion to be propagated primarily in Arizona. Most religions are "founded" by individuals, such as Christ, Joseph Smith, or Jerry Garcia, I feel that a group, cooperative approach will be more productive. Plus, it's less likely that one poor schlep winds up having to nail 97 feces on a cathedral door. At worst, we'd send a subcommittee with Purell.
So, what kinds of values should an Arizona-centric religion have? We have to include the classics, peace, ending poverty, taking care of each other etc. The problem is, AZ is in the USA, and those ideas aren't as popular here. Religions who focus on the classics work best in more "socialist" countries like Norway, Holland, actually most of the EU. And even then, these countries have lower regular church attendance and faith than we do here. But we have to include them. (And, a few of the classics can be easily re-purposed. "Tithing" for example, not to the church or whatever we name ourselves, but to direct-aid charities.)
I'm getting ahead of myself, we have to start with the basics. We need to decide the big questions first. Which brings us to the first question; Deity or No Deity? If Deity, then single or multiple? Follow me below the Holy Orange Separator for more. (By the way, we'll want Marketing to find a better name for the Holy Orange Separator. We'll be competing with all those necklaces, crucifixes, plastic car-fish stick-ons, tee-shirts...)
Great Orange Satan religion development Open Session
1) Book, No Book, Multiple Books.
At first I was thinking Book, especially one "written" in grammatically bad old-style English. They sell well. But committees write books about as well as, well committees write books. So, if the decision is to go with single book, let's gather up everything we want in said Book, and assign a writer.
The Book should in no way ever say that it is the Last Book, we may need others. The "Nancy Drew/Hardy Boys" publishing model works well for us here. If there's another Hurricane Sandy, or we need more cash, we can have a "spiritual revelation" that "That earthquake was because Rush Limbaugh said :"Booger" on the radio!"
As I've been writing this, I can't believe no one has done this yet: The Holy Wiki The e-Bible for the 21st century.
2) Deity, No-Deity, Multiple-Deity.
We will need allies in Arizona and IIRC, there was a Native American religion case about peyote that Scalia weighed in on. So the law says you can discriminate for any nominally religious reason, but you can't have a mushroom. So, I am firmly in the Multiple-Deity camp. If the group decision is otherwise, I will abide, but let's face it, no one can prove I'm wrong, that's kind of the point.
3) Laws, Commandments, Rules
Really, hard quotes of any kind from the (Multi-)Deity are problematic, and when we start getting into Commandments and crap, that's when the trouble starts. The Jewish Talmudic mishigas just to outlaw the death penalty 3000 years ago, took decades. Vatican II may be back in spirit, maybe not. The Moromons have a good system, anytime something becomes cost ineffective the Prophet just says "Oops! Black folk do have souls after all".
OTOH, an FSM style "I'd really rather..." list kind of negates the purpose of having a religion in the first place. If we don't have hard quotes and commandments, we're not really a religion, we're just an idea. So the best approach is, hard quotes and commandments/laws/rules, but the church structure and ideology is more Southern Baptist in nature; "Yeah, we know what Jesus said, but who cares? I'm saved!"
4) Life and After-Life
Hard quotes are a bear, but we need them because we need commandments. If we have commandments, not everyone will obey them. Of those who break the commandments, some will prosper, and therefore, we need an After-Life where the good are rewarded and the bad punished, otherwise the (Multi-)Deity is reduced to sending sternly-worded letters to miscreants. And once we have an After-Life, all bets are off. Fly near the Throne of YHWH or swim in the Lake of Fire? Seventy-two virgins? Beer Volcano? Why not?
5) The world around us
Who cares? Right now, people who actually vote believe in the world view of Bronze Age nomads. Pennsylvania parents were sentenced to 3-7 years for the torture-death of their own child because Jesus. They were convicted just for third degree murder, although their child died because the parents violated their 10-year probation after they killed another child because Jesus. Let's have a party, drop some acid and write whatever, people will believe and act on it.
No, that's not right. Let's try for a positive spin religion; climate change is real. Medical science is real and changes. The scientific method is real. Can you get people to believe in an objective, scientific reality religiously? Isn't that a contradiction? Whatever.
6) Organizational/Financial structure
I got nuthin'. Churches/synods/temples/whatever are organized businesses, from the smallest storefront to the Holy See, and the successful ones know that the bottom line is the bottom line. We start with MBAs and 401C(n) lawyers/accountants, and see what will work. It may be better for the church to be "founded" in the Caymans, then Arizona becomes "missionary outreach". Double no-tax status, and no one gets to order an audit.
I'm sure there's more, but I've never run a business. This is just a start.