Join my Athiest church

This article on the development of an human need for Religion is quite nice.

Although many I respect consider Athiesm to be "No Religion," I'm afraid I regard it as a religion, or more precisely, a class of religions.

Most of which are not very well served by a thoughtful and dedicated clergy, while those religions which preach some form of subservience to race or empire are, perhaps not surprisingly.

If Athiests were so better served, more might join Athiest churches.  It wouldn't seem that hard to outstrip the mindless competition.

In my sect, we'd have twice weekly dance raves with hallucinogenic drugs, orgies, and free abortion.  (What could go wrong?)

But unlike others of arguably fewer scruples at the outset, including Carlos Castenada, and L Ron Hubbard, I'm afraid I haven't a single true faithful follower.  I am a cult of one.

That might well be good anyway.  I've long held that too much success is usually for the worst.  I'm not a great manager, I can barely manage myself and some have thought otherwise.  I'm already at my level of incompetence, all by myself.

But what I'm describing is so obvious, why haven't there even been more attempts?  There is still a movement of intentional communities, but it tends to the conservative and religious nowadays.  One of the earliest polygamous communties became The Oneida Corporation.  I think it's hard to keep a flame going beneath the sea.  The sea of empire and capital.  That topic--the ultimate bias of established religion for established power, despite some degree of seperation in modern societies, was barely touched by the article.  Less was how our very desires are manufactured, let alone the "solutions" for them.  We're in fishtanks we couldn't even live outside of. And each fishtank wants to absorb all the others through a race to the bottom, meaning less for each fish. 

And the reason why extablished power prefers the mumbo jumbo tranditional form of religion, as compared with something more reasonable, is that it prepares people for accepting mumbo jumbo regarding everything else too.

Once you open the door for intellectually free criticism, it could be pointed at established power itself.  So they want to keep that door firmly shut, and keep people reciting mumbo jumbo instead.

Though when it comes right down to it, even fairly reasonable interpretations of logic, reason, and science still require a considerable degree of faith.  Just not a total disconnect from reality, like traditional religion.