Some people are religious, some people are not religious. Others have distinctive cultural or habitual practices that are not really religious or are totally disconnected from religion.
This new subscriptions service gives a taster of religious and cultural practices in the comfort of your own home.
What you need:
Fast broadband, a set of large screens (the more the better I suppose, though I'm a bit vague on this aspect), and an interactive speaker thing like those ones that you talk to and what answer back.
Each day you are pseudo-randomly assigned a religious or cultural praxis, and the screens and the voice thingy guide you through the day's ordinary life and ritual observations.
At the end of the day you can press one of three buttons: <next> <repeat> or <pause>. The <next> button will set tomorrow to be the next pseudo-randomly generated religious or cultural praxis; the <repeat> button will keep you on the same praxis for another day, and the <pause> button will shut down the system for a day allowing you to revert to your innate self-generated praxis.
There is also a rating system where you allocate each praxis between one or five stars in a number of categories including spiritual fulfilment, practical ease of use, and aesthetic value.
The system could be a paid subscription service, or it could be funded through sponsorship deals with major religious and cultural organisations.-- pocmloc, May 08 2020 Emergency faith pack Emergency_20faith_20packSpecialised short-term version [8th of 7, May 08 2020] I'll have one of each. They are all right and all wrong.-- blissmiss, May 08 2020 That would be nice. I'd like the odd day of Zoroastrianism.-- wagster, May 08 2020 This doesn't really handle the important distinction between praxis and meta-praxis (to say nothing of para-praxis, which could be said to characterise this whole idea).
Incidentally, did you know that "mantis" meant "prophet", so that a praying mantis is technically an oracle in communion with the universe?-- pertinax, May 09 2020 As well as the base set, can you include user created religion sharing, and possibly AI-generated options?-- tatterdemalion, May 09 2020 Do you think one day is too brief? I know many active adherents of any one religion might say it requires a lifetime, but that precludes the pick-n-mix try-out of many different praxises.
Perhaps instead this could be marketed as an Apostacy Enabling System. you sign up for a particular religion, and then there is a weighted cost/benefit consideration of how much information and learning you are extracting from the religion, and how much time you are spending doing it. As soon as the cost/benefit rises too high you formally repudiate your religion and sign up to something different. For different types of religion this may take a year, or a few minutes, or anything in between. The system would assist by being able to generate personalised repudiation speeches / actions / documents, and would also generate everything you need to seamlessly transfer your allegiance to the next religion on the list.-- pocmloc, May 09 2020 ^ So too soon.-- wjt, May 10 2020 The main reason I watch TV is to gain temporary relief from the metaphysical questions which haunt me. Is there a channel for that? i.e. the channel shows someone wink knowingly at the viewer, and then it cuts to a continuous montage of children at play.-- sninctown, May 10 2020 (1st religion to try...) "Crap. Next!" (2nd religion to try...) "Garbage. Next!" (3rd religion to try...) "Ridiculous. Next!" ...-- neutrinos_shadow, May 11 2020 // a continuous montage of children at play. //
That would be the Horror Channel.-- 8th of 7, May 11 2020 There could be online customer reviews, you could submit a rating from 1 to 5 stars after you have finished each trial.-- pocmloc, May 11 2020 random, halfbakery