i'm creating a new religion (work in progress)

they've been using my screen name, retmeishka, to refer to this particular new religious sect. we've tried different variations of the word, such as 'retmeishkan.' however, i'm seeing this as just 'internal jargon' for the time being, and it might not be the final name for the religion. the final name could be decided by consulting with several people who join it, once it exists and once people have been invited into it. i want the word to roll off the tongue easily enough. i'm able to say 'retmeishkan,' but maybe not everyone feels comfortable with it. and it sounds like 'red martian' or 'red munchkin' if you're not familiar with the word. you tell people 'i'm retmeishkan,' and they say 'what? you're red munchkin?' so, that might just be a temporary word until the final name has been decided, but for now, internally, we're referring to it as retmeishkan. so when i say 'retmeishkan,' it feels like sort of joking, not serious, but that's how we're referring to it for now. it won't be that way permanently, not set in stone.

i have been identifying the religion. i was going to go to 'beliefnet' and see, but i forgot to do that. i want to identify what makes this religion similar to, and different from, other religions.

it began because they wanted me to get rid of my mustache. when they first started attacking me, they didn't bother me much about not shaving my body hair, but the mustache in particular was always what they complained about (the voices). i started bleaching it as a compromise, but i was not willing to shave it or wax it or remove the hair. and bleaching a very long mustache doesn't look good - you end up with very long, highly visible bleached-white hairs instead of long, highly visible, dark brown hairs. but i chose that, instead of removing it, because i was very strongly against it, because of my beliefs and values and what it means to me.

i read an article talking about how women like men who have slightly feminine attributes, instead of liking the men who are extremely masculine. but the article went on to say that eyebrow-plucking (on women) was attractive, because it was still true that men like women with 'feminine' faces, and thin eyebrows are feminine, whereas thick eyebrows are masculine. they made it sound as though it was scientifically, objectively proven that we must pluck our eyebrows in order to look feminine, and that 'arched' eyebrows are more feminine, too. i can't STAND 'arched' eyebrows. they don't look like anything human to me at all. they don't look 'feminine,' either. the most beautiful women i've seen are the ones with whole, unplucked eyebrows, even when the eyebrows are thick, even when they go across the nose. those look real to me. (but 'we' don't have any disagreement about that. that's 'beating a dead horse.')

it's articles like that which make people believe things like 'humans lost their body hair because less hair means you're more intelligent than an animal, and it means we're not animals ourselves, and it means we are ABOVE them, and it's "more evolved" than animals.' like losing hair is 'progress,' instead of merely 'uniqueness' or 'some strange quirk of our species.' i see the hair loss as just a unique, strange quirk of our species. and i like the 'aquatic ape theory,' too - that humans might have lived at the edge of the sea, and were seafood hunters, spending most of their time in the water, or we might have lived by a huge lake when we evolved, and we lost hair, like the whales, dolphins, and seals, and we got subcutaneous fat, to be like sea mammals. it's just a quirk, not 'better,' not 'more progress,' not 'above the animals.' pigs don't have hair, rhinos and hippos don't have hair, some breeds of dogs and cats, whales, dolphins.... lots of mammals don't have hair.

well, what about 'being retmeishkan?' what does it mean to be retmeishkan? is it a noun, an adjective? are you A retmeishkan? i'm not sure about all that yet.

to clarify what's different about my religion, i ask these questions: why don't i just join some existing group? there are similar groups, and i've thought about joining a religion, but i feel dissatisfied with the ones that exist - they're not what i want.

a few examples:

amish: don't want to study the bible exclusively. i think a wide variety of books, both modern and old, teach about right and wrong, and how to live. i also want men with long hair. at least in the mainstream, men are permitted to grow long hair, whereas in the amish, they are not. however, just because they're permitted to, doesn't mean they do it. so my religion requires them to, and sees long hair as normal.

mennonite: similar reasons. i do drive a car, so i could be mennonite, but i have the same issue with physical appearance and seeing the christian bible as only one out of many books to read and follow.

so the bible is not the exclusive, one-and-only source of spiritual guidance. yet there is good information in there, but you can't refer to the bible as one whole, single book, as it was written over many years by many different people. the bible itself is already many different authors, many different books, and there are also large sections that are excluded from some versions of the bible, the taboo sections which are not known to most people, but are known to people who study religion. i don't recall all the names, but i think it's the gnostics and the book of thomas and others, which were sometimes part of the bible, and other times were taken out.

