The Religion I Created Over the Weekend: The Church of God of the Insignificant Gesture

So I had a pretty slow weekend and I went ahead and created a new religion. Now I know what you are thinking, "How could he create a whole new religion in just two days?" In fact I created the religion in about five minutes. The rest of the weekend I played with my dogs and my kid and watched some TV and caught up on my reading.

I also know that those of you have read my thoughts on religion are saying, "Hey, doesn't he scoff at religion as so many fairy stories for grownups?" While it is true that I find organized religion laughable in its transparent attempts to control the gullible through horror stories of eternal damnation (or paradise as the case may be); My religion doesn't have any of that stuff. No damnation, no reward, no heaven, no hell, no parables, no warnings, no injunctions against pork or beef or anything really. In short, my religion has no opinion whatsoever on how you live your life, save one, my religion requires that you not be a jerk.

You see my religion is based on the idea that while there is most likely some higher power in the universe, we as humans have no clue as to what that higher power might want us to do on a daily basis. In fact, we have no idea that that higher power takes any notice of us at all. Given those beliefs, the one thing that I know for certain is that any power advanced enough to create the universe probably doesn't want me to leave my shopping cart in the middle of the parking lot. Basically, my religion states that you were not put on this earth to be a jerk. You were put on this earth to make others lives easier through insignificant gestures. Hence the name, The Church of God of the Insignificant Gesture.

You see in my church you don't have to give up your Sundays, you don't have to try and decipher a two thousand year old book, you don't have to blow yourself up to kill those that don't believe as you do. All you have to do is return you cart to the cart collection area, or any other equally insignificant gesture that makes the world a slightly better place. Pick up a piece of trash, allow someone to merge on the freeway, turn off your cellphone in a movie, wave at your neighbor, any of these things would suffice for your daily quota of insignificant gestures. None of them take much if any effort on your part, none of them will change the world, but they will all make the world a slightly better place.

That is the crux of my religion. Most of us don't have time to build houses for the homeless, or feed the hungry or spend a weekend cleaning up a park. We'd like to, but we don't, and then we feel guilty because we aren't doing anything to help others and so on and so on. So my religion dispenses with all of that and sets the bar at a manageable height. Standing in the checkout line with a couple of dozen items? Let that guy with the soda and bag of chips go ahead of you. Sure he probably doesn't mind waiting, but why not make his day a little better? It isn't like it takes any effort on your part.

And that is the key to my religion, no effort. It really isn't hard to not be a jerk, it just takes a little awareness that your actions impact the lives of other people. Once you have that awareness, why would you want that impact to be negative? You wouldn't of course, unless you really are a jerk, in which case we don't want you, go be a Christian or Jew or Mormon or Muslim or any of those other religions out there in the world. It's readily apparent that they are more than willing to welcome jerks.