Okay. Let’s review the rules for cooking up your own custom-made religion.

1. Hard to Follow Code of Conduct

2. Threat of Infinite Pain Eternally Prolonged for Non-Complaince

3. A God with the Personality of a Two-Year-Old: Is your god fair?  Is he kind? Is he patient?  Is he forgiving?  Is he selfish? Is he into revenge?  Does he pick on entities weaker than him? Just make shit up.

4. A Simplified Version of Your Religion Can Be Easily Explained to Children

5. Make Salvation Contingent on Persecuting People Who Don’t Follow the Religion: This is your chance to out-Torquemada Torquemada.

6. Offer a Big Reward for Following the Religion’s Code of Conduct — but Promise Nothing: This part is really fun.

7. Entertaining Miracles:You’ve gotta have miracles. Just make shit up.

8. Nearly Impenetrable Mysteries: Be sure to have a document hidden in a cave in an inscrutable language. The words of god.Just make..well, you heard me.

9. A Long History of Persecution: Remember when members of your custom-made religion were captured and forced to listen to thousands of I Love Lucy reruns? Recall when they all had their iPods confiscated by men in black?

10. A Clergy: This can be anybody.

11. Cool-Looking Altars and Totems: Make it rock! Make it unforgettable like an eyeball skewered on a silver rod and mounted on a slab of jade.

Okay. Now that you know the rules, change them all around according to your whims on any given day. It’s FUN-DA-MENTAL!