*christian bible is only one out of many different books that give spiritual guidance. bible was written by humans, who are fallible. human guidance IS valuable and trustworthy, but at the same time, it is not perfect, and there are many variations, many options, that are just as good, but different.

*men should have long hair and beards; male beauty is similar to female beauty; this is very important, not trivial, not just personal preference or being picky. male beauty matters a lot.

this was deeply repressed, in my beliefs, until the voices began questioning me about it. i stopped trying to convince my boyfriends to do what i wanted them to do with their hair. i already tried. it always triggered a rebellious 'I CAN DO WHAT I WANT!' response - or at least, i'm thinking of eric, who definitely would be described as 'defiant' and 'rebellious,' a rule-hater if there ever was one. he was formerly catholic, and doesn't like being micromanaged. but i have many years of experience with frustration about guys' hair, and about nobody respecting my wishes, and i gave up on it. they always just acted like hair was trivial and unimportant, and my desires were unimportant, and it didn't matter what i wanted.

so, this is being incorporated into the religion. there are people who enjoy following rules, and are happy to be told what to do, especially if the rules have a good reason and good intention behind them. i like rules where you can see the positive consequences yourself. follow this rule, then observe how much it helps you - like the feingold diet, which will work immediately on the first day you use it - you feel drastically better instantly - i can't rave loudly enough about the diet.

long hair isn't as obvious as to the 'why', because i have emphasized, over and over, while talking to the voices, 'no, growing long hair and beards WILL NOT guarantee that you get girls or get sex, if you're already having trouble with women. it will most likely just add to the attractiveness of men who are already attractive, while not doing much of anything for the men who are already seen as unattractive.' if someone is looking for the magic key to reliably seducing women and getting sex, then the natural grooming standard DOES NOT guarantee that. it might do the opposite: there will be many mainstream women who think it's AWFUL to grow long hair and beards. (*note, when i mention beards, i also include groups like native americans, and some asians, who don't grow beards. they're still included. i greatly value racial variety, in fact it's one of my highest priority values. i'm planning on adopting some nonwhite children, once i have my family settled.*)

*racial variety is a high value. this is another attribute of 'retmeishkanism,' (i say that word with a little smile, with cognitive dissonance) a word that's still just internal jargon to refer to this unique, tiny, not-yet-existing religion, with its one single follower - me. conscious, deliberate racial variety, instead of racial purity.

jewish: i have dietary restrictions similar to the kosher rules. i like the kosher food rules. however, i believe the intention behind them was to protect against illness, not just to unquestioningly obey a rule handed down by god, a rule which has no purpose other than 'god said so.' avoiding trichinosis is the reason why they don't eat pork. so if preventing diseases and parasites is the purpose of the rules, i have a lot of rules to add to the kosher rules. but i like the idea of voluntary regulations on food quality and how it's prepared and handled, and i agree with some of the kosher food rules i've seen. protecting our food quality is very, very important for health.

*'retmeishkanism,' (once again, said with a little smile, as it's not quite right, and probably won't be the final word, and i feel a bit silly) is what i might call a 'lifestyle regulating' religion. it isn't a 'liberal' religion. the protestant religions, and even catholicism and the other christian religions, don't regulate your daily life very much at all. you go to church on sunday, but then, you live the rest of your life freely, and nothing much is expected of you. you're allowed to eat whatever you want, look however you want, go to school wherever you want, and so on. there is very little lifestyle regulation at all. it's hardly any 'micromanaging.' retmeishka, this religion, DOES have micromanaging about some things: what you eat, how you look, and maybe perhaps how you dress, but the clothing question is not yet settled, and i am also a nudist, so there are two sides to the clothing question. nudism on the one hand, and on the other hand, what types of clothes do we wear whenever we're cold and need clothing, and when we go to the town and interact with mainstream people who require clothing. both sides need to be settled.

