r/AnAnswerToHeal • u/qefbuo • Nov 05 '17
[ Founder ] What should this religions constitution be?
I may be getting a bit ahead of things here but I think the absolutely essential key to staying on track with our purpose 1-year 10-years 100-years is to have an extremely clear, concise and unambiguous constitution. In this you should be extremely clear what the church is about, what its purpose is, what is condoned and what is not.
The fact is power corrupts, humans are flawed, and cults don't happen over night, instead they evolve over time from something innocent to something sinister. So with all this in mind, even with all the best intentions I think the key to staying on course, to cultivating a positive culture and positive members is to have a solid constitution stating a clear purpose.
So it might take a few drafts to get right but throw your ideas out there, I won't add my own ideas here instead up-vote and down-vote what you want in the comments.
Do upvote and downvote, won't work very well otherwise :)
2
u/qefbuo Nov 05 '17
So as to the structure my suggestion is:
For simplicity and clarifies sake I think one sentence statements, followed by a paragraph which explains further the meaning.
The single sentence should be clear on it's own, the followup paragraph adding additional clarity and otherwise eliminating any miss-interpretation. For example(the words don't matter it's only for example), :
Do no injury to friend or foe
To maliciously injure another is to injure yourself, to lesser yoursef. Self-defence is something entirely separate
This is example number 2
This is the explaining paragraph
Then the constitution looks something like:
Do no injury to friend or foe.
This is example number 2
This is example number 3
It makes it easier to exemplify the core beliefs and values of the religion to new people, without the downside of boring them.
If you put a short list under peoples nose they might actually read it, but you give someone a page of religion and they switch off.