More followers than posts? I think I’ll up the post count so the followers count will rise to exceed it! 😉
I just finished watching “Transformation: the Life and Legacy of Werner Erhard.” at 77 minutes, there’s a lot less to it than I thought there would be, but it did answer basically all my questions. An interesting snippet towards the beginning talks about a shift in the spiritual / religious world away from what we might call “subscription-based” organizations, where you put, say, $10 into an envelope every week, and toward “fee-based” models, where you pay $250 one time and get some defined product from it.
I think both models are flawed; moreover, I think all the models out there are flawed. All organizations have a process by which you “get in,” and more often than not it seems to involve money: paying tithing, dues, fees, bills, bribes, purchasing something… I’m not committed to that. I’m also not committed to signing something or saying something or going through some ritual… these are meaningless. (As is the money bit.)
My church doesn’t exist yet. (Actually, I don’t know if it’s appropriate to call it a church, but “David’s church” seems like the best placeholder for the present.) This is a question I have about my church: what will the initiation process look like? How will a person “get in”? Will the process accomplish anything, and if so, what?
As a bonus, I’m thinking about how one might create an organization of which you become a member simply by existing. As far as I can tell, there’s only one such organization in existence right now: the Matrix. And I am not committed to the Matrix or anything about it. (What “it” is, is a subject for another post.)
The Universal Life Church allows you to become an ordained minister through the internet, fax, phone or mail in just a few minutes and there is no requirement other than simply being to join. They do have products available for purchase, but it's not necessary to be ordained.
One organization: Existence. You exist, so you're a member. There is no "them", because all the other things/humans that exist are also members. Yay existence!
Yeah, I know it don't look organized, but that's only because we can't see it any better than we can SEE the music on a vinyl record.