*nudism within the community is permitted (but not required, as of yet), and some form of modesty, some compromise with mainstream society, in public. there may be regulation of what types of clothing look good, and are healthy or unhealthy (i don't know if wearing polyester fabrics is good for you - that's probably no big deal, but i'm at least asking the question whether certain fabrics might have chemicals or something.). i strongly dislike most american clothing styles, and i desire some kind of change, but haven't settled on that, and would like to consult with the eventual new adherents. it's a work in progress.

disagree with jewish circumcision. some jews also disagree with that: there are groups of jews organizing to oppose circumcision, while still remaining jews - i've read about it.

*anti-circumcision. protect the wholeness of the body. this includes all organs and all medical treatments that remove or change parts of the body, including teeth.

some other religions forbid you to get medical care for certain health problems. i don't know much about this or what specifically they forbid you to do. i don't know whether i agree or disagree. there is such a thing as good medicine, and bad medicine. nowadays, i'm totally disgusted with almost everything that happens in a hospital or a doctor's office. however, that doesn't mean that all medical care as such is necessarily always bad or incompetent. i don't necessarily want to just accept god's will, if someone has an illness or injury. this question has not yet been settled. in fact, i'm interested in healing the sick, and i know someone who has diabetes type I and uses insulin, and i would like to find some alternative for his synthetic insulin, something like eating only protein foods, or something. there is such a thing as knowledgeable, competent, effective, moral medical treatment, but it isn't easy to find in the mainstream hospitals nowadays, under 'government medicine.'

there really are right ways, and wrong ways, of doing things. and there are also 'different but okay' ways. 'different but okay' means: i'm wearing orange clothes, and you're wearing green, and there's nothing wrong with that. strangely, loving the color orange is something that seems to run in my family. aunt jeannie loves orange (but she likes it on the pink-coral side) and my brother and i both love it, and we love redheads too. i think the weasley family is great. however, i include this in 'loving variety' instead of just loving redheads specifically. anyway, that's 'different but okay.'

and, with regard to medical care, it requires a lot of knowledge to decide. so here is what will probably happen in the religion: different sects will do different things. this is a 'sectarian differences' religion. we tolerate, encourage, and welcome dividing off into another sect if you disagree. we aren't the one-and-only way of doing things. religions, and intentional communities, as such, are SO BADLY NEEDED in this society, that i'm not going to stop someone from forming a new one and making their own. just having some kind of rules to follow, and some kind of community to support you, is so important and so badly needed, that we are glad, and grateful, to have somebody with a different opinion who will go form their own sect and make their own rules. so some of the rules for medical care might differ from sect to sect, because it requires so much knowledge and expertise, and there are different ways of doing things.

*new sects are encouraged, to deal with disagreements. some disagreements are viewed as 'different but okay.' communities and religions, as such, are so helpful and so important, that we'd rather see people branch off and form a separate group, so that we end up with two groups. that's better than just seeing the original group crumble apart and cease to exist. both groups can still exist, and cooperate with each other, and shop at each other's markets, and talk to each other. shopping at each other's markets is important: economically, 'the more the merrier' - the more people who are cooperating economically, the stronger and more self-reliant your community is. for instance, i might live close to a group of amish people, because in the amish community, there are small markets all within horse-carriage distance - it's a small, local community with a greater degree of self-reliance. everything you need is somewhere close by. i'm not amish, but i'd cooperate with the amish and buy products from them. that's just an example. i might not literally do that, but that's the idea.

