Create Your Own Religion: A How-To Book without Instructions

By Daniele Bolelli

Create Your Own Religion is a call to arms—an open invitation to question all the values, beliefs, and worldviews that humanity has so far held as sacred in order to find the answers we need to the very practical problems facing us.

Writer, philosopher, and professor of comparative religion, Daniele Bolelli, leads the reader through three thousand years of mythology, misogyny, misinformation, and the flat-out lies about “revealed truth” that continue to muddle our ability to live a peaceful life, free of guilt and shame and the ultimate fear of death.

“Our worldviews are in desperate need of some housecleaning,” says Bolelli. “We enter the 21st century still carrying on our backs the prejudices and ways of thinking of countless past generations. What worked for them may or may not still be of use, so it is our job to make sure to save the tools that can help us and let go of the dead weight.”

• Language: English
• Publisher: Red Wheel Weiser
• Release date: Apr 1, 2013
• ISBN: 9781609258665

Daniele Bolelli

Daniele Bolelli is a writer and college professor. He has also fought professionally in mixed martial arts and appeared in I Am Bruce Lee (2012). He is a frequent guest on The Joe Rogan Experience, The Adam Carolla Show, and The Duncan Trussell Family Hour. His own podcast The Drunken Taoist is regularly rated among the most downloaded worldwide in the "philosophy" category of iTunes. His other books include Create Your Own Religion. Visit him at www.thedrunkentaoist.com.

Reviews for Create Your Own Religion

[silvernfire · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I see Daniele Bolelli is a university professor, and this book does sound like a transcript of lectures for college students. It's clear he knows a lot about comparative religion, but he talks about it in an informal way, with a good helping of personal anecdotes thrown in. I think that if I'd read this book when I was in my twenties, I'd have rated it much higher. But college was 20 years ago, I'm familiar with this topic, and I mostly wished Bolelli would just make his points and move on, rather than go on and on about them. Despite being called Create Your Own Religion, much of the book is about what Bolelli thinks is wrong with religions that are already out there, and his thoughts on creating religion really don't come out much until the last couple of chapters. I think this would be a great book for someone who's starting to question exclusive religions, but may not satisfy readers who already have.

[meggyweg · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Although the title makes it sound like satire, and the book is written in a kind of snarky tone, it is in fact a very thoughtful and thought-provoking -- downright philosophical -- examination of the role religion plays in society and in an individual person's life, and the way different major religions view different aspects of living (sex, marriage, death, etc). I learned a lot from this book and found myself agreeing with a lot of what the author had to say. I'd recommend this for anyone interested in religious studies in general, and I'd probably read more books by this person.

[evenlake_1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Name was definitely misleading, though I suppose the subtitle is an out. The book is less about creating your own religion and more about the author telling you about his personal religion and taking down established religions. And even then, not a particularly insightful takedown. Most of the arguments are all ones anyone interested in the subject has heard before.

He did make some interesting points, but his style too often interfered with getting them across.

The author's self-referential unfunny humor, the feeling that he is writing for people who already agree with him, and his asides to the reader that seem like notes to his editor that they forgot to take out of the manuscript, all combine to become a book that was mildly interesting at best and annoying at worst.