how is it self-reliant to buy products from other people? well, self-reliant might not be the right word to use. i could use a different word. i want to distinguish it from: relying on fiat money and government money and borrowed money, which is what we want to get away from. we want to know that as the fiat money system bubbles happen over and over again, we will still have jobs, and food, and houses. we might have trouble paying our property taxes in fiat money, though, and we might end up being unofficial squatters on our land when the government wants to evict us. it could happen. but we will feel more secure knowing that locally produced food is available from people who are willing to help us, willing to cooperate with us, willing to give and receive from us, even if we do not use fiat money.

the borrowed-money system is so unstable, and jobs and businesses only exist for a couple years before they do layoffs or go bankrupt, and this is what i want to protect against. 'self-reliance' meant that we won't need to go to the government, asking for welfare checks, or unemployment compensation, which the mainstream people will have to do. mainstream society will be lining up around the block at the unemployment office trying to get their checks, or trying to get hired for jobs which are being created by the government ('let's build a giant bridge from altoona to bellefonte!' *note - to get that joke, you have to understand that altoona and bellefonte are two towns without any water in between them, and no reason to build a bridge. this wouldn't be obvious to someone who wasn't familiar with pennsylvania. let's build a big bridge from one point on the land, to another point on the land, just to have something to do!*)

i'll write down the other differences, which i wrote on a piece of paper, that distinguish the 'retmeishkan' religion.

*small, new, local sect with few followers. i'm the one and only adherent to this religion. there are many other adherents to the 'idelogical cluster' or 'beliefs cluster,' groups of beliefs which tend to occur together, such as anarchism and long hair and anti-circumcision. but this particular, small, local variant is my own unique little sect with its small differences from people who are in a similar beliefs cluster.

*anarchist, minarchist

*intentional community. groups of people will live together physically. this is different from, for instance, mainstream christianity in the united states, which doesn't have groups of people living together unless they are monks or nuns. however, there might be more than one intentional community, in different places, with 'my' religion. so they aren't all necessarily local to this particular place, but can be local groups in many different places.

*health, diet, lifestyle regulation. very strong rules, such as 'bottle feeding is against our religion.' breastfeeding babies is so important, it is not at all trivial, it is a VERY BIG DEAL in capital letters. bottle-feeding, and formula-feeding, and feeding anything other than human milk, causes a lifetime of obesity, health problems, allergies, and almost every other problem which is common in society today. along with vaccines, which are also a huge major cause of chronic diseases.

breastfeeding is so important, that if a mother has a problem that makes her unable to breastfeed, she is expected to find a wet nurse. and the community is a close, local group of people cooperating, so a wet nurse will be available. you aren't just told to go find one when there aren't any available. this is planned ahead of time. anyway, health-diet-lifestyle regulations are a very important part of this religion, which makes it different from 'liberal christianity' in the usa today, which doesn't tell you anything about how to eat or how to raise your babies, or anything like that. since this will be a local community, it will be visible and obvious to everybody if, for instance, somebody isn't breastfeeding their baby. it will be visible to everyone, and the response will be 'oh my gosh, you need help. let's find someone to help you.' immediately. it won't be something where nobody notices, for months or years, that you're doing something harmful, and nobody steps in to help. that is why a local-community lifestyle really does have health benefits for its members.

another difference: i oppose using synthetic vitamins and minerals. i do not advocate going out and buying a bunch of vitamin pills to make you healthier. in fact, i think those pills are dangerous. i've used them, and i react badly to them: they are toxic. synthetic vitamins and mineral pills are very dangerous. and they might cause other problems, which i have read about: there is a theory that breast density, heavy breasts, are associated with synthetic multivitamin pills, and this is visible on mammograms. i'm sure there are other things that these synthetic multivitamins do to the body, but i don't have time to get into it now. synthetic vitamin d, in particular, causes symptoms of vitamin d deficiency, strangely enough - i've read that it does, but i can't find the reference anymore.

(also, i haven't mentioned this before, and it might seem trivial, but i think children shouldn't be given pacifiers, either. they're made of plastic, and you shouldn't have plastic in people's mouths - no plastic dental fillings, no plastic retainers, no plastic pacifiers. the plastic is swallowed, in tiny quantities, and goes through the mouth surface directly, and affects the body, and might cause obesity and other endocrine problems. just let kids suck their thumbs, and let them do extended breastfeeding for many years. there's no reason why they have to have pacifiers instead of sucking their thumbs. i was told that my dental deformities, my malocclusions, were caused by thumb-sucking, but i don't believe that to be true. i was told that thumb-sucking caused me to develop an overbite. i think this is wrong, but i can't prove it right now. i'd show them weston price. and how is sucking a pacifier different from sucking a thumb, with regard to the teeth?)

*physical beauty. physical beauty is a sign of good health. 'ugliness' is usually a sign that somebody is sick or has a problem. there are variations in how people look, but in general, as a rule of thumb, 'all healthy people are beautiful.' i know that in reality, it doesn't always seem that way, but that's the general idea or intention behind it. healthy is beautiful, and 'ugliness' is a sign of illness or other problems.

however, my interpretation of physical beauty is one of the differences between my religion and other religions, and the natural grooming rules, including long hair on men, is something that makes this religion what it is. you can recognize a 'retmeishkan' if the men, women, and children are all following the natural grooming rules. i haven't settled yet on questions about how to wear our hair, for instance, in a bun, or combed versus uncombed, or what to do with the afro texture which is so different from my own. there are some variations there that are still within the standard. but that is part of my definition of what is beautiful. 'regulation of physical beauty' is an attribute of this religion. noticing it, paying attention to it, placing a high importance on beauty as a sign or symptom associated with good health. and also, a particular physical appearance indicates that you are a member of this community. and making rules for how to improve and protect health and beauty - that is different from mainstream christianity in the usa, which does not notice or regulate physical beauty, or even talk about it very much.

*the body. some religions (based on unhealthy enneagram type ones) tend to suppress the body, destroy the body, or see the body as evil. retmeishka (retmeishkanism? the awkwardness of my internal jargon) sees the human body as 'animal.' and there is nothing wrong with being an animal. animal isn't evil. i am a prude, and i know that i'm a prude, and i hide my sexuality and my feelings, and i am somewhat quiet and timid about talking about these things or expressing them, but still i actually believe in acceptance of the body and seeing the body as a healthy, normal thing, not something evil and sinful. that is supported by objectivism and nathaniel branden as well.

*family, fertility, sex, childbearing. this is different from mainstream usa culture. based on julian simon. i don't agree with every single word he says - for instance, i disagree with him about pesticides - but i agree with much of the spirit behind it and with almost everything else that he's arguing for. julian simon argues that pesticides like DDT aren't as bad as they've been portrayed. i disagree: they're WORSE than they've been portayed! not just DDT, but *ALL* pesticides, are *SO BAD* for humans, animals, insects, etc, that they should not be used - it affects us directly, because we would like to go *hunting* and eat the food that we hunt. eating wild animals and insects is what we want to do, so pesticides affect us directly, and are not just some abstraction of 'maybe it will possibly do something bad to some obscure species of animal someday,' but rather, it makes human beings sick, right here, right now, all of the time. ... anyway, as for fertility. i agree with his concept that increasing population, as such, is *not* the root of all evil. there are other problems: government regulations, taxes, and other laws are the cause of many things we see happening, for instance, how wastefully the land is used, and how people do monocropping and corporate farming and other things. anyway, this religion advocates having large families, and pregnancy and childrearing is of central importance.

mainstream culture believes that having children is a burden and it takes away your freedom. it's true that once you have children, you can't, or shouldn't, do certain things. you shouldn't move around a lot from place to place when you have children - it tears them away from their friends and all the people and places they know. and i know, because i remember when we moved from greensburg pa to scott depot wv, in 1983, and how traumatic that was. and i remember, before that, when i was held back and wasn't allowed to go into kindergarten because my birthday was past the cutoff date, so i had to wait another year, and all of the kids i was with in nursery school went on to kindergarten, and i had to go to nursery school for another whole year, and then i was a year older than everyone else in my class. i know how it is to be torn away from all of the people you know. i actually remember the thing about waiting another year to go into kindergarten, even though i can remember hardly anything else from back then, from that early in my life, from that young of an age - that's the one thing that i clearly remember. i remember being surprised and confused and not understanding why all of the other nursery school kids went on to kindergarten, and i didn't, and i had to let all of them go. it seemed stupid and pointless and i didn't understand it. it was really, really bad. they said i wasn't mature enough, and my birthday was past the cutoff date. the immaturity would be because of my ADHD, my hyperactive behavior.

anyway, you shouldn't tear kids away from everyone they know. so yes, it limits your freedom to move around from place to place. 'you can move when you get older.' it isn't as bad to move away, if you're old enough to decide it on your own, and have control over it. but you shouldn't be forced to leave because your parents decide it, and you have no control over the decision.

anyway, that's not the only way your freedom is limited by having children. there are many things you can't do or shouldn't do, after having kids. but the mainstream culture believes that 'having your freedom' is so much more important than anything else, that women are viewed as 'liberated' if they stay single and 'childfree by choice.' this is not viewed as a loss, but something to be proud of, something higher, more educated, better, 'more evolved,' 'more human,' more intelligent, higher class. having lots of children is viewed as low-class and uneducated.

having few children, or none at all, is seen as 'having a wider perspective about the effects of overpopulation.' my mother and father both believe that the world is overpopulated, and that we'd all be better off if a few billion people were suddenly wiped out by a nuclear bomb or something (that would be mostly dad saying that, i think - mom believes it but is less violent or extreme about it, however even *she* doesn't strongly oppose the idea that 'killing a whole bunch of people is a good thing.'). they both believe that there are too many people, and they both believe we'd be better off if a very large number of people died. this belief is seen as more educated, and superior, to 'small-minded' people who are 'thoughtless' about the 'harmful consequences' of having children, especially if you have more than two children (replacing the parents). julian simon blows this argument out of the water, totally destroys it - it is illogical, even the idea of 'replacing the parents,' which is meaningless when you look at what everybody else is doing, and how it's impossible to calculate or predict how many children are going to be born by all the people who you have no control over, and why is it that maintaining this particular number of people is good, but a lower number, or higher number, is bad. 'replacing the parents by having only two children' is meaningless. but mom and dad both believe in it. and the belief is seen as superior, high-class, higher-educated.

there is a common belief in the united states that 'low class people,' 'stupid people', 'poor people,' and 'uneducated people' are having large numbers of children, while smart, educated, superior, high-class, wealthy people are knowledgeable enough to restrain themselves and educated enough to know that unprotected vaginal intercourse leads to pregnancy (which the poor people supposedly don't know). you can google 'madeleine hoax' - darn it, i can't remember her name. madeleine somebody, an anthropologist, who visited other countries, and there was this one place where they hoaxed her, and told her that they weren't aware that sex leads to pregnancy. they pretended not to know that having sex makes people get pregnant, and she believed them, and wrote a book about it, which influenced all of 'white people' culture's views about primitive cultures, and is still there today in the 'educated' attitudes about primitive cultures, the contempt they have towards them, their own superiority, their seeing them as 'ignorant.' maybe her name's not madeleine. and i don't know how to spell it. i'll remember it later.

there's a belief that the number of smart people is decreasing, because smart people are smart enough not to have children, whereas stupid people are too stupid to restrain themselves. i've seen this belief in a lot of places, and i used to believe it myself before reading julian simon.

so, my religion opposes all of those views and attitudes about having children. large families should be supported by a close community, where your friends and neighbors participate in raising your children, babysitting them, breastfeeding them if you cannot, taking care of them when you have a problem, and educating them at home instead of sending them to public schools.

*economics, financial security. we oppose the fiat money system, the banking system, and the current way of borrowing and lending money (although there might be better ways to borrow and lend money, which will be decided later). we believe that people should trade using whatever money or barter they want, which will be decided locally, not globally, and it should not be enforced by law. we advocate a smaller, more local economy, in an intentional community.

*ecologic view. i am not comfortable with a lot of environmentalism, after reading julian simon: i don't like it if it says that you should make more government laws and bigger, more universal laws that apply to everybody - for instance, 'everybody everywhere should reduce their carbon dioxide emissions.' i think that law is wrong and misguided. however, my religion does have something of an ecological view, except it will be decided at the community level - we want healthy people, so we don't want to be living right next to a big factory putting out lots of smoke, or chemicals, or something. and we don't want pesticides, herbicides, etc. so, there is something resembling an ecological viewpoint here. but it is not exactly like a lot of the environmentalist movements, it's somewhat different. i'd say my emphasis is on economics: that the reason why a lot of the environmental problems happen is because of the monetary system and the laws. if you remove the laws and the money system, those problems won't happen anymore.

*psychology, personality. it is a 'meditative' or 'spiritual' religion. we are not necessarily 'praying to god,' but we do meditate, and search for the true self. understanding yourself is important to this religion. there are many books and many different sources of information about this. some of it is from psychology - the myers-briggs personality types, the enneagram, and other books, and nathaniel branden. lots of self-help books and self-improvement books.

the religion is distinguished from other religions because: electronic mind control is explicitly talked about and accepted as reality, as something caused by humans. hearing voices is interpreted as coming from living humans using technology, instead of coming from god, deities, demons, spirits, guides, ghosts, or anything else. that is part of our psychology and our search for our true selves, for free will and individuality, for controlling our own minds and bodies, for protecting ourselves against being controlled externally by other people using technology, for understanding what we really want and how we really feel. protecting ourselves, finding countermeasures, building shielded areas, talking about it, teaching it to our children: this is central to the religion, central to how we meditate, central to how we view ourselves. that is something that distinguishes my religion from other religions.

again, much of this came from asking the question 'why don't you just join so-and-so?' why not just join the amish, the mennonites, jewish, jehovah's witnesses, mainstream christianity, etc? why not just join another intentional community, like earthaven? the answer to that question is: because i want something slightly different, which none of those places are doing. there are certain things which are specific, unique, belief clusters occurring together in a particular combination. i like the idea of 'belief clusters.' it's really true, there are certain groups of beliefs and practices which tend to cluster together, when you read them on the internet. like anti-circumcision, and natural childrearing, and 'baby-wearing,' and co-sleeping, and extended breastfeeding, and other childraising practices. so, i'm saying that i don't see any other places which have ALL of my chosen belief clusters, occurring all together in one place. i'm not totally unique, however i do have a particular combination of belief clusters which doesn't appear in many other places.

*defensive pacifism with omnivorous diet. we are pacifistic, not aggressive, but also, we are probably going to fight back if some burglar (or government agency??? children and youth services? this is a very likely scenario which i am worried about, after seeing what happened at the FLDS ranch - i agree, it fits the definition of genocide) breaks into the house and tries to kidnap the children, or something. self-defense, family defense. mostly pacifistic, not aggressive, not making war with other sects, not initiating wars, not participating in government wars.

this religion is *intended* to provide an excuse, when the government drafts you, that you can tell them, 'i am retmeishkan. fighting in a war is against my religion.' this will be a 'sincere' religion, where you can clearly look at someone, and notice that their physical appearance and lifestyle is drastically, obviously different from the mainstream. the men have long hair and beards, and they dress differently, and raise lots of children, and live in an intentional community together. it is clearly, obvious a sincere belief system, which is present in their everyday lives, highly visible. it isn't just something that they spontaneously wrote on the paper in order to be 'too cowardly' to go fight in a war for the united states, or because they're 'betraying' the usa, or being 'unpatriotic,' or whatever. retmeishka (apologies, just the temporary name) will be a visible, obvious religion affecting every moment of their lives.

omnivorous diet, as part of this 'pacifism': some pacifists believe that you shouldn't kill any animals. this variant of 'pacifism' has to do with cooperating with other humans, but it doesn't include not killing animals. we see humans as an omnivorous, almost carnivorous species, and it is not wrong or immoral for carnivorous animals to kill and eat other animals. sharks, lions and tigers, other carnivores - we don't tell them 'you're immoral for eating that antelope.' we accept ourselves as an omnivorous animal. we believe carnivorous behavior is part of our nature, and we do not go against our nature. we believe that the human diet is healthiest when it includes some kind of animal or insect meat, especially for pregnancy and childrearing. we believe humans are 'just another animal,' although we see ourselves as a special, wonderful, unique, amazing, interesting animal.

*social behavior, social norms. there is some regulation of this in the religion, but i haven't gone into detail yet. i just jotted it down on a piece of paper. this has to do with community life, how we make decisions, etc, and also how we talk to each other. no details yet. and i'm in a hurry now because i have to eat before going to work.

*glossolalia, new words, new language. glossolalia is something that i do, that i have always done since childhood, making up new words and new sounds that have no meaning in english. this is associated with music writing, and with learning new foreign languages. in this religion, glossolalia is seen as a normal, healthy thing. it might be accepted and encouraged in children. i don't mean that everybody is required to do it. i just mean, it will be seen as 'normal' or 'something that happens,' and not a sign of mental illness or strangeness. it will be known, familiar, and accepted, but not required of everyone.

*imagination and pretending. make-believe. that was associated with glossolalia above. making something new, pretending. this is part of child psychology. i have read about pretending, in children, and using imagination, and i want to include that as something we accept and encourage as part of learning and living, even in adults. it would be 'green hat thinking' to edward de bono, but it's more than just that. it's also play-acting, role-playing, 'mantle of the expert,' etc. more details later.

*transdermal contamination theory. this has come to be of such huge importance to me personally that i want it to be a phenomenon that my community knows about and is familiar with. i can't find *anyone* on the internet who has written about a situation where they merely handled some medicinal herb seeds, and contaminated all of their carpets and clothing and belongings, *merely from seeds*, ephedra in particular, and had reactions as the chemical went through the skin, and the chemical lasted for *years* and did not biodegrade (ephedrine is like that - it doesn't biodegrade - it's very, very stable and long-lasting and has a long shelf life). i want this knowledge to be taught to others, and i want doctors to be aware of how it can explain some health problems such as erectile dysfunction (caused by prescription drugs and psychiatric drugs) and obesity. i want this to be less obscure, less esoteric, more well-known, and used for troubleshooting health problems. follow a decontamination protocol for curing people of illnesses and symptoms.

i jotted down a bunch of notes, but i'm in a hurry now, so i'll just write them here quickly. i've already said some of this stuff.

'prophets':
-drawn from variety of authors, ideologies
-use internet to locate ideas which are hard to find locally (hard to find in mainstream)
-not just one prophet or one book
-humans are fallible, make mistakes; and yet, humans are our guides. we should see the consequences of following some particular rule or piece of advice. rules are meant to be general, universal, and long-term (rules about how to be healthy, for instance), but they are not perfect or eternal, and they can change, or differ from place to place.
-mission/outreach? helping the sick, the poor, severely obese, people with ADHD or autism or other diseases caused by modern society

-some nomads, hunter-gatherers? traveling people, traders?

-not 'pagan'? different from pagans, doesn't do 'earth worship.' doesn't view 'nature' as a god, doesn't focus so much on the theme of 'the planet is a living organism and humans are violating the planet' belief system. doesn't do 'earth magic'. paganism might be more liberal, with fewer rules and regulations, but i'm not sure. paganist beliefs have many different variants, so i'm not sure - i'd have to read about it.

okay, i have to go eat, and i have to put gas in the car, or i won't be able to drive across town to go to work - i'm running on fumes, there is almost nothing left and the orange light